Dec 5, 2012
Miami Remembers "Freedom Sunday"
On a bitter cold day December 6, exactly 25 years ago, about 800 members of Miami’s Jewish community joined 250,000 people from throughout the United States and Canada in Washington, D.C. to march and advocate for Soviet Jews. The day was called Freedom Sunday and it did indeed lead to the eventual freedom of more than 1.5 million Jews who would finally be able to practice their Judaism and make new lives in Israel and in the United States.
The Greater Miami Jewish Federation and its Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) played pivotal roles in organizing Miami’s participants in 1987. Today, Federation and the JCRC are remembering this historic event by inviting the community to join hundreds of thousands in a "virtual march" to commemorate the anniversary and the Soviet Jewry movement.
By visiting freedom25.net individuals can watch highlights of the 1987 march, hear first-hand accounts from march attendees and encourage others in their social media networks to join them on the virtual march.
Freedom25.net provides insight into a time that was a watershed moment for the Jewish community and for Jewish activism in the United States. The march – which became the largest Jewish-organized gathering in American history – took place on the day before then-President Reagan was to meet with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Washington.
Read articles from The Jewish Floridian and The Miami Herald on this historic meeting.
At the time, Jews in the Soviet Union continuously faced anti-Semitism and even imprisonment, and if they wanted to leave, Soviet officials would not let them emigrate. They became known as Refuseniks, and the march became an effort to turn the world’s attention to their plight. The entire march on Washington was organized in just five weeks.
“That march was a coming-of-age for our Miami Jewish community and for our entire Jewish community, and it’s one that I often think about with great pride,” said Federation Executive Vice President Emeritus Myron J. “Mike” Brodie. “I’ll always remember that there was just a sea of people all over the National Mall. Being able to be part of something like that, it showed all of us that we really could make a difference on behalf of Soviet Jews.”
For Aaron Podhurst, who was Federation President at the time, the march “really gave solidarity to the whole Federation movement.” Podhurst said, “In five very short weeks, we were able to bring so many different groups in Miami together on behalf of something that was so important. It affirmed Federation as the only general, central institution that was able to do that.”
Read news articles on Miami's role in the march.
Federation chartered three airplanes to take participants to Washington, but the response was so enormous that additional seats had to be booked on other airlines.
Adele Sandberg and her husband, Joel, were among the hundreds of Miamians traveling on one of the chartered planes to Washington. For the Sandbergs, who were among the Co-Founders of what was then the South Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry, the rally brought needed attention to one of the largest human rights movements of the last century.
"There was such a holiday atmosphere on the plane to Washington,” Adele said. "When we got there, the turnout was phenomenal. People were singing and chanting, ‘Am Yisrael chai’ and ‘Let my people go!’ Not long after that, the doors started opening for Jews in the Soviet Union. I think it was important for our entire Jewish community to know we could have that kind of impact.”
Read articles from What's New and Federation's role in the march.
For Judy Gilbert-Gould, former JCRC Director in Miami, Freedom Sunday made the plight of Soviet Jewry “part of the central agenda for the Jewish community. For many years, it had been a grassroots issue.” She said, “But with this, it became a mainstream issue. It was 250,000 of us, saying to Gorbachev in no uncertain terms, `Let my people go.’”
As a former Federation President at the time of the march, as well as Vice President of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, Donald Lefton had traveled to the Soviet Union many times on behalf of Refuseniks. He recalls that the march “took the plight of Soviet Jews from a back-page issue to a front-page issue instantaneously.” He said, “The march gave this cause national and international publicity that it would never have received otherwise, and it showed the people of Russia that this was an issue that was not going to go away.”
Former State Rep. Elaine Bloom recalls marching in Washington with Lawton Chiles (then a U.S. Senator) on one side, and Carrie Meek (then a Florida State Senator) on the other. “They really put their hearts into doing what needed to be done to raise awareness and call for direct action,” Bloom said.
Read letters from government officials endorsing the Summit agenda.
For Bloom, the march was also a call to action for many citizens who had never protested before.
“This was such a unifying issue,” she said. “We had no idea that so many people would show up in Washington, but right before the march, everyone thought: `If I’m not there, they won’t have enough people.’ From Florida, we had individuals, families, couples. It was such a wonderful outpouring of support from our Jewish community.”
Read Elaine Bloom's personal recollections, printed in the Miami Herald.
JCRC and Federation were at the forefront of sustaining that rallying cry long after Freedom Sunday ended. Through cultural and community events, as well as partnerships with synagogues and local Jewish organizations, Miamians had opportunities to do everything from writing letters to their Congressional representatives to communicating with Refuseniks directly.
Once Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union, more than one million of them became Israeli citizens. Half a million more came to America, with many of them settling in Miami. Jews from the former Soviet Union transformed various intellectual fields, from physics to economics to engineering and the medical sciences – and were recognized with Nobel Prizes no less than five times. Former Soviet Jews have changed the way people work and live through various high-tech innovations. Google, co-founded by Moscow-born Sergey Brin, might not have been created without the Soviet Jewry movement.
“Freedom Sunday was a great example of how we all must speak out on behalf of anyone who cannot speak out for themselves,” said JCRC Chair Jonathan Awner. “Now, a quarter of a century later, we can go online and be once again reminded that the fight for justice always continues, and that we all must be a part of it.”
To learn more about the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, click here, email [email protected] or call 786.866.8486.
Some of the photos and posters used in this article were sent to the archives of the National Conference Supporting Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia and were used with their expressed authorization.
