After the triumph of the Six Day War in Israel, there was an awakening in the Soviet Union of Jewish identity among the Jewish families that lived in the large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the. years prior, there had been visits to Moscow by prominent Jewish citizens from the west and also by common people connecting with family and friends after many years of no connections. Let My People Go became the calling card of the Jewish Soviet citizens wanting to leave for Israel. Of course, as with most political issues, it took many demonstrations and much political wrangling before an exodus was allowed. Here in St. Catharines, there were always those of our community who were activists in one way or another. The pictures below show a protest held in front of City Hall in December of 1970.
You can see clearly the crowd that was assembled. The microphone was from the radio station CHSC, which, of course, no longer exists. At the microphone is Rabbi Dr. Israel Freedman who was the rabbi of our congregation for 15 years. In the picture below, you can see a better picture of Rabbi Freedman. Behind him is Danny Manson, who was a lawyer in St. Catharines, as well as a president of the congregation. To the right of both of them is the Hon. Robert Welch, who was at that time, the Member of Parliament for St. Catharines. In the last picture, you can see all of these same gentlemen.
These pictures come to us with many thanks to the connection made with Rabbi Freedman’s daughter Marcia who contacted us and sent a number of pictures of interest which we’ll show sooner rather than later. Marcia lives in Toronto but more or less grew up in St. Catharines while her parents lived here and were part of our community.