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The Black Book

Summarizing David Rozenson in Tablet · Published Friday, August 15, 2025
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JL;DR SUMMARY David Rozenson narrates his family's harrowing experience as Jewish refuseniks in Soviet Leningrad during 1976, a period marked by severe repression under Leonid Brezhnev. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Soviet Jewry  Censorship  Immigration  Holocaust Documentation  The Black Book  Kgb  Leningrad  Samizdat  Leonid Brezhnev  David Rozenson 

Places mentioned

Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
"We were a Jewish family of fourmy father, Gennady; my mother, Mila; my sister, Elena; and meliving in a city then called Leningrad (today Saint Petersburg) at a time when silence was often the only defense."
Jerusalem, Israel
"The invitation had come from my mothers uncle, Rabbi Ben-Zion Brook, head of the Novardok Yeshiva in Jerusalem."
Rogachev, Homel, Belarus
"Ben-Zion had left the Belarusian town of Rogachev in 1920, when my grandfather (my mothers father) was five years old."
Luga, Leningrad, Russian Federation
"She never heard the verdict: two and a half years of internal exile in the remote town of Luga, with no right to correspond with his family."
Berlin, Germany
"We left by way of East Berlin, where we were locked inside the airport; then we were in Vienna, then Rome, eventually settling in the coastal town of Ladispoli, part of the quiet, makeshift network that helped Soviet Jews find their way to new lives."
Rome, Italy
"We left by way of East Berlin, where we were locked inside the airport; then we were in Vienna, then Rome, eventually settling in the coastal town of Ladispoli, part of the quiet, makeshift network that helped Soviet Jews find their way to new lives."
Ladispoli, Rome, Italy
"We left by way of East Berlin, where we were locked inside the airport; then we were in Vienna, then Rome, eventually settling in the coastal town of Ladispoli, part of the quiet, makeshift network that helped Soviet Jews find their way to new lives."

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Retrieved 2025-08-16 05:30:33 UTC
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