Natan Sharansky
Keynote Speaker
Natan Sharansky is an author, intellectual, former Soviet dissident, and human rights activist. He spent nine years imprisoned by Soviet authorities and immigrated to Israel in 1996. Sharansky has held several ministerial positions in the Israeli government, including that of Deputy Prime Minister. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the USA in 2006. Among his various roles, he serves as Chairman of ISGAP.
Summary
The Role of the land of Israel
Natan Sharansky spoke of the role of the land of Israel in the formation of his Jewish identity.
Sharansky who was born in the city of Stalino, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Donetsk, Ukraine) in the Soviet Union, spoke of his identity within the Soviet Union as an assimilated Russian Jew.
The Soviet empire included people from hundreds of nationalities. However, there was nothing Jewish that was a part of our lives - not literature, language, holidays or religious practices.
What we did face was antisemitism. You were born with a disease called antisemitism and you had to know how to survive. The way to survive was to be the best in your profession. There was nothing positive about being Jewish.
This changed after the Six Day War. Suddenly, Israel entered our lives and people asked, how did you Jews do it? How did the small Israeli army defeating a much more powerful army with the best Soviet weapons.
Suddenly, we were connected to what was happening in this small country of Israel. Miracles were happening.
We started to wonder, what connects us to this land. We started to read underground books. We learned our history, and about Zionism. We learned that our history did not start with the 1917 Bolshevik revolution but rather thousands of years ago with Moses and King David. We discovered our identity and it gave us lots of strength to fight.
Twenty years ago I started dealing with the problem of Antisemitism and questions such as when does anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism. I came up with the 3D criteria - demonisation, delegitimisation and double standards.
We also saw 20 years ago - Yassir Arafat - start to claim that Jesus was the first Palestinian killed by Jews. From 1993 Bethlehem started to become less and less Christian. Hamas started the slogan from “the River to Sea”. We understood that these were our opponents and this was their propaganda against us. However, after 7 October that propaganda became most popular across progressive movements and Israel became besmirched with the colonialism libel.
The fact is, we never left this land. Israel cannot be a colonial project. What was once a rhetorical question has become most important question. What is connection between Jews and this land?