Former “Prisoner of Zion” Yosef Mendelevitch made his first visit to St. Petersburg since he was arrested in the Russian city in 1970 for attempting to hijack an airplane to Israel.
Mendelevitch, 67, spoke Nov. 28 to approximately 350 participants at St. Petersburg’s fourth Limmud conference, the Jewish learning event organized by the Limmud FSU group.
In 1970, Mendelevitch came from his native Riga to carry out Operation Wedding, the code name given to the daring attempt by 12 Zionist activists to hijack a single-engine airplane and fly it to Israel in defiance of the Soviet refusal to permit them to emigrate. The KGB arrested him and the other would-be hijackers before they boarded the flight.
Mendelevitch, who along with Natan Sharansky was one of the most well-known prisoners of Zion, immigrated to Israel in 1981 shortly after his release from jail.
Limmud FSU organizers invited Mendelevitch after hearing about his story for the first time last year, according to Limmud FSU founder Chaim Chesler.
“Rabbi Mendelevitch belongs to a generation whose bravery is famous in Israel yet is surprisingly unknown here,” Chesler said. “We brought him to teach the young their history.” — jta