Ep. 8: The Unknown Story of 12-13 Tammuz with Rabbi Dovid Margolin

00:00 Speaker 1 Our goal is not democracy. Our goal is Tzimitzes, but through Tzimitzes you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're destroying. Okay, so that, I think you see that in the story of, of Yud Beis Tammuz, and you see that in the trajectory, and, um, I think that's an amazing, uh, it's an amazing thing when you, when you open your eyes to be able to look at it that way.

00:16 Speaker 2 And it gives us a deeper understanding in the letter that the Friediker Rebbe wrote, that the Rebbe quotes probably every Yud Beis Tammuz that-

00:23 Speaker 1 Right

00:23 Speaker 2 ... "Lo ea'asee bilvad ga'al Hakadosh Baruch Hu" not only was I freed-

00:27 Speaker 1 Right

00:27 Speaker 2 ... "U'kol mechavevei teilusai meha kdesha, kol sheimrei mitzvah, kol asher beshemi sal yichun-" every single Yid was, has a part in the m-miracle of Yud Beis Tammuz. It's not just the P-Friediker Rebbe's personal imprisonment. I'm Yossi Kamen. Welcome to Among Chasidim by Der Her, an ongoing farbrengen about life as a Chasid, our vibrant connection with the Rebbe, and inspired living shaped by the way he teaches us each and every day. How are you, Dovid?

01:03 Speaker 1 Good morning. How are you?

01:04 Speaker 2 Good morning. Doing well. I think it's afternoon, but, uh, it's, uh, after farbrengen last night.

01:11 Speaker 1 That's right.

01:12 Speaker 2 Maybe, maybe it's only the morning. Um, so thank you for making the time to be here, and it's actually, um, in honor of Yud Beis Tammuz, I, uh, felt it would be appropriate to have a conversation with you. Um, you did some phenomenal work with your work, uh, in chabad.org on Yud Beis Tammuz, and I believe the premise of it all, and you can, uh, fill in, I believe the premise of it all is that the Rebbe said that the miracle of Yud Beis Tammuz was an open miracle, that, uh, there's a whole explanation that it needed to happen specifically at that time when there was persecution and Hashem needed to show an open miracle. And on the other hand, it was also a nes melubesh beteva, that it was enclothed in natural, in the natural order. So I think what you've done is you've, uh, uncovered the behind-the-scenes of the natural order through which the miracle of Yud Beis Tammuz happened. Is that, is that correct?

02:21 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's really, it's about putting together the pieces that are already there. Meaning, the Rebbe mentions, here and there, he mentions a detail, and the details always are part of a much longer, larger context. So when you see the larger context and you're able to see it, put it all together, then you're able to see all the, the story as it's told by the Rebbe, by the Friediker Rebbe. You're able to see it in a much clearer way because you have the context of everything that's going on, going on around it that only magnifies everything that, that, that the Rebbe said.

02:53 Speaker 2 Right. I think, um, for most people that are familiar with the story of Yud Beis Tammuz, um, the way I was taught it and the way it ma- the way most people know it is based on primarily the Friediker Rebbe's writing. The Shmays Hamaisar and, uh, and these, these works have been translated, uh, over the years, and, uh-

03:15 Speaker 1 I, I, I-- Bechol, I think that Yud Beis Tammuz is not-- People, kids don't really know about it very well, at least because it's in the summer, and therefore they miss it. And the way that we teach about Yamim Tovim and just the basic events in Chabad history is whenever you get to it, so you get to Yud Tes Kislev, you talk about Yud Tes Kislev. You get Yud Beis Tammuz is in the middle of the summer. It, it's, it's just not... It's a half a farbrengen maybe in camp. I don't know. I don't remember exactly what, what happens in camp, but I, I think that that's part of what's missing completely-

03:43 Speaker 2 Interesting

03:43 Speaker 1 ... is that no one gets to Yud Beis Tammuz because it's deep in the summer, and, um, whatever. It's color war. I don't know what's going on.

03:50 Speaker 2 Right. Exactly. And I wanna mention that, uh, in the new book by Der Her, In Our Days, um, each Yamim Tovim has, first of all, the story of that Yom Tov, and then how it, it was commemorated by the Rebbe, and then the t- the lessons and takeaways. And in r- preparation for our conversation, um, I reread that section and noticed not only is your work footnoted in the book, but, uh, the, the way we wrote it is actually influenced by, by your work. So I think let's get down to it. Um, what was the... I guess we just start telling the story, and then we'll understand, um, we'll understand, you know, what you uncovered. And, uh-

04:36 Speaker 1 I think-- So I think it's important, bechol, whenever we talk about Soviet Jewish history and this whole chapter, is to break it down into it's not all one thing. So usually we start, you say a story from the 1920s, from the Peis, and you're talking about the Friediker Rebbe in, in, in Leningrad. It's told, it's told and spoken about in the same way about what happened in Sadiguras when people were arrested, when Reb Levik was arrested in Sadiguras. It's spoken about the same way as what happened in the '40s and the '50s and '60s. And okay, at some point in time, it got better, but, like, it's very, very vague, and so there's a whole-- there's, like, 40 years where everything is treated exactly the same, which is not the case. It's a very fluid situation the entire time. So I think to be able to understand what happened in 1927, in Peis Zayin, when the Friediker Rebbe was arrested, you have to step back and see what's happening in the, in, in, in, in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in, in, in, um, when it becomes the Soviet Union.

05:41 Speaker 2 So you're saying that the, like, the Chasidim in Samarkand were not being persecuted.

05:45 Speaker 1 No, they were being persecuted, just it's a different situation, meaning it's a completely different, uh, uh, uh-

05:50 Speaker 2 Okay, so what is the background? What was happening? So fir-first of all, the Friediker Rebbe had just recently moved from Rostov.

05:56 Speaker 1 Right.

05:56 Speaker 2 Right? The Fri- the Rebbe Rashab leaves Lubavitch and goes to Rostov. And there is the Histalkus

06:02 Speaker 1 That's before the, that's before the revolution. That's during, during World War I, right? So there was a revolutionary movement going on in the Russian Empire from already the end of the 1800s, right? So f- there, there's, there's movement towards it. A lot of Yidden were involved in that rabble-rousing for revolution. It doesn't mean the Bolsheviks in particular. Later on, there was the Communist Party. The Communist Party was the Bolsheviks. They were, at some point of time, one small party of many parties joined under... Like, one segment of the Russian labor socialist party or democrat, whatever. I forgot the exact terminology.

06:43 Speaker 2 There's the Reds, there's the Whites.

06:44 Speaker 1 No, no, no. The Whites are not part of this at all. The Whites are the, are the anti-communists.

06:48 Speaker 2 So they're the-

06:48 Speaker 1 They're anti all revolution

06:49 Speaker 2 ... they're democracy.

06:51 Speaker 1 Eh, or monarchists. It's a whole mix of groups. They don't really have an ideology, they're just against.

06:55 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

06:57 Speaker 1 The revolutionaries are p- all... a whole bunch of groups that all have their own vision. There's the Bolsheviks, there's the Mensheviks. Famously, the Mensheviks were, were h- were more popular than the Bolsheviks. Bolshev- Bolsheviks named themselves better. They called themselves the larger. The Bolsha is big, right? So we're the bigger section, and the Mensheviks were called the smaller one. Mensha, small, less. But really, the Mensheviks were more popular than the Bolsheviks. Now, it was, uh, was, um, it was, um, branding. So there's all these different groups. There was a specifically Jewish group, the Bund, which was socialist Jews who were into, you know, the... Everything was in Yiddish, and they were against the Zionists and against the Frumer, and that wa- So these are all a bunch of groups that are all part of this together. There was a revolution in 1905 before, before the, the revolution in, in, in 1917. Meaning, before the actual communist revolution. So that led to a bunch of refor-

07:54 Speaker 2 That failed?

07:54 Speaker 1 It failed, but there... it led to a bunch of reforms. And obviously, what happens when a, when a, when a, when, when a totalitarian state, the tsar was a totalitarian also, meaning he's in control of the entire country. So when he needs to give in to reforms, that already s- is-

08:10 Speaker 2 That's similar

08:10 Speaker 1 ... sowing the end of the, sowing the end of the, of, of, of his, uh-

08:14 Speaker 2 That's what happened at the end of communism also.

08:16 Speaker 1 Yeah. The, the, uh, these reforms end up-

08:18 Speaker 2 Right

08:19 Speaker 1 ... end up, uh, untying the entire thing. So then came 1917, came the revolution, okay? That's the beginning of the revolution. The revolution was really part of... It wasn't a mass gathering of people, it was a coup. They made a coup in Leningrad, which was called Petersburg at the time. They made a coup. They took power in the capital city, and then the Bolsheviks, at some point in time, took control of that, right?

08:45 Speaker 2 So after the-

08:45 Speaker 1 The most radical group, the Bolsheviks are the most radical group. And the way that it works, this happened in Iran also. When the Shah fell, around that time, there's a lot of people who are against the Shah, but the most radical group, the Islamists, are the ones who ended up taking control because they're r-ready to do the most. They're ready to, to go to all ends to win, so they won. So that's what happened in, in, in, in, uh, in, uh, in, uh, Leningrad. And then there was a war. For a few years, there was a war, this Russian Civil War, from 1917 till 1920, '21. Taf Shin Pey to Pey Alef. And so the Friediker, the Rebbe Rashab we- left, uh, left Lubavitch, right?

09:21 Speaker 2 During World War I.

09:22 Speaker 1 During World War I. And he moved to Ostrov. And all this happens during this time in Ostrov. And, and, and, and we're not g- I don't... we're not gonna get into it, but, like, the Rebbe Rashab, like, analyzes what's going on, um, what's happening outside. If you stand, if you go through Ostrov, there's a, the porch outside of the Yechidas room where you can see where the Rebbe Rashab had, had, had stood and watching the marches of the revolutionaries on Brodsky. You, you can see it's a small... Uh, Brodsky is the s- I'm sorry, is a small street. And Bolshaya, Bolshaya Sadovaya is, is the, is the street where they were marching, where the revolutionaries... So the Rebbe Rashab is watching all this and commenting.

10:00 Speaker 2 You lived in Yechidas?

10:00 Speaker 1 No, no. I, I visited.

10:01 Speaker 2 You visited. Okay.

10:03 Speaker 1 And so the Friediker Rebbe writes, notes all these things down and writes them down for us. So n- from 1920, when the Friedik- from after Beis Nissan, when the Friediker becomes the Rebbe, they're still... everything's still in flux. But there are slowly the Bolsheviks who had taken control. They took control of the, of the, of, of what had been the Russian Empire, and they now have, uh... But it took time. There was, there was fighting, there was war. O- the fir- one of the first things that they're doing is communism until this time is an idea. Now you have to govern, right? Now you have to govern as, as a communist. So what does that mean? So you have all these ideas which are, are good in theory. Whatever, not good in theory, but I mean, like, are, are fine for them to have in theory, and you have to go implement them. So you have right away, uh, start taking away the farms from the, from the, from the, from the-

11:06 Speaker 2 How is it-

11:06 Speaker 1 ... from the workers

11:07 Speaker 2 ... what's the word for it? Uh-

11:08 Speaker 1 Collectivization.

11:09 Speaker 2 Yeah, collectivization.

11:10 Speaker 1 Collectiviza- So they, they... But kids are... They, the bottom line is that they paused on it because it became a disaster very, very, very quickly. The Friediker writes very frequently about NEP, right? The, the... There, there was a period of time over there from, like, 1922 to 1926, something like that, where they, they were forced... the new Soviet regime was forced to allow a market economy. Small markets. Yeah, they took away the big factories. They took away big things, and they kept them. But they can't... you can't feed the pe- the people when, when, when I'm a farmer and I had a whole field, and now I can't work the field 'cause it's not mine anymore. So they gave it back, and they said, "You make a small market economy." And people, mit a mol. There was food back on the tables. There was, there was, there was a... Actually, there was a small period of time where there was money. There was money again for Timchei Temimim. Like, people had money 'cause there was a market economy. The market economy makes sense.

12:02 Speaker 2 Right.

12:02 Speaker 1 Here, they're trying to put everything in in theory. Anyway, at the same exact time comes the war on religion. So that's where-

12:08 Speaker 2 During this period of-

12:09 Speaker 1 During this period from the first 10 years of the Soviet regime comes the war on religion. And you have to remember that the, the war on religion, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not like a byproduct. It's part and parcel of the whole idea. So what's communism doing? Communism is saying we're creating a new universe, a new world. History begins from now. Everything before was me- meant to blind you. The, the, the, the... Religion was meant to... It's you're supposed to like the, the, you know, the clergy is blinding you in order that you should give them money to support their lifestyle, and they're keeping you down because you're like a sheep, and you're, you're-

12:49 Speaker 2 So this is it

12:49 Speaker 1 ... the opium of the masses.

12:50 Speaker 2 Right.

12:50 Speaker 1 All this stuff. This is basic stuff.

12:51 Speaker 2 This is Marx', uh-

12:53 Speaker 1 Yeah

12:53 Speaker 2 ... this is ideology.

12:53 Speaker 1 Yeah, Marx, and then Lenin goes even, even, even, you know, there's like a Rashentses, whatever. Like there's Rashentses goes on, but Lenin is even more extreme about it.

13:02 Speaker 2 Right.

13:03 Speaker 1 He says everything bad is, uh, is, is, is, is worthwhile... I- I- I'm sorry, is, is better than the subtle evils of religious thought, of spirituality, because they sense a danger in this. So it goes against the very basic of who they are, that the truth and world hi- history, everything now begins at this point, and we're creating a new world, and that means that a lot of, a lot of... There's thousands of years, years of history. You're destroying all of that. A lot's gonna have to, to be destroyed.

13:34 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

13:34 Speaker 1 Right? The fact that, that co- nations live in certain places, that you own this land. You could have owned this land for seven generations. We're gonna have to... This is gonna be very painful for you, right? But, like, for the, for the greater good-

13:45 Speaker 2 We have to restart

13:46 Speaker 1 ... we have to do... Everything has to be done again. So religion is a very, very key, key element of this. There's a, there's, um... I, I think just in general, 'cause I, I know a, a lot of time you hear, like... I hate hearing it, but communism is a good idea in theory. It's not a good in f- idea in theory. It's an evil idea in theory, and, and they're just... They're ready to do that work to, to put their theory into practice.

14:11 Speaker 2 Right.

14:11 Speaker 1 But it- it's horrible in, in every, in every way, shape, and form. It's about equality of, of, of, of, uh, uh, you know, the end needs to be equal, right? The equal- equality of, uh, results. So there was a, there was a political philosopher named Hans Morgenthau. He came to the Rab actually a few times, and he corresponded, um, and he's buried in, in, uh... It's a whole, like, Poshemsky story. He's buried in, in, uh, Agurs, uh, in the first new chalk over there in, in, uh, near the aisle.

14:44 Speaker 2 So-

14:44 Speaker 1 So this Hans Morgenthau-

14:45 Speaker 2 The one on the right of the...

14:47 Speaker 1 I don't remember. We actually just passed it now on the, on the line by the aisle. The... So Hans Morgenthau was a political philosopher. He's a German Jew. Um, he, um... He was the father of political... of, of international relations as a political, as a academic, uh, as a scholarship, as a s- field of, uh, academic scholarship. So Hans Morgenthau writes, and I think it's very, very interesting in terms of why are totalitarian regimes against the Jews in particular? So he has, like, this interesting formulation of it.

15:25 Speaker 2 He just said that religion in general is, is, was the-

15:28 Speaker 1 Religion in general, but the Jews-

15:29 Speaker 2 They were Mahadir.

15:29 Speaker 1 The, the Jews are al... It's always Jew- the Jews in particular.

15:32 Speaker 2 They're Mahadir.

15:32 Speaker 1 It's always with everybody. It's always the Jews in particular.

15:34 Speaker 2 Right. Yeah.

15:35 Speaker 1 And if there's no Jews there, then they, they find whatever, fine. But, like... So he says that the Jews always had the navi and the melech, right? They have the king and the prophet. What is that? The navi is there as a check on political power. So the melech, the king, is political power, but where does true power come from? Where does the truth and power come, stem from?

16:03 Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

16:04 Speaker 1 From the Avotit. It comes from God.

16:05 Speaker 2 Like Shema Yisrael and Shema.

16:07 Speaker 1 And that's the, that's the navi is representing that power, and he's always the one on top.

16:10 Speaker 2 Right.

16:12 Speaker 1 He says ever since then, there's no... Now you don't have that. The Jews represent the prophetic vision in the world, right? That's what they represent, so-

16:22 Speaker 2 'Cause we don't have the Malchus.

16:23 Speaker 1 What? Uh, but-

16:24 Speaker 2 That we-

16:24 Speaker 1 In, now in the world-

16:25 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

16:25 Speaker 1 ... this, this idea of the navi is tr- it's tra- transposed onto the Yidden as a whole.

16:31 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

16:31 Speaker 1 And we are in that position, whether we understand it or not. It just, this is the fact, and therefore... And the- and therefore, a totalitarian regime, any totalitarian regime cannot live in, in, in peace with the Jews, consciously or subconsciously, because of what the Jews represent. And Soviet communism, in particular, which says that truth stems from us, power stems from us, this is where it actually comes from, the existence of the Jews in their midst, it, it, it, it doesn't work. It, it, they can't possibly coexist. So, and which is in general, I think, a, a very good way of, of looking at it, which m- 'cause it means we're not talking about a frum Yid, Navka. Yeah, a frum Yid for sure, but it's just the Jew as the Jew, as the neshamah, as a person who represents h- his, his very existence. That's, that's a st... Anyway, so back to the nineteen twenty-

17:26 Speaker 2 But the, but, but the Soviets didn't claim to be anti-Semitic, and there were m- in fact, many Jews involved.

17:31 Speaker 1 Was different meaning... Okay. Yeah. That's true. The fact... So, yeah. Okay. So the, the, the-

17:37 Speaker 2 Some of the founders of the com- of, of, you know, Trotsky-

17:40 Speaker 1 So first of all, there, there's, there's, there's, there's, uh, there, there are certain things that are said usually by anti-Semites that the Jews did the whole revolution. It's not true. There was a lot of Jews involved in the general revolutionary movement 'cause, uh, what do you mean? They're being oppressed over there in, in, in, in, in the Russian Empire for s- that period in particular. It's like the pogroms and Mendel Beilis and all these different things that are happening. So yeah, Jews were definitely involved with revolutionary, with revolutionary activity. The Bolsheviks in particular, there was a few big names, Trotsky, Kamenevs, and others, like the big names who were part of the, the central committee, and they were, like, very, very involved. But, uh, first of all, all of the, all of those who were involved from an early period with the Bolsheviks- Were not educated Jews at all, none of them. Not Trotsky, not Zinoviev, not, not Kamenev. They had no... Very, very poor Jewish backgrounds, like, like educationally. And then more, um, most Jews were not part of the, the Bolsheviks. So there's this statistic, I think I quoted it, um, it's like in 1922, the amount of Jews who were part of the Bolsheviks, part of the Communist Party, the Bolshevik Party, which eventually, you know, which, which at that point was the only party left, uh, that had been part of the party before 1917, was like 1,000. So we're talking not a large number in the big-

18:59 Speaker 2 Yeah

18:59 Speaker 1 ... context of things. So they didn't f- Now, after the revolution and after the Bolsheviks won, of course, if you were involved in the revolution before, you're gonna be involved with it, with it later. So that's where the Yevsektsia comes in. The Yevsek-

19:12 Speaker 2 So let me ask, but your point of all this is saying-

19:15 Speaker 1 Yeah, that there's different periods

19:16 Speaker 2 ... there's, there's a reason why they're mehader in persecuting the Jews.

19:19 Speaker 1 Right.

19:19 Speaker 2 'Cause it's, it's part, it's built into the subconscious or conscious.

19:22 Speaker 1 It's, it's built, it, it's built into the system.

19:24 Speaker 2 Yeah.

19:24 Speaker 1 A- and obviously, meaning they ha- Now, they handed it off. So in the 1920s, they go after the Jews in particular, and who knows the best, where the Jews are and how to deal with it, and is interested in, in it to like a real degree? The Jews themselves 'cause they bought into this whole vision.

19:40 Speaker 2 Right.

19:40 Speaker 1 So that's where you have the Yevsektsia comes in.

19:42 Speaker 2 The Yevsektsia is the Jewish section.

19:43 Speaker 1 So the Yevsektsia is the Jewish sections of the Communist Party. Not everybody really, but not all Bolsheviks, not all Jewish communists wanted to be part of the Yevsektsia. They hated, meaning some of them hated the idea of these, of the, uh, of the Yevs- of the Yevsektsia.

19:56 Speaker 2 Right.

19:57 Speaker 1 Because what do you mean? We're fighting for the brotherhood of man. We're saying that everybody's equal, that it's class and not nation, right?

20:05 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

20:05 Speaker 1 So class, meaning we're, I'm a worker, you're a worker. What... N- no- nothing makes a difference. Now you're telling me that I'm, I'm, I'm a Jew, I'm a Jewish worker, and therefore w- I have to work through this? So a lot of people di- a lot of them didn't like it. A lot of old Bundists who had been part, they, they became part of, uh, of, of, of the Yevsektsia, and they l- anyway, they, the Yevsektsia Poalei l- ran, led the charge through, from 1920 until 1930. The Yevsektsia is not a government, uh, is not a government, uh, body.

20:35 Speaker 2 Agency.

20:36 Speaker 1 It's a party. It's a part of the Communist Party. Now, the true power in the Soviet Union came from the party because we're, this is, this is an ideology. So the government is just the levers of actual power. Like they, they pave the road. They keep the lights on, whatever. The party is what controls the entire thing and what runs the, runs the entire thing. So the Yevsektsia is a part of the Communist Party. They don't arrest anybody. They, they, they urge and file reports with the KGB, which then was called the OGPU, the GUPO.

21:11 Speaker 2 It's not, it's not the GUPO, it's OG- OGPU?

21:14 Speaker 1 I think then, then particularly it was OGPU, but it's the same thing. They changed... They, it was called the GUPO, then it was OGPU. I don't remember, maybe it was the re- the reverse, and then it became the-

21:22 Speaker 2 So NKVD, then OGPU, and KGB, it's all the same thing.

21:24 Speaker 1 You know, they, they would restructure in, in a, in some kind of a way, and then, like, they make a new agency. It's not just a sign on the door, but may or more or less it's, it's, uh, more or less it's a s- it's a sign on the door. Um, the, so the Yevsektsia is not, uh, doesn't actually do arresting. It tells the GUPO, it tells the KGB, "You go arrest those people." And they can come along with them for, for raids, and like they can come 'cause the, the p- the, the party is the most important thing.

21:49 Speaker 2 Were they arrest-

21:50 Speaker 1 Stalin... Okay, so where does Stalin's power come from? Stalin in 1920, i- i- in, in, in 1922, right now I'm blanking whether he... In, in the mi- in the early '20s, he became the General Secretary of the party, okay? And he unites a massive party. He unites as like the central clearing house of all information. Everything goes through him. This is still during the lifetime of Lenin.

22:16 Speaker 2 Of Lenin.

22:18 Speaker 1 And therefore, he was already put in this position, and a very, very powerful position 'cause he's the only one who knows what, what's going on in all parts of the, of, of the party, which is slowly taking control of everything, and he's there, and then he doesn't have... He's, he's, he just has to, it's like being on top of the mountain and having to fight, fight defensively, right? You're defending yourself from the mountain. He's already in the position of power. So, but he's not a government official. He's not like the president of the Soviet Union. He's the head of the party. The, and the party is the, is, is, is, is what, what matters the most-

22:50 Speaker 2 Right

22:51 Speaker 1 ... um, in terms of, uh, in terms of political power. Now, so just the, so the n- the 1920s, j- in terms of we, 'cause we started off, I think we were saying about the different Right? Meaning how things changed. So from 1920 until 1930, there were, there were... I- in order really to take control of the country, to take control of different, uh, different segments of the country, they, they came up with something which is really theoretically anti-Marxist. It was, it was national kind of ide- so there's the Yevsektsia, and other groups had their things, right? They had, uh, this now, like the, the Kirgizis, and the Tajiks, and the Mongolians. They have their own party. Mongolia wasn't formally part of the Soviet Union, but they was basically controlled. The, the, they have their own par- like, so it's, it's a group, and Stalin called it, I think, National Inform Socialist in Content, right? So this is... Anyway, so this is all one big part of... Now, in 1930, things changed. Things changed, and he got rid of the Yevsektsia. There's no Yevsektsia after 1930, so that, that, that was, that was the end of it.

23:59 Speaker 2 Because ideally, this whole thing doesn't fit with, with the communist, uh-

24:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. And he, he doesn't need it anymore, and he, he expelled, meaning the Jews had been very... Let's say w- we're, we're talking about the Jews in particular. Uh, good. You, you had it, and most of the Yevsektsia was shot at the end of, uh, you know, by the end of the decade. In 1938, most of them were shot, and a lot of-

24:17 Speaker 2 Nakhinson and Lulov included?

24:18 Speaker 1 I think Lulov was.

24:19 Speaker 2 The ones that were arrested for the Rebbe?

24:20 Speaker 1 Nakhinson was not. Nakh- Nakhinson was, was not. I think Nakhinson was getting matzah from, from, uh-

24:26 Speaker 2 From Chabad?

24:26 Speaker 1 Stole it from Chabad in 1993, something like that.

24:30 Speaker 2 Really?

24:30 Speaker 1 Yeah.

24:30 Speaker 2 Nakhinson was alive till 1993?

24:31 Speaker 1 Yeah. I think, I think I have a picture of him.

24:33 Speaker 2 Really? Okay.

24:34 Speaker 1 The... Mm.

24:36 Speaker 2 He's the one from that, from, from-

24:38 Speaker 1 He's the one that stopped them-

24:38 Speaker 2 ... that Rebbe Rash-

24:39 Speaker 1 ... from opening, from, from... Nakhinson, this is what I m- I remember hearing. It makes sense to me. That, I mean, we can't know. That Nakhinson when, during the arrest, he stopped the, he stopped them from, from waking up, um, Rebbetsin Shaindel Sara.

24:57 Speaker 2 Yeah, no.

24:57 Speaker 1 Right?

24:57 Speaker 2 And al- and also he's the one that wanted to carry the 3d Rebbe's bag, right?

25:02 Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.

25:02 Speaker 2 That wasn't Lulov. That was Nakhinson.

25:03 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

25:04 Speaker 2 Yeah, 'cause he said, "My Zayde carried the bag." So did our Marash, for your Zayde.

25:08 Speaker 1 Yeah.

25:08 Speaker 2 The 3d Rebbe said that you, you, he, he carried it where my, where my Zayde wanted to go. You wanna carry it where you want me to go.

25:15 Speaker 1 Right.

25:16 Speaker 2 So, but Lulav, we're saying, was, was eventually killed.

25:19 Speaker 1 Lulav was killed, yeah.

25:20 Speaker 2 Okay.

25:20 Speaker 1 Lulav was... I'm pretty sure. I looked it up at some point. Um, yeah. Okay. So here we, we-

25:26 Speaker 2 I was gonna say, the Yevsektsiya was also... Was it like a... They were, like, creating publica- It was like propaganda, a lot of it, right? Where they put out public-

25:32 Speaker 1 Propaganda. They took over... They were the ones who took over the shuls. They-

25:35 Speaker 2 So all the Habad darum and some mikvahs being cemented and all that-

25:37 Speaker 1 That was all the-

25:38 Speaker 2 The Yevsektsiya was, was doing this

25:38 Speaker 1 ... that was all the Yevsektsiya. They made, they made trials. They made show trials. They made a show trial of, of, of the cheder, um, in, in, in Vitebsk, which is meaning ma- a vikuach. Like, it's a show trial. It's not a real trial. It's, they go, they make the... made the rav defend, the rav and the community defend the concept of the, the institution of the cheder. There was a trial of the yeshiva in Rostov, and that's... I believe that the money that, that... The Friedrich Rabba's money, the... meaning the money of the Beis HaRav was taken away after that. I think that was 1922. I think it was Tebei's. Rosenblum was, was, was... defended it, and, um, that's why by the Rosh Hag's chasuna, they didn't have... There was, like, there was n- there was nothing there.

26:18 Speaker 2 They didn't have the money.

26:18 Speaker 1 They didn't have money. Everything was taken away after... If I'm not mistaken, it was right after the trial of, of, of the yeshiva. Um, they did other ones. Brismila, whatever. Like, ma- big public trials. Then they took o- they took over shuls. They chased away Rabbonim. So they're not, like, left and right shooting people, meaning even the, the, the GPO, they're not. But this is really the decade when... Before that, every single village had shuls. Every town had shuls. There was, there was... There were institutions. There was infrastructure that was going on, a, a life that had been there for a few hundred years.

26:52 Speaker 2 Right.

26:53 Speaker 1 And in 10 years-

26:55 Speaker 2 They went and uprooted

26:55 Speaker 1 ... 10 years, they went completely to uproot it and... Meaning, uh, whatever. In, in some ways, they, they succeeded in the, in the, in, in, in some ways, obviously.

27:01 Speaker 2 And I'm thinking that's probably when all the frum Yidden left Russia.

27:05 Speaker 1 What do you mean? The frum Yidden stopped becoming... stopped being frum. I mean, some people left. Some people didn't.

27:08 Speaker 2 I mean, a lot of, a lot of Rabbonim and a lot of people and-

27:10 Speaker 1 Rabbonim

27:11 Speaker 2 ... yeshivas left.

27:13 Speaker 1 The yeshivas left. The-

27:14 Speaker 2 There's literally yeshivas that moved then out, out.

27:16 Speaker 1 Yeah. So the yeshivas, the o- the i-institutions, the institutions left 100%. It was only Timchetim after the-

27:22 Speaker 2 So that-

27:22 Speaker 1 ... after 1922 or whatever, something like that. I th-

27:25 Speaker 2 So I think, I think that's-

27:26 Speaker 1 Novardok had something, and they-

27:27 Speaker 2 Novardok

27:27 Speaker 1 ... they, they, they left at the e- at the, like, early on. Um, and the Chavtsheim, I think, was, was in... I remember hearing from somebody that the Chavtsheim regretted always that he left. And-

27:38 Speaker 2 So I was having a... But, uh, that's, uh, where I wanted to get to, is that after they're going through this program of dismantling Yiddishkeit, and most of the institutions of Yiddishkeit had basically just, just left or, or Yidden that stayed just, whatever. They lost it. But the Friedrich-

27:53 Speaker 1 You're talking about three million Jews.

27:54 Speaker 2 Right, right. But the Friedrich Rabba is the only one-

27:56 Speaker 1 Yeah, 100%

27:56 Speaker 2 ... like, literally the only one that says, "Actually, I'm not leaving, and we're gonna make an underground," right?

28:00 Speaker 1 No, 100%. That's never... That was never even a... Yeah, that was never even a question. So the Friedrich Rabba established the Vaad Rabbonim Leva- uh, Vaad Rabbonim Levah... Uh, Vaad Rabbonim, uh, USSR-

28:13 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

28:13 Speaker 1 ... of, of the, of the Soviet Union, which was Zevin was on it, and meaning there was... Rabbonim was an active organization of, of Rabbonim, um, that built mikvahs, that, that trained Rabbonim. Um, and with the idea of, of bolstering, meaning through chinuch, you're, uh, you have, you have leaders for Rabbonim shoychetim for villages and towns that need them, and, uh, they go out. And obviously, in, in the most... meaning the Yevsektsiya was the most powerful in the most Jewish places. So a town like Vitebsk, if you read about it in Sefer HaZechraynus, it's, it's, it's there for, for hundreds of years. You know, living there.

28:56 Speaker 2 Right near Lida, right? Vitebsk.

28:57 Speaker 1 Yes, in that, in, in the, in the region. It's in Belarus. So in Vitebsk, Yidden were there for hundreds of years. They had massive... You can see what the Levator Shul looked like. A, a big, uh, three story, whatever. A big, a big... The, the Yevsektsiya was tremendously powerful there. That's where they made the trial of the cheder because they, you know, they had the power. Why? You have the most Yidden, so obviously you're gonna have, you're gonna have, uh, such people there. Um, so then, so, uh, uh, I guess let's, uh, we... To fast-forward to, to, to, uh, to, um, to Tebei's Hamas in particular, to the circumstances around the Friedrich Rabba's arrest and what happened and how you're able to see the, the, the nissim that are Melubush HaTeva.

29:43 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

29:44 Speaker 1 'Cause, because every- everything matches up so perfectly, so beautifully, that you look at it and, and you see, like, this picture, this picture emerges. And, and, and I, I said all this stuff about communist theory because the teva here is, is the teva of, of, of communist theory. Meaning that's... It's, it's, it's happening within their worldview-

30:05 Speaker 2 Right

30:05 Speaker 1 ... that everything is taking place, which I think this is, is, is, is fascinating.

30:10 Speaker 2 Okay. I don't understand yet what you're saying. I guess you have to-

30:12 Speaker 1 So-

30:13 Speaker 2 ... say the story.

30:15 Speaker 1 Okay.

30:15 Speaker 2 So chronologically, we're talking about the, uh, the Yevsektsiya is basically very successful.

30:20 Speaker 1 The Yevsektsiya is very-

30:21 Speaker 2 And-

30:21 Speaker 1 ... very successful

30:22 Speaker 2 ... and-

30:23 Speaker 1 The, the... The... There's, there's tragic stories, meaning what happened to Rabbonim. They would go and, and, and they would put n- in the newspaper, uh, their, you know, their family wouldn't be able to get, um, uh, coupons to, for food, right? So then the, the, the Rabbonim, uh, 'cause it wasn't... Being a rabbi wasn't considered a job, and if you're not, you're a parasite then.

30:46 Speaker 2 Right.

30:46 Speaker 1 Right? You're, you're sucking off the system, so then you wouldn't get it, and then the family... And then very, very... The, the, the thing disintegrated very, very quickly. So the Rabbonim or the sho- the shoychetim, anybody who's involved with, like, you know, the klig gedach, they had to put... They had to make, like, ads in the newspaper and say, "I'm no longer doing this." Right? "I'm now... I'm no longer, uh, a mohel. Done. And now I work in a, as an accountant in a, in a bottle factory." So- So you have a lot of that, meaning... And it happens very, very, very quickly because, uh, they're kids, whatever. It, it goes on. And yet from a, from a, from a people who specifically didn't tell their kids, didn't educate their kids more than you can imagine, who didn't tell them anything. They ca-- "I'm remaining a Frummian. I'm continuing to do what I did. Why should I burden th-this, this, this, what's going on around us is never going away."

31:37 Speaker 2 So Mesiras Nefesh wasn't a given.

31:39 Speaker 1 For sure not.

31:40 Speaker 2 Right.

31:40 Speaker 1 What do you mean? I mean, there's no, uh, what... It's, it's, it's, it's whatever, so, so that's it. I remember reading, meeting a, meeting a Jew on actually, and, and, and in, in, in... It was in Lithuania. And this guy's like: "Yeah, my grandfather used to, used to say, um, you know, 'I don't eat this because the Jews many year... You know, we're in Egypt and whatever, and we're in the desert, uh, but you eat it.'" You know, about, about, about, like, pig fat there. He was saying specifically. He goes, "Uh, why do I do this? I do this because the Jews, uh, many years ago did this. That's good for me. You, you don't do it." So the, the entire Yiddish guy, he told him, "It's not, not for you." Not, not bad people, but this is the nature of what's going on. And that's the na- that's what the Friediker Rebbe's fighting against, and that's what the Friediker Rebbe's telling Chassidim, you know, first of all, to send their own children to, to, to cheder, a-and second of all, to go out to serve as Rabbonim in Shule. And, and it w- it was dangerous. Again, it wa-- Some people were arrested and sent away, for sure. I mean, we, we, we know people who were sent away during that time. They could also be beaten in the street. You could be beaten to death in the street. Those are-- There was like, there was a, there's a, a town kind of top.

32:48 Speaker 1 I was on because they're too... So, uh, the town kind of top, there was a whole story with, with, with the head of the . The Friediker Rebbe writes his name, Lazar Levin, and he, uh, I think they put a, a Bakhar in Temchetum in a coma. So that's what's going on. It's like thug stuff on the street, and it's taking over everything at all times.

33:07 Speaker 2 Right. And I wanna say that, uh, it seems that the seeds for the Friediker Rebbe having Chassidim to work with to fight this battle was probably the establishment of Temchetum by the Rebbe Rashab.

33:19 Speaker 1 For sure.

33:20 Speaker 2 The Temimim were the ones that the Friediker Rebbe worked with, and then he made the, the, the, the Bris with the, with the, the Chrisis Bris with the, uh, with the nine Temimim. I'm saying this is the... Temchetum was the precursor-

33:31 Speaker 1 For sure

33:31 Speaker 2 ...to, to wage the battle.

33:32 Speaker 1 One, one hundred percent, which is exactly... We started off talking about the r- different revolutionary movements, so a hundred... That's mamish. Uh, uh, that's at the same time.

33:42 Speaker 2 Right.

33:42 Speaker 1 Like, th-this is all going on around them. Uh, uh, Volozhin was closed down because, because they were all, they were all revolutionaries, whatever. So they, they, they left. Wh-wh-wh-where's their, where's their, uh... So yeah, a hundred percent. That's, that's, that's what seeded the, the, the ability to fight. The Fr-- Uh, I, I, I think, I think the Rebbe writes this in particular. It's an article in Kevitz Lamavich where he writes out, like, he maps out... I don't know if the Rebbe's name is on it. The Rebbe's name is not on it, right?

34:11 Speaker 2 I don't know. Tell me when you talk about it.

34:11 Speaker 1 There's an article that... Anyway, there's an ar- there's an article in Kevitz Lamavich which, like, kind of maps out. It says it's about Yud Beis Chamos, but it, it's really, like, about what happened before and, like, the g- the, the plan, you know, the, the organized plan. Chabad, everything's organized, and we always have a plan, so by, by the Rebbe. And, and you, you see the plan of educa-- of, of the, of the, of the Bakharim being educated themselves and then going out and teaching them education as the tool to fight against. And, and that all that leads up to Yud Beis Chamos. Okay, so le-let's just get to Yud Beis Chamos because that's what we're really, we're, we're here to discuss. So 1927 is, like, a, already a very, very tense time. Uh, during that year, Stalin, who had, had opponents within the, the party, meaning he was in a very good position, but Trotsky, we know, we, we know, right? Was, was, was seen as who is the heir of, of Lenin, okay? So he's in a very... It's already very tense because of that. He's defending himself. So through the year, he's consolidating power within, within the party apparatus. In May, there was a... In May 1st, this is where, where, where we're gonna start doing, going through the dates. I wrote down the dates just because I think it's important 'cause you see everything as a... May 1st, 1927, a Latvian delegation arrives in Moscow for, to begin trade negotiations with,

35:49 Speaker 1 with the Soviet Union. Latvia had been part... Is a Baltic country, right? There, there's three Baltic countries: Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. They had been part of the Russian Empire before the revolution, and then during the, during the, during the, during World War I, really, after World War I, they split off. They gained independence, and really because the Soviet Union wasn't... They tried taking it, but they weren't strong enough. They didn't... They hadn't built their own power base well enough to, to be able to control, to keep control of it.

36:19 Speaker 2 So the Soviet Union's eyes, Latvia belongs to them.

36:23 Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. That's, that's, that's, like, the Russian mindset always.

36:27 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

36:27 Speaker 1 I mean, we, we, we see that, uh, we see that today.

36:29 Speaker 2 Right.

36:30 Speaker 1 Right? They, w-w-- "Okay, you took it away from us 'cause whatever, but we, we don't, we, we never lost it."

36:34 Speaker 2 Right.

36:35 Speaker 1 You know, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's ours, and it feeds into, like, a bigger picture, which I think is very, very important. They're... The Russians... Okay, the revolution is paranoid. This is, this is, like, the nature. Again, this is, like, the laws of... Everyone said Stalin was a paranoid man. He was taka paranoid man. But you have to understand how this actually works. What does, what does Stalin represent? The people. There's a revolution that's made by the people. Who? I, I'm not part of it. No. Everybody. The people made a revolution. The people, the people have the power. The people have control. H-how does that, how do, how does that, how do you, how do you... What do you do with that? The party. The party represents the will of the people.

37:23 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

37:23 Speaker 1 Okay? The party represents the will of all people. Whether you know it or not, this is your will because everybody wants this. We all agree.

37:33 Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

37:34 Speaker 1 This is, this is, this is, this is where everything is moving forward. The party is represented by the Central Committee. You have the Central Committee which rep- which... And the Central Committee is represented by the person of the general secretary, the head of the party.

37:49 Speaker 3 That's Stalin.

37:50 Speaker 1 That's Stalin, or whoever it is later on, but Stalin does it, does it to the most, you know, the most effective. He's very good. So when... If you made a joke about the revolution, or you made a joke about, uh, the party, really in the mindset, you wanna kill Stalin 'cause Stalin is the, the, the... He's- he is the revolution embodied. He's the will of the people embodied. It all makes sense. It, it sounds crazy, but to them it makes perfect sense. So the revolution being paranoid plays into everything that happens now in, in, in, in, in, in... over the next few months with, with regards to the Fridrikhs' arrest, is part of the fact that the revolution is a paranoid, and it's part of, part and parcel of communism. So the same way that history led up to this moment where the people, then there's industrialization, and what-- They have laws. History is, is, is, is a science, right? There's no like, uh... No, no. History is a science, and it must develop in certain ways.

38:51 Speaker 3 Like a pattern.

38:52 Speaker 1 And pa-- Uh, it's, it's not, it's, it's... A pattern. It's a law. It's, it's, it's H2O is water, yeah? You take this and you take that and it equals water. So, so these are the elements that happen. Th- this is, this is... I-- It doesn't... Like even what they said happened, was supposed to happen, didn't actually happen, but they fit it into their mindset, and this is, this is... Like they're, they're really be able to... They're, they're, they're able to... They say that they're able to predict what's happening next, right?

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41:15 Speaker 3 part of Der Her through your financial support as well through visiting our website, derher.org, or through contacting us to setting up a meeting. Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of the podcast.

41:26 Speaker 1 So during this time, there is their paranoia. They always have... So you have the revolution, and the capitalist countries wanna crush the revolution. What's the revolution? The revolution is now the party, right? Is, is, is this country. So they w- they, they need to. It's not like we fear that they want to. No. They have to. According to the way this works, the capitalist countries want to crush the revolution.

41:49 Speaker 3 Right.

41:50 Speaker 1 So now they're, they're, they're, they're paranoid, but instead they're paranoid because it-- they have to be paranoid. That's, that's the way that communism works. So Latvia is one of their own former republics, so they're making a trade deal with the, with the Latvians, okay? They're particularly paranoid about their own former countries, the capitalists using their former countries against them. This is like the-

42:14 Speaker 3 Right

42:14 Speaker 1 ... the worst thing po-- Again, NATO expansion into Ukraine through the... We, we see it now also.

42:19 Speaker 3 Yeah.

42:19 Speaker 1 It's like all these things make sense.

42:21 Speaker 3 Right.

42:23 Speaker 1 Okay.

42:23 Speaker 3 So what was this trade deal about? Well-

42:26 Speaker 1 So the Latvian trade deal was a basic trade deal, the, meaning it was a complicated trade de- trade deal. Latvia had... Begashmes had a problem. Latvia wanted, wanted, uh, you know, had been part of the, the Russian Empire and had deep water ports and, uh, for, for trade with, uh... And it's just now it's a, it's a country the size of West Virginia. They have nothing to tr- they have nothing to send out, right?

42:49 Speaker 3 Oh, 'cause the Ru- they were-

42:50 Speaker 1 They had been part of the Russian Empire-

42:51 Speaker 3 They were ex-part of the Russian

42:52 Speaker 1 ... and they were Shaul Berlin, right? Shaul Berlin, who traveled with the Rebbe Maharash, who was the Rebbe Maharash's cousin. He traveled with the Rebbe Maharash with the Yaneas of Smetamptin. You all right? That, that story when he went to Paris. Shaul Berlin was in Riga. He was a wealthy man. He owned like 100,000, uh, hectare acres, I don't know, uh, something. A crazy amount of woodland. He was based in Riga. He owned a crazy amount of woodland. He owned the, the t- the, the mills that made the timber, the, the ships that took it down and, and that, that spread it out and that sent this, these, the, the, the, the wood, the lumber, the processed lumber to, to Peterburg, to London, to Hamburg So he was a, he was a, he was a big vir. But where is this... This is all because Latvia is a part of the Russian Empire.

43:33 Speaker 2 So they're ex-they're exporting the whole Russian Empire's, uh, goods-

43:36 Speaker 1 Yeah

43:37 Speaker 2 ... Latvia.

43:37 Speaker 1 Well, yeah, they... A lot of export. By the way, a lot of Jews also left, meaning the, between 1880 and 1920, right? The, the Jews who were leaving the pogroms and coming to America, a l-a l-a crazy amount of them went through Latvia, went through those ports also-

43:50 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

43:50 Speaker 1 ... on, on ships to, to... Which is why a lot of, a lot of, a lot of American Jews come from the Chabad territory 'cause they came from, in that area. Latvia is very close to, uh, uh, Dvinsk is, is Latvia today. It's the Daugavpils or whatever. And, and it was, but, but it was actually, historically, it was part of, uh, part of Belarus, so, like, Eden were allowed to live there. Riga, Riga was more like, Riga was like Peterburg that Jews were not allowed to live there.

44:16 Speaker 2 Outside of the-

44:16 Speaker 1 It was outside of the Pale of Settlement.

44:18 Speaker 2 Pale, Pale of Settlement.

44:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. But either way, so they... But it was very close by, right? And Jews were very involved with that trade. So now they don't have any pla-place, they have nothing to trade. So the Latvians saw themselves and dreamed of being like a bridge between the East and the West. So after the revolution, the, the, the Russians didn't have tr... Meaning they didn't have diplomatic relations with a lot of people, including the United States. There was no diplomatic relations with the United States until the '30s.

44:49 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

44:50 Speaker 1 So the, the em- the, the, the, the, the United, the American, um, embassy in Riga represent Soviet, meaning their interest in the Soviet Union because there wasn't one in Moscow-

45:01 Speaker 2 Interesting

45:01 Speaker 1 ... during this time.

45:03 Speaker 2 So they were like a fr... They were friendly with Russia, I'm saying. It was-

45:06 Speaker 1 Whatever. It's-

45:06 Speaker 2 Yeah

45:06 Speaker 1 ... like being friendly with the bear that wants to eat you. But like-

45:09 Speaker 2 Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah

45:10 Speaker 1 ... yeah. But meaning they're right there. They have no-

45:11 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

45:11 Speaker 1 ... they're, they're, they, they, they... So they, they, they... So why do the Russians want it? That's, that's, that's the question. And the, the very basic fact is they don't really care. Yeah, they needed... They didn't ha- They have limited trade in other places, but what they really want is to sow discord between the three Baltic states, right? To get them to be fighting with each other. So... And, and it, and it... That worked, by the way. Th-this trade deal-

45:39 Speaker 2 So that-

45:39 Speaker 1 ... ended up going through, and Estonia never forgave the Latvians, and, like, it caused this 'cause they're all three kind of in the same boat. They're different people, but they're very similar to each other, and they all hate the Soviet Union, they all hate the Russians and, and, and, like, as a group, obviously, you're always more powerful, so they were fighting over, like, "How dare you make a deal with our, our mutual enemy," right? But the Latvians needed this deal. They wanted this deal. Any- But that's really the Soviet Union's goal.

46:04 Speaker 2 Interesting.

46:05 Speaker 1 Okay?

46:05 Speaker 2 Okay.

46:06 Speaker 1 Then, then... Okay, let's just go through the, the, through the... On May 12th, the British raided the Soviet trade delegation in London.

46:16 Speaker 2 To the meeting in London.

46:17 Speaker 1 So the, the... There's the embassy. You can't raid an embassy because it's, uh, diplomatic, uh, immunity. So they had a trade delegation, which is, it might have been the next door building or it was in a different place, whatever. They raided it over three days. They're saying that they're spies, that they're... And obviously, obviously they're engaged in, in, in espionage. That's, that's, like, a basic fact. But they raided them. This is... Remember, the, so the trade deal with the, with, with, with the, with the Latvia had already, had alread- Look, talks had already started at this point. And the Latvian tr-trade deal, by the way, in Latvia was very, very, um, controversial-

46:56 Speaker 2 Yeah

46:56 Speaker 1 ... because you don't have... People are afraid. So some people want it because they want, they want, they want trade, they want material g- Whatever. They, they, they, they want the money. A lot of Eden were for it because they were merchants, and they, they, they wanna do it, and, uh, but a lot of people were against it 'cause they're paranoid.

47:12 Speaker 2 But then, so these, these are the negotiations that are happening. This is-

47:15 Speaker 1 These are the negotiations. So then-

47:16 Speaker 2 In London

47:17 Speaker 1 ... the British raid the embassy. I'm sorry, the trade delegation. And then May 27th, yeah, 15 days later, they cut off, they cut off relations, diplomatic relations with the, with the Soviet Union.

47:31 Speaker 2 Britain?

47:32 Speaker 1 Yeah. And it was, I believe, the largest trading partner of the Soviet Union at that time.

47:38 Speaker 2 Okay.

47:39 Speaker 1 This is a very, very big blow. This is a very big blow. Now, it's not... There is a, there is... The Russians always talk about, about, about how there's people who are planning revolutions and whatever, meaning, like, fighting against them, but it's not, like, completely untrue that there was nobody out there who didn't want, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the communists out of there. So June 7th, right? So this is 10 days, 10 days after, after, after the Britain, um, um, cuts off trade regulations, um, uh, diplomatic relations, including trade, obviously.

48:18 Speaker 2 With Russia.

48:19 Speaker 1 Uh, yeah. On June 7th, there was an explosion in Len- in, in Leningrad, in, uh, in a, I think in a party club, uh, some-somewhere. It was a, a bomb that was planted, and, uh, I think a few people were killed even, but it was, like, a white, a white, right, anti-communist cell that had, had planted a bo- a bomb there. The same day, and this, the Arab mentions on a number of occasions, the Russian ambassador to Poland, Pyotr Voykov, was assassinated on the train platform in Warsaw. He was there with, uh, uh, w- In the article that I wrote, that I to-told, there's a freeze frame 'cause there's a little short video that I found of him and Chicherin, who was, uh, who was the, I think he was the foreign minister at the time, uh, the quote, "Commissar," um, talking right, you know, on the platform and a, a few minutes before Voykov was, was assassinated.

49:17 Speaker 2 Right.

49:19 Speaker 1 Voykov was there to see off the embassy, the, the, the, all the embassy personnel, trade personnel and embassy per-personnel from London who had been kicked out from London. So he's there because those people were expelled, right? Now that we- there's no diplomatic relations, we're, we're, we're done. You gotta go home. So those people are traveling through Warsaw on the way back to, on the way back to England, on the way back to the Soviet Union. So he's there to see them off, and he was assassinated. This is like, like now, right? You, so you traded, you, you cut off trade relations w- w- So Stalin literally wrote, wrote it down. Stalin wrote, "I feel the hand of England," in Voykov's assassination.

49:55 Speaker 2 Assassination.

49:56 Speaker 1 Right? And then the GUBU is warning that war is coming, like war is coming right now.

50:02 Speaker 2 Between Britain and Russia?

50:04 Speaker 1 That Britain is gonna take France, who's gonna bring in Romania. I can't remember all the, all the, all the, the, the, the organization of countries.

50:11 Speaker 2 So Stalin thinks-

50:11 Speaker 1 And they're gonna bring Latvia in also, of course, 'cause they're gonna use Latvia as a, as a, as a, as a base to, to launch their war into us. They have to. I mean, they're... So, uh, this is a concept that they called capitalist encirclement. Like I, I mentioned that they're paranoid. They're talking about capitalist encirclement. This is the rule.

50:27 Speaker 2 So Stalin thinks that he's about to be invaded by all these countries.

50:29 Speaker 1 Whatever. I mean, they're for sure, they're coming, they're coming in to crush the revolution. He- That's what he sees going on all around him. Y- Again, it's not him, it's the whole system sees it this way. They see everything matches together. That's not what, what was happening, right? What was happening was random events. A terrorist killed, uh, what's his name? Whatever. There were various... Britain and France had no plans on invading the, the, the, the Soviet Union. That, that, that's for sure. But they see it this way, and they see it this way very, very, you know, this is, this is-

51:00 Speaker 2 It's total fantasy or paranoia.

51:03 Speaker 1 It's fanta- Yeah, for sure. I mean-

51:04 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm

51:04 Speaker 1 ... the same way that, that, that Marxist economics, the, is, is a fantasy also, right? Supply and demand are, are things that are real, right? I make some-- I, you, I need something, you make it, I buy it, and then that's good, right? That's a, a market economy. It's fantasy to say that Marxist economics is like, uh... So I had a, a great-great-uncle or something who, who wrote Marxist economic, um, um, textbooks. It's just not real. Like whatever, you can write whatever you want in it. It didn't, it didn't, it didn't, you didn't have a high pressure job. You can write anything you want 'cause it doesn't, actually there is no Marxist economics.

51:37 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

51:38 Speaker 1 So the same thing over here. This isn't true. That's not how people... That's not how countries work. For sure, there, there were... The Soviet Union had enemies throughout the time, but, like, what they're seeing in all these events is, is just plain out not, not, not true. But either way, they see it. So now they're upping, they're upping the, the, the pressure in, in, in, in, in the capitals, meaning in, in, in Moscow, in Leningrad, which is not the capital. The capital was moved back to Moscow. But, uh, w- it was, uh, the, the, the pressure is growing in terms of what's happening.

52:12 Speaker 2 So-

52:12 Speaker 1 Yeah

52:12 Speaker 2 ... so you're saying, you're saying that, so the government of Stalin, his answer to this perceived threat is to hunker down and force the communist policies in Russia. That, that, that's what he's doing. Is that, is that-

52:28 Speaker 1 No. Now, now they're, they're full on under attack.

52:31 Speaker 2 Yeah, but what-

52:31 Speaker 1 That's what, that's what they feel.

52:32 Speaker 2 So, but they-

52:33 Speaker 1 So what they, they, they... It's, it's not... Right now it's, it's we need to go after all of our enemies-

52:39 Speaker 2 All-

52:39 Speaker 1 ... 'cause we have enemies within.

52:41 Speaker 2 Ah, so all the counter-revolutionaries.

52:42 Speaker 1 Meaning we're helping the, the people abroad, obviously.

52:45 Speaker 2 Got it. Yeah.

52:45 Speaker 1 So June 7th, they start June 7th, that same day, and then June 8th, they start putting in new, new rules, new laws. They reintroduce the Troika. The Troika is three, um... Like a, it's not a real court, right? It's like three members, like a, like a Tharsan Darm, you know? Like, whatever, yeah, three people and, uh, and, and, and we shoot you, right? So they reintroduced that. They hadn't... So everything works with-

53:09 Speaker 2 They had that at the beginning of the revolution

53:09 Speaker 1 ... everything works with law. They had it in the beginning of the revolution. Everything works with laws there, right? You can't make decisions on your own, so everything work... It's a, whatever, it's a laws-based country in some insane way. You can't make decisions. Everything needs to be documented. It's like overall it's, it's a bureaucracy that you never... Paperwork and paperwork, paperwork. So people don't put... So this is coming down from on top, and we're changing all sorts of laws. Uh, the Fride Grabow's massacre, Chaim Lieberman was arrested, uh, the, the same day. He was charged under a law, under a new law that was added, I think it was Article 58, I think 14, they added to the Russian penal code, like the criminal code that day, June 7th, when, when Voikov was w- w- was arrested. So they introduced all these emergency measures. In emergency measures, you start shooting people left and right. So, so now we have the mechanism to shoot people. You have a Troika, right? You have, "Ah, come together. You're guilty. Shoot them in the, shoot them in the, in, in, in, in, in the back," which the Fride Grabow describes the, the sounds of shooting at night.

54:12 Speaker 2 In Spelletje.

54:13 Speaker 1 Yeah.

54:13 Speaker 2 In the jail.

54:14 Speaker 1 And then, th- then a week later, was it, it was June 15th, right? Which was, um, Tesuvav Sivan.

54:24 Speaker 2 Sivan.

54:25 Speaker 1 The Fride Grabow was arrested exactly as part of this-

54:29 Speaker 2 One second. One, one second

54:30 Speaker 1 ... complete wave.

54:31 Speaker 2 You're missing one point, that-

54:31 Speaker 1 Yeah

54:32 Speaker 2 ... the Vevsekzia was all of a sudden given power that they had not previously had, right? Is that... That's a, that's an important part of it?

54:42 Speaker 1 The, the, the KGB was given power that they previously hadn't had.

54:47 Speaker 2 But not the Vevsekzia themselves.

54:49 Speaker 1 I don't remember. Did I write that?

54:51 Speaker 2 No, I think I know that. I don't know.

54:52 Speaker 1 Yeah. I, I don't remember if the Vevsekzia itself had got more power. The KG- the, the KGB, the GePU-

54:58 Speaker 2 But who the one, the ones that are-

54:58 Speaker 1 The GePU definitely got, got, got crazy powers at that moment.

55:01 Speaker 2 But who arrested the Fride Grabow? It was the GePU.

55:03 Speaker 1 The GePU. Yeah.

55:03 Speaker 2 And the, the Vevsekzia guys were just accompanying them.

55:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

55:05 Speaker 2 Nachman and Tzinulub.

55:07 Speaker 1 I don't know where they worked, h- honestly. Nachman and Tzinulub, I think they're probably in Ge-

55:10 Speaker 2 They were GePU

55:10 Speaker 1 ... in the GePU, but like Vevsekzia members. You have to be a party member also.

55:13 Speaker 2 Ah.

55:14 Speaker 1 I mean, you have to be a party-

55:15 Speaker 2 Okay. So this is why-

55:15 Speaker 1 You have to be a party member

55:15 Speaker 2 ... so they're cracking down overall. So many people were arrested that night probably.

55:19 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. I mean, describe, you can, uh... There, there, lots and lots of people. But like we said, why the Fride Grabow? Why the... 'Cause he had a v... I, I, I brought it down in newspapers, but you c- obviously know on your own that the Fride Grabow is having a big impact in, in Leningrad already. Meaning just in Leningrad, just in the... The newspapers had already been rabble-rousing about his presence in Leningrad. That it's not just Hasidim who are, who are coming to him. That it's workers, it's people, it's, you know, it's general, it's general. Again, it's not so black and white there, who's a worker and who's a Hasid and whatever. That's, that's, like over here, we become, everything becomes, uh, black and white. But, but still, he was having a very visible impact in Leningrad. And they, and they know what's going on abroad.

56:01 Speaker 2 That the Fride Grabow is-

56:02 Speaker 1 Meaning throughout the country. Hundred, one, one-

56:04 Speaker 2 He's running underground

56:05 Speaker 1 ... one, 100%. 100%. And also, and this is, this is where, this is where... Why are they going after Chassidim? It's not just because they're frum Yidden. Why they're going after the Friediker Rebbe and everybody associated with the Friediker Rebbe, I think that's the better way to put it. It's because it's an organization. And again, the same-- it speaks to the same paranoia that we're talking about. It fits their wildest, their wildest dreams that there is an organization of people that is out to get us, that is fighting against the revolution. They don't educate... I saw this in, in a KGB document, yeah? They don't educate their kids in our, in our, in our schools.

56:45 Speaker 2 The Friediker Rebbe campaigned against that, yeah.

56:48 Speaker 1 So but, but they're... I mean, so they, they write the... I saw a, a document from later, from like the, the, the, from the '40s. There was the Baal Shem Tov, Yisroel, what is it? Yis-Yisroel Baal Shemski? I don't know. Maggid Mizritchski for sure. They write Maggid Mizritchski, and then there was Zalman Schner-- uh, did I write Schneerson? Whatever. Anyway, the Alter Rebbe.

57:13 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

57:13 Speaker 1 And then they, uh, and then the Tzadik today is in New York. His name is, uh, is, is, is, uh, Schneerson. And, uh, and he's-- he left behind... He has followers over here who follow his orders, and they don't educate their kids, and they don't put their kids in, in school. They have their owns-- they have their own, uh, schools, yeshivot. And, uh, this is, this is like the, the, uh... That's the way they look at it. So they... And, and it's counter-revolutionary. I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're fighting against revo-revolution by this very act because if you don't put your kids in the school, that means that you're against our schooling system, which means that you really wanna fight against the, the entire thing. You wanna, you wanna, you wanna crush the revolution. So Chassidim as a group are perfect for this type of thing because they're looking for not an individual. They're always... Even individuals, they're always trying to tie with a group 'cause if it's a group, it's a conspiracy.

58:01 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

58:01 Speaker 1 Conspiracies are, are fit, fit their, their world view much better than, than just an individual crackpot or an individual whatever. That's not so interesting. Uh, you're part of a group. And there was, there was a separate charge in the Russian criminal code. There's Article fifty-eight, uh, ten, and there's Article fifty-eight eleven. Article fifty-eight eleven is about being part of a group, and that one was much more dangerous. Meaning, during certain times, Ch-Chanya got charged with art-Article fifty-eight ten and eleven. But if you're charged with eleven, automatic death sentence during that time wh-when they were just shooting left and rights, okay?

58:36 Speaker 2 Eleven is what?

58:37 Speaker 1 Was part of a conspiracy, a group conspiracy-

58:39 Speaker 2 So Chanya was-

58:39 Speaker 1 ... that you're part of a group. Yeah. That, that, that's an automatic death sentence.

58:43 Speaker 2 But Chanya wasn't... Chanya was-

58:44 Speaker 1 That was later. That's ten years later.

58:45 Speaker 2 Later, yeah.

58:46 Speaker 1 Like everything built up. That's why, uh, the, the, the תקופות change, there's periods that change. It built up. So during this time, we're talking really at the, at the consolidation of Stalin's power, right? Stalin, when he arrests-- when the Friediker Rebbe's being arrested, Stalin's not like... He's, he's basically in full control, but it's not the same Stalin as ten years later. People who had been his, his opponents were still around. He, he controlled things politically, but, but Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, these guys who he got rid of later on, meaning got rid of, put a bullet through their heads, they're, they're still part... They're losing, but like he's consolidating power right now, and that's when all of this is happening. So obviously, so the emergency situation, all of these things are part of hi-his own consolidation of, of, of, of power. Again, it's not a personal thing.

59:36 Speaker 2 Right.

59:37 Speaker 1 It's, it's for the people that you need... Meaning we, we need... This, this needs to happen.

59:41 Speaker 2 The charge of the Friediker Rebbe was, uh, this eleven also?

59:46 Speaker 1 No.

59:46 Speaker 2 There's a documentation of that?

59:47 Speaker 1 I don't think we have the... I don't think we have the, the, the, the, the-

59:50 Speaker 2 Indictment

59:50 Speaker 1 ... the, the, the actual charges of, uh... I, I don't think we have it.

59:55 Speaker 2 Okay.

59:56 Speaker 1 Um, but the Friediker Rebbe was arrested then. There was people being shot literally that night, June fourteenth, you know, overnight. I, I think I, I, I, I, uh... June fourteenth and fifteenth, whatever. That, that, that was, that, that was, uh, that's what I, what, what I remember-

1:00:11 Speaker 2 Yeah, but-

1:00:11 Speaker 1 ... seeing, like people being shot specifically during that, and it continued. That like-

1:00:14 Speaker 2 Any other Rebbe or-

1:00:15 Speaker 1 ... extra emergency... Not that I remember. I meaning, uh, what do you mean? Uh, Chanya was arrested then or he was already in jail?

1:00:24 Speaker 2 No, you said ten years later.

1:00:25 Speaker 1 No, he was arrested twice. He sat for three years then.

1:00:27 Speaker 2 Oh, okay.

1:00:28 Speaker 1 Um, and Chaim Weintraub was arrested and, and there were, there were more people. I don't remember now offhand.

1:00:33 Speaker 2 I think in our, I think in our sources it says that there were non-Jews that were killed.

1:00:37 Speaker 1 For sure.

1:00:38 Speaker 2 And like, yeah.

1:00:38 Speaker 1 For sure, that same night.

1:00:39 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:00:40 Speaker 1 Yeah. Hmm. They were shooting people at a, at a, at a, at a, at a, like a hectic rate at that time, which again, later on that became more normal. At this time, it's still not so normal sh-just shooting people left and right.

1:00:55 Speaker 2 Right.

1:00:56 Speaker 1 So that, that was, that was, that was, uh... Okay, fine. So now the Friediker Rebbe's arrested, and then l-l-how, how, how it, how it, how it, how it, uh, plays out. They right away, Chassidim, they made a c- uh, they made a, they made committees, one in Moscow, one in Leningrad, about what to do about this.

1:01:18 Speaker 2 First of all, they were like, um, the Rebbe was like hiding the, uh, documents then-

1:01:22 Speaker 1 Right

1:01:22 Speaker 2 ... that night. There was a whole operation.

1:01:23 Speaker 1 Right.

1:01:25 Speaker 2 Rebbe-

1:01:25 Speaker 1 I think in ge- in, in general, in general, this is a famous thing, but, but, but I, I, I think it's very, very clear that the Rebbe's role in this is under, meaning is under understood, right? It's not, it's, it... There, there's much more there, and we, we, we don't know it. There's that story with Zalman Duchman that Zalman Duchman said, uh, got up and said, "It's now time that everybody, uh, that everybody knows what, uh-

1:01:50 Speaker 2 The Rebbe

1:01:50 Speaker 1 ... what the Rebbe did," and the Rebbe started like, the Rebbe shushed him or whatever.

1:01:53 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah.

1:01:54 Speaker 1 Yeah. And then, and then he's never spoke about it again. Um, but I think that's very, very, that's בכל very, very clear 'cause there was a lot, there was a lot of, there was a lot of steps that they did that were very, very, um, I think they're very smart moves and, and, and- Who did the, who did those? I, I don't, I don't know, uh-

1:02:12 Speaker 2 But there's also things that, like, they, they prepared also. Like, they had documents on the Frierdiker Rebbe's desk. They put mundane documents in between the incriminating ones so that they'll have a hard time searching. There, there were certain things that they did, that they prepared for this also.

1:02:26 Speaker 1 That's, that's... I mean, whatever. I, I, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't remember that de- that detail, but, but, um, the, the, the bottom line is that they don't need... Like, whatever, they don't need excuses really, the, the, the, the, the, the Soviets.

1:02:44 Speaker 2 Right.

1:02:44 Speaker 1 That's the other thing. It's like we, we never, we never actually tricked them. Whenever, whenever you hear the stories about how Lviv, everyone escaped, it was a brilliant, it was a brilliant operation. You might have tricked, uh, a, a s- a, a guard on the, on the low s- on the low, you know, on the lower echelon. Somebody knows, though. I mean, this is a country where there's millions of people whose job is to know everything that you're doing at all times.

1:03:10 Speaker 2 They let it-

1:03:10 Speaker 1 They don't miss, they don't miss this, and the Rebbe says this. Uh, Vov Tishrei, I think, uh, in the, in the early mem, the, the Rebbe's speaking about Rav Tzachor escaping. They know it happened, but, like, somebody there, somewhere up the chain, not too high up, does know, right? So, so they, they don't need excuses to go after somebody. They don't need whatever. Like, they, they, they, they... It, it's, it's part of their... They'll give, uh... There, there's a famous thing, three felonies a day, that, that, that in the Soviet Union, you can't go... There's so many laws on the books, you can't go through the day without committing three felonies.

1:03:45 Speaker 2 Right.

1:03:46 Speaker 1 So then we always have something to, to, to, to get you by. So they made these two committees, one in Leningrad, one in, one in, one in Moscow. Rahag went to report, uh, to Moscow w- what, what had been discussed over there. Very early on, somebody connected with this Madame, Madame, uh, Peshkova, Peshkova, who had been Maxim Gorky's wife. She was... Maxim Gork- Gorky was a famous Russian writer who supported the revolution, came back to, meaning came back to Russia from living, living abroad, and, um, and, uh, was a very, very big figure until-

1:04:24 Speaker 2 So-

1:04:24 Speaker 1 Till, till, uh... And she was his ex-wife, and she headed this thing called the Political Red Cross in Russia, and they didn't trust-

1:04:29 Speaker 2 Political Red Cross?

1:04:30 Speaker 1 Yeah, and they didn't trust... They didn't touch her. I, I don't know why. They never touched her.

1:04:33 Speaker 2 What does that mean? What's Political Red Cross? Like-

1:04:36 Speaker 1 It fights for political prisoners.

1:04:38 Speaker 2 And they let her be?

1:04:39 Speaker 1 Yeah. She, she... And she, she was around, and she had this extraordinary power for some reason. Um, and meaning extraordinary power, extraordinary influence and, and without being touched, meaning, like, they, they didn't touch her. Although they, you know, her family wasn't untouched, but she, she lived until, uh, 40s maybe. Um, and she, uh, and so she got involved very early on, and it's very clear that the death sentence that was, that was in the beginning, uh, that the Frierdiker Rebbe had seen, uh, that, that is the... So that, that was, that was her efforts.

1:05:14 Speaker 2 So she thwarted-

1:05:16 Speaker 1 Yeah, the death sentence

1:05:16 Speaker 2 ...the death sentence of the Frierdiker Rebbe.

1:05:17 Speaker 1 And then again, um, changing the... 'Cause the next sentence after that was 10 years-

1:05:23 Speaker 2 In-

1:05:24 Speaker 1 ...to Solovki

1:05:25 Speaker 2 ...Solovki.

1:05:26 Speaker 1 And that was quickly, uh-

1:05:28 Speaker 2 The three years in Kostroma

1:05:29 Speaker 1 ...can th- And then that was already... Yeah, to the, the three years in Kostroma, which by the way, uh, three... Kostroma is not so, it's not so far away. I mean, it's like seven hours away from Moscow, I think. I mean, it's, it's relatively close. It's not like in Siberia.

1:05:41 Speaker 2 There were Jews there also. There's-

1:05:42 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:05:43 Speaker 2 Yeah.

1:05:43 Speaker 1 So, so that's what happened. Now, the news in the West, and this is very interesting, that they didn't, they didn't-

1:05:50 Speaker 2 But-

1:05:50 Speaker 1 In, in, on the, on, in... They made the decision very early on. I mean, there's three ways, there's three steps towards this thing, right? First is to get involved, get in contact with, with the KGB, with the local GPO, with the local KGB. Not go to Moscow over their heads. Deal with the small, with the small powers right here who are actually the ones who did it. Number two is go over their heads to Moscow and go to a higher leadership. Number three is already go abroad, right? And, and spread the word around the world.

1:06:21 Speaker 2 Make it an international outcry.

1:06:22 Speaker 1 Right. And they made the decision early on, and I'm saying they, I don't... I meaning, I don't know. There's, there's, uh... Who exactly was involved is, is... Very, very clearly, clearly the Rebbe was, was, was, was, was involved over here. And I can tell you exactly, I can't tell you exactly, exactly what. Um, so then, so they, they did the first, they did, they did the first one, but very, very quickly they already heard, right? They heard the, the, the, the rumor that, that the death sentence is on. So then they sent a me-

1:06:55 Speaker 2 They realized, yeah

1:06:55 Speaker 1 ...they sent somebody on Shabbos, I think. They, they sent on Friday night. They sent somebody to Moscow to say, "We have to move up." He got there Shabbos morning.

1:07:01 Speaker 2 It's Mashma from, um, from the Shmes HaMeiser.

1:07:05 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:07:05 Speaker 2 The Frierdiker Rebbe has a whole thing that he went to the wrong door in the hallway.

1:07:10 Speaker 1 That they were shooting people that, that night, right.

1:07:13 Speaker 2 Yeah. That's almost m- uh, it sounds like they, they wanted to do it that night when he was arrested.

1:07:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. It's very, uh, it's very, very possible. But they still didn't ... Meaning even after that, they didn't... Like, apparently they didn't forget about it because they were still, th- within the next few days, th- this was still something that was on the books. So-

1:07:33 Speaker 2 So they eliminated the first, uh, Hishtadlus of, uh, going to the local GPO, okay.

1:07:38 Speaker 1 Right. That was already out. Then they went, then they went over there. About getting international support, and this is, to m- uh, to me it seems that, and I, I didn't realize this until, uh, I don't know, a few years ago when, when I was looking into the details. In the West, they did not know about it until very, very late. Meaning outside of the Soviet Union, people did not know about the Frierdiker, uh, the Frierdiker Rebbe's arrest until... The Frierdiker Rebbe was arrested on June 15th. Yeah. On, on Tes Vav. I-- the first reports, the first major report is June twenty-eighth, uh, which is 28 Sivan.

1:08:15 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:08:16 Speaker 1 That's the first major report. That's the JTA, and that's what went around the world. The JTA was based in, in, in, like, uh... The JTA was based in Riga, and they, they had... Meaning they had a office in Riga. And they, I think they might, might have had, uh, somebody in, in Leningrad also. I don't remember if he was there. Either way, whatever. They're, they... The first major report. It could be a day or two. I think I just recently saw in s- in a, in a newspaper, like a, like a Polish newspaper of some kind, maybe two... a day or two earlier than that. But basically, the, the, the, the death sentence, all that stuff was... They didn't know about it in the West for, for, for-

1:08:57 Speaker 2 Right

1:08:57 Speaker 1 ... for two weeks, basically.

1:08:58 Speaker 2 So wh-

1:08:58 Speaker 1 Uh, um, um, you saw Jacobson. There's a letter. You saw Jacobson writing to somebody else in America. It's after that point. He's writing about the news of the Friediker Rebbe's arrest. That's 28 Sivan, whatever, or, or, or a day later, two days later, like that. You saw... I think he references in particular the JTA report.

1:09:13 Speaker 2 Report.

1:09:13 Speaker 1 So they didn't know about it.

1:09:15 Speaker 2 Mm.

1:09:15 Speaker 1 So that means that other people who were very, very influential and helped him that we know about, for example, Mordechai Dubin in, in, in Riga and, and, and, um, and, uh, people in Germany, but the Kramer brothers sending money from America, all of that didn't start for the first ten days, tw-two weeks really, um, nobody knew about it.

1:09:32 Speaker 2 So one second. So they went to the... What happened when they went to the KGB? The, you know, the up, higher-ups in the KGB. What did that do? The, uh-

1:09:42 Speaker 1 That already meaning they, they, they, uh, they... That's already bringing in Madame Peshkova-

1:09:47 Speaker 2 And-

1:09:47 Speaker 1 ... who gets involved with them.

1:09:49 Speaker 2 And then they said-

1:09:49 Speaker 1 And then that, that stops those things, but it was not gonna happen on the local level in Leningrad. It wasn't gonna happen on the local level in Leningrad, and then later on, the local level had, w- was still upset.

1:10:00 Speaker 2 Right.

1:10:00 Speaker 1 Right?

1:10:01 Speaker 2 But that's what they thwarted the death sentence with Madame, Madame Peshkova-

1:10:05 Speaker 1 Right

1:10:05 Speaker 2 ... going to, um, to the, to, to the higher-ups in the KGB. That, that, that was that, what they did there.

1:10:11 Speaker 1 Right. Right. I mean, to the higher-ups, the higher-ups. Yeah. Very, very... The, the, very much... The, the very higher-ups.

1:10:17 Speaker 2 Okay. But it's... But the Friediker Rebbe is still, whatever, imprisoned or gonna be-

1:10:20 Speaker 1 Yeah

1:10:20 Speaker 2 ... going to galus.

1:10:21 Speaker 1 So then he went to galus, right? But you see, like, I think I quoted, um, Rav Kook's telegram to the JT- to the, to the Joint in America saying, like, "You need to do something."

1:10:31 Speaker 2 What does he say?

1:10:32 Speaker 1 He says, uh, Rabbi, uh, you know, Schneerson, whatever, w-very... You know, he was a, he was a, he was a, a friend. Uh, needs a deliberation, I think. Wire results. Whatever. M-e-emergency. The date of that is, like, June twenty-ninth, and then you see in the J-Joint Archives, you see all the... There's lots of telegrams. There's shuls, all these Temache Tsadek shuls or whatever, Nusach Ari shuls from all over, from all over, uh, from all over the United States. They're all, uh... They write, there's a lot of them that have them, the, the... They write, "Ra-uh, Rabbi Schneerson arrested, held Petropavlovsk fortress," or Peter and Paul. That's where the Alter Rebbe had been-

1:11:10 Speaker 2 Uh-huh

1:11:10 Speaker 1 ... had been, had been held, stam. They, they, a lot of them write, they're, like, mixing in already right away- ... Yiddish with-

1:11:16 Speaker 2 All the China.

1:11:17 Speaker 1 Right. Okay. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So they, they, they, the, the, tho-those, those, those... Anyway, that's already when basically... So Gimmel Tammuz, the Friediker Rebbe left, that's July third. The dates I think for the, over those two months are exactly English and, and, and, and, uh, and, uh, and Jewish are exactly aligned. So Gimmel Tammuz I think is July third, and that's when, that's when the Friediker Rebbe-

1:11:46 Speaker 2 Went to Kostroma

1:11:47 Speaker 1 ... uh, went to, went to, went to Kostroma.

1:11:49 Speaker 2 That's when the whole international-

1:11:50 Speaker 1 That's already the whole world knows about this already and is going crazy about it, and, and, and there's a lot of mixed information. Like, there, there was, there was, I think July first or Shchedryi Tammuz, there was, there was, um, there... The JTA ha-has a report that there was false ru-rumor that he had been released, and then they... Then, and everyone started celebrating, and then afterwards they realized that it wasn't true. So then they started-

1:12:10 Speaker 2 In the, in the book we have a picture. I think it was in your article that, uh, the Friediker Rebbe, "Idan u'mitvas ba'maaser." He's still in jail. It's not re- it's not-

1:12:17 Speaker 1 Right, right, right

1:12:18 Speaker 2 ... it's not true. Yeah.

1:12:18 Speaker 1 It was probably, probably a report. I don't know the date. Do you, you remember the date of that?

1:12:21 Speaker 2 Yeah. The, yeah.

1:12:23 Speaker 1 Whatever. Yeah. So that, that, that's... There was all this confusion, but that's when everybody gets involved. Okay. So now, now just to move along to, to, to the trade deal 'cause that's really meaning the outside-

1:12:33 Speaker 2 So you're gonna talk about... So you, now you're gonna talk about Mordechai Dubin and the trade deal.

1:12:36 Speaker 1 Yeah.

1:12:36 Speaker 2 What about the American Hasidim? Did that do anything? Wasn't Justice Brandeis involved in it?

1:12:43 Speaker 1 The, the American... I, I, I think practically, the American, uh, help was mostly money, I think. I think by the time... And there was probably... You have to remember that really all of these efforts were not really... It was too late in the game to get him out of prison. He was already out of prison by the time they found out, right? If June twenty, if 28 Sivan is when they, when he, when, when they, the news gets out in, in, in the West that he's arrested. The... And he, Gimmel Tammuz he's already on, on, on a train to, to, to, to, to, to Kostroma. It's not a lot of days over there, right? Then ten days... So they start doing things, but he's already, he's already halfway, he's already halfway out. I mean, a lot-

1:13:37 Speaker 2 Right

1:13:37 Speaker 1 ... a lot of things ha-happened. So I think the, the... most of the, most of the efforts really that all came together during that time was really the most was to bring the Friediker Rebbe out of-

1:13:49 Speaker 2 Out of

1:13:49 Speaker 1 ... out of the Soviet Union.

1:13:50 Speaker 2 Right.

1:13:51 Speaker 1 In, in, in, in, in the... I, I probably think out of, out of, out of Kostroma. Also, it already helped that there was this American pressure. Um, Borah, right? The Borah, Bor-uh, William Borah was the pr- was the senator from, from, from Idaho who, it's very interesting, was, was, was, uh, was influential. I think the Kramers got Borah involved.

1:14:11 Speaker 2 Involved.

1:14:11 Speaker 1 And Borah, Borah was, like, a very early lead proponent of, of, uh, the United States forming diplomatic relations with, with the Soviet Union.

1:14:20 Speaker 2 Right.

1:14:21 Speaker 1 And, and later on you see his name comes up, uh, frequently, and, like, they knew who he was in, in, in the Soviet Union. They, they know who Borah is 'cause he was the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

1:14:29 Speaker 2 So their plan was get the Friediker Rebbe out of Russia. That, that, that's what they were thinking.

1:14:33 Speaker 1 I, I mean, whatever. They, they wanna get him to safety, and over the summer it became clear that that, that's really meaning the only option. I, I think the Friediker Rebbe didn't, didn't want that.

1:14:42 Speaker 2 After the Friediker Rebbe-

1:14:43 Speaker 1 Uh, the Friediker Rebbe-

1:14:45 Speaker 2 ... was free. After he was freed.

1:14:46 Speaker 1 Yeah. So the Friediker Rebbe was freed, and then the Friediker Rebbe, right, he went... Six weeks he was in Malakhovka, which is a small town near, near, near Moscow. And, um-

1:14:54 Speaker 2 I think he said when he left, "I, I didn't really leave."

1:14:57 Speaker 1 Even later.

1:14:58 Speaker 2 Yeah. He said-

1:14:58 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, for sure. A hundred percent.

1:15:00 Speaker 2 One of the integral components of being a Hasid are the Chassidish Yamim Tovim and Yemei Depagrah. Whether it's Heh Teves, Yud Shevat, Yud Aleh Nissan, or Gimmel Tammuz, these days give us an opportunity to connect with our Rabbeim, to connect with each other, and be better Hasidim. What is the story behind each of these days? How did the Rebbe commemorate and celebrate these days? And most importantly, what are the lessons, the takeaways, and the action items, HaMa'aseh Hu Ha'Ikkar, needed for each of these days? All of this and much, much more are answered in the new set recently published by Der Her. Our Days is a journey through the Chabad calendar in story, meaning, and practice. With over seven hundred beautiful glossy pages with elevated content, beautiful, beautiful photographs, you, your family, and friends will enjoy and live with each Chassidishe Yamtiv. This book is a must for every Lubavitcher home, for every shul, for every school. It is a perfect gift item. This will not collect dust. It will be used day after day, month after month, year after year. You can have this set. Go to derher.org/ourdays. Order your set today and start living like Chassidishe Yamim Tovim. So in your-- so the way you understand it, the actual release, the most effective part of the Friedrich release was this, uh, this... I'm gonna get to now, the Latvian. We're going back to where we started with the trade deal with Latvia.

1:16:51 Speaker 4 Yeah. So the trade deal with, with, with Latvia, every one of these pieces are obviously very, very important, meaning all the efforts that were made by the c- by the, by the committees, by, by, um, getting to, to Peshkova in order to be able to do that, whatever pressure that came in, even when the Friedrich was, was, was, was in Kostroma, those, those, those are meaning, uh, but there's, there's letters and telegrams, and things did start happening right away then, one hundred percent. So Peshkova's work was very, very important. The telegrams, meaning the pressure that came from America, that came from Germany, that came from other places already just of deep concern coming from abroad-

1:17:35 Speaker 2 To build up.

1:17:36 Speaker 4 Yeah. So tho-those are all very, very important things and, and, and, and obviously played a part in, in Yud Beis Tammuz, which is-

1:17:43 Speaker 2 That-

1:17:43 Speaker 4 Which is the Friedrich being allowed out of-

1:17:44 Speaker 2 Do communists care about pressure from the outside? That, that's something that bothers them?

1:17:50 Speaker 4 Um, sometimes. Meaning, in this situation-

1:17:57 Speaker 2 They were not expecting a world, uh-

1:17:59 Speaker 4 In this situation they were-

1:18:00 Speaker 2 Backlash?

1:18:00 Speaker 4 In this situation where they're, they don't-- They're-- It's, it's a difficult financial situation at that time for th- for them. Remember, the joint, right? The, the, the, the, the, the Jewish, uh-

1:18:12 Speaker 2 Distribution committee

1:18:13 Speaker 4 ...uh, yeah, the, the joint distribution committee, right? The Amer-- Uh, what is that? The American Jewish, uh, Joint Distribution Committee sank millions of dollars into the Soviet Union at that time, meaning the, the, the equivalent of, like, two hundred million dollars of today, they sank into the Soviet Union, which doesn't have a lot of money. Meaning, uh, the, the, the, the, the... They cut off all debts with... The Soviet Union had announced when they took power that they're, they're cutting off all their obligations to whatever the Czar's obligations were to other countries, they're done and passed. And that means everyone didn't-- The, the-- Everyone cut off their obligations back to the Soviet Union. Whatever. It was meaning they're co- they're starting from a place of, of... A lot of countries cut off relations with this revolutionary state that they're actually afraid of. And the United States had had diplomatic relations with, with the Russian Empire, right? They don't have with the, with the Soviet Union. So yeah, for sure, there's a lot more elements of, of, of, of, um, you know, the ability to influence what's going on within the Soviet Union at that time. So I, I think in das Tach, when you're looking at this whole story, this is nineteen twenty-seven and not nineteen thirty-seven. So whatever happened in nineteen thirty-seven, nineteen thirty-eight, right, which is when Chanya was arrested, when people were arrested-

1:19:30 Speaker 2 Chassidim were being shot

1:19:31 Speaker 4 ...and shot. Chassidim were being shot, like, very, very quickl- quickly.

1:19:33 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:19:33 Speaker 4 Yishmol Demayten, whatever. There, there were, there were many people. At that time, it's a, it's a d- it's a, it's a totally different story. They, they, they, they don't care, and they're doing what they want. And, and meaning, a-again, obviously, Yud Beis Tammuz happened at, at, at its time in, in history for a reason. But if you would wa-- If you'd say, like, if this whole story had happened in, in, in, in ten years later, uh, outside pressure would not have meant the same thing even, even, even remotely.

1:20:04 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

1:20:04 Speaker 4 It wouldn't have meant anything at all.

1:20:05 Speaker 2 Okay.

1:20:05 Speaker 4 They, they were doing this on a much grander scale, on a, on a big scale. They were, they were, they, they, they, they had no, uh, compo... At this time, there's still, there, there's, there's, there's things that matter to them. Yeah, for sure. So it's, if it's financial, it's also just, just getting it, meaning they, they're, they're, they're figuring out how to be a, a country in the world. Um, so that summer, the Friedrich is, is released, and he's there. Mordechai Dubin. Mordechai Dubin was a Lubavitch Hasid, was born in eighteen eighty-nine in Taf Resh Mem Tes in, in, um, in Riga. His parents are-- His father was a, was a, was a... His parents were Lubavitch Hasidim. Nobody's really from Riga. You didn't re-- aren't really from, from Riga. They're from... Like we said before, they're from White Russia, and they came up. At some point in time, like, like, uh, 40% of the Jews living outside of the Pale of Settlement, Pale of Settlement is where the Jews were allowed to live under the Russian Empire from, like, the second partition of Poland, whatever, like, in the late 1700s to, to, to the end of the, of the Tsar's Empire, meaning till 1917, Jews are allowed to live over here, not allowed to live over here. And then there are some certain cities within even the Pale of Settlement, like Kyiv, where Jews were invited, not allowed to live unless you had a special permit. So Petersburg, right, Jews weren't allowed to live

1:21:27 Speaker 4 there except if you had a special permit, which meant that you did a certain amount of business, whatever. There were, there were things. There were obviously Jews who lived there illegally and would have to leave and would have to come back, whatever, th-th-those, those types of things. Riga was outside of the Pale of Settlement, but they, they, they, they contributed greatly to trade, like we mentioned Chaya Berlin. They were very... You know, as merchants with the world. And, and therefore, they side-- looked the other way, the, the, the central, the, the Russian government, and also they, they, they... Meaning they gave them permission. And at some point in time, it was basically, like, 40% of Jews living outside of the Pale of Sett-Settlement lived in, in Riga itself.

1:22:06 Speaker 5 So Mordechai Dubin-

1:22:06 Speaker 4 So Mordechai Dubin's parents came there around 10 years before his, h- he was born. His parent, his father's from Chash- Chaschniki, Chaschnik. It was, uh, uh, like a, a, a shtetl, a Hasidic shtetl. Um, um, there are stories associated with it, whatever. And, um, so he was from there. He was a, a, a Lubavitcher Hasid of, uh, like a... The Friddiker describes him as like, um, saying, "Hasidisher Bren," like, like a very, very... Zalman Dubin. This is Mordechai Dubin's father. And, um-

1:22:37 Speaker 5 So he was by the Rebbe.

1:22:39 Speaker 4 So, so that, that wa- that, that made him different than most, most Hasidim, let's say most Anash in, in Riga. Riga was a very modern place.

1:22:47 Speaker 5 And so-

1:22:48 Speaker 4 So, so the people who were there, even if you went to the Rebbe, that didn't actually mean, it didn't mean that you were fully committed to the whole thing. Like, your kids were-

1:22:56 Speaker 5 Mordechai Dubin had a Hasidisher upbringing.

1:22:57 Speaker 4 Mordechai Dubin, he had a Hasidisher upbringing. Him and his brothers, for sure, they didn't have... They didn't go to shkolah. They didn't go to, they didn't go to... It wasn't shkolah as in, like, Soviet schools, right? It was, uh... But they didn't go to gymnasiums and have a secular education. They-

1:23:09 Speaker 5 Did he-

1:23:09 Speaker 4 Mordechai Dubin didn't have a se-secular education till he was 16 years old.

1:23:12 Speaker 5 Did he go to the, to the Rebbe?

1:23:14 Speaker 4 He went to-

1:23:14 Speaker 5 He went to the Rebbe in Russia?

1:23:15 Speaker 4 He went with his father, yeah. Meaning-

1:23:17 Speaker 5 To the Rab Hasham.

1:23:17 Speaker 4 He would go, he would go to the Mar-- uh, yeah, to the Rab Hasham. Um, to, uh, he would go together with his father, meaning his father would go basically however many times a year. Remember, it's the Russian Empire. It's all one, one, one country also. Um, so they would go. And he, Zalman Dubin was r- was, was wealthy, and Mordechai Dubin became involved with, with, with, with... Basically, Hasidus very, very early in his, uh, in his life. So already during World War I, I think even before World War I, right near, right near Riga, right near Riga is, uh, the, is, is, is, uh, the beach, the, the seaside, the, the, the Baltic Sea. And, and Yidden used to go there from all over. So wealthy people used to go there from all over the Russian Empire. It was like a Jewish... There was a Jewish vacation area over there.

1:24:05 Speaker 5 Like the Catskills.

1:24:05 Speaker 4 Yeah, basically. And I think there was like a Goyisha part of the, of the strip, and there was like a Jewish part of the, of the strip. And, uh, a lot of Yidden were, were sent there by their doctors also. So Mordechai Dubin would, would, from like a young age, would fundraise money to help Rabbonim, whatever, who had been sent there. They're, they're, they're prescribed to go to the beach, right? To, to, to go sit there by the water b- for the air and whatever. And so, but they didn't, uh, they don't necessarily have the money for it. So he would collect money. So that was like his first Hasidus. And he didn't really have to work because he was involved with his father's business. But, uh, whatever, it was a big business, and he was, he was involved with Hasidus already from, from, from that time. But really from his 20s, he was, he was already like, like, uh, a new, a newly married man. And, and, uh, he, he, um, during World War I, he... A lot of Jewish leaders left Latvia when, when... During World War I, Latvia was sent back and forth between, between, between this side and that side. And then the Germans, you know, it's famou- the Germans lost World War I, obviously, but they lost on the, on the, on the Eastern Front. They won on the Western Front. So they won on the Western Front. That means that the Germans established power in, in Latvia and, and

1:25:22 Speaker 4 along, along the, along their, their western border. And then they lost, uh, you know, a little later, they lost on the Eastern Front, and then everything collapsed, right? And then it was like a, like a, like a, uh, you know, a, a land grab.

1:25:34 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

1:25:35 Speaker 4 But they won over there. Any- and then, then when, when that collapsed on the, on the Eastern F- on the... Am I getting my directions right? No, Eastern Front, I'm sorry. They w- they lost on the Western Front, and they won on the-

1:25:46 Speaker 5 On the Eastern

1:25:46 Speaker 4 ... on the Eastern Front. Sorry. So the Eastern, on the Eastern Front, they, uh, they... On the Eastern Front, they, uh, they won the, they, they won the war, and then everything devolved into, uh, the Bolsheviks came in, and then the... Meaning, 'cause now the Bolsheviks had signed, the Bolsheviks signed a treaty, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. And there they said, "We are-- we cede everything to the German Empire," right? "Whatever was won, we, we, we, we, we're, we're not part of, we're not party to this war," right? "So whatever you guys won, whatever, we're, we don't represent the, the, the Russian, the, the Russian Empire," right? "We're the Soviet Union. It's a new entity, so we're done." Okay. Then the, then the Germans lost. Then they started coming, coming in, 'cause w- now that treaty doesn't actually exist anymore, right? So they came into Latvia, and Latvia was very, very bloody. There was a whole back and forth and by, you know, o- of, of different, uh, different, different regimes that were in control. It was a very, very dangerous time, and the, the, the leadership had escaped. A lot of people were, were, were, were, were gone. And Mordechai Dubin stood up and represented the Yidden to the extent that when this cleared up in 19-- around 1919, when this cleared up, and there was a lot of dangerous story, a lot of mesiras nefesh, like, like, like actual mesiras nefesh. When this cleared up, he, um- He was chosen to be on the

1:27:07 Speaker 4 first National Assembly of, uh, uh, the newly independent Latvia, okay? There had ne- basically never been a country called Latvia before, but there's a distinct Latvian people. These are our boundaries. These are our, our, our borders. They spoke Russian? Did he speak Russian, Chaim? I think, no, they, the, the- They spoke Lat- no, they speak Latvian. Latvian, okay. I mean, they speak Russian because of... because they were, they were, they were- They had their own language, okay. What? They had their own language, though, yeah. Yeah, for sure. They're, they're a separate people. They spoke Russian 'cause they were dominated by Russia for, for 200 years before that, and then, and then later on as well. But, um, so he represented the... So he was chosen to be on this, on this assembly. Then they made a, a, an elected assembly, and he was, he was voted on to represent amon- amongst the Jewish representatives who were on it. And he... At this time, he's, like, 30 years old. And, and, and, uh, and from there, when they established already a, a proper parliament called the Saeima, so he was voted on. He represented Agudas Yisroel, but he's a Lubavitcher Chassid the whole time. He always had a beard. Um, he davened davarida on Shabbos. He, he, he... During the week, he didn't because he had, he had, he had, he had, he had work, he had work to do. He had, he had, uh... On a regular basis, he had 150 people waiting for him

1:28:21 Speaker 4 in his office. You see eyewitness re- reports of people who were there and describing how there's frum Yidden and vay Yidden and, uh, people here lining up. Wasn't he also running the education? No. No, no, no. He was... He represented Agudas Yisroel. The government. He was one of the leaders of Agudas Yisroel as a political party. Agudas Yisroel- He's also Agudas Yisroel of Latvia. Of Latvia. And they were part of their government, part of the parliament. And they were... And he had a political party, meaning they... Agudas Yisroel has, has, uh... He was also... He was the rosh hakahl, a different... There's the, the kehillah. He's the rosh hakahl of the kehillah. He's... Agudas Yisroel is like a, a, a, like a social services and whatever organization, like a... And they have a political party, and he heads the political party. In Poland, they had it al- they had it too. They had it also. But in Riga, everything's very different. In Latvia, bachlal, everything's very different because in those places, they have a, a, a, a... There's a, there's a Haredi constituency in those places. In Poland. In Poland, in Lita, right? They ha- they have Haredim. Riga didn't have Haredim. It's a modern place. It doesn't have a deep Jewish history, right? 'Cause it was outside the Pale of Settlement. Mm-hmm. So it's not like Yidden are living here for 500 years. So it's very, very little that had been developed. Uh, like the Friddikrap talks about Latvia, like, "Oh, you... What's your

1:29:36 Speaker 4 excuse for, for not being an active place? Look, uh, whatever." But, like, the fact is that it had, it... Jewish life had developed very, very late comparatively to everywhere else, and the people who were there obviously were not looking for, uh, for, for, for whatever. They, it didn't have Haredim, basically. It had a few of them, but it wasn't, not... Marlka Dubin was regularly... Agudas Yisroel was regularly the most popular political party, meaning it got a plurality of the, of the, of the, of the Jewish, of the Jewish votes because people wanted... They, they loved Marlka Dubin, who helped them. Mm-hmm. He helped everybody, and he helped people who hadn't voted for him also, in particular. Again, like the Rabbi speaks about, about, you know, politics in Eretz Yisroel and how it works and how each political party is there to serve only its- Themselves ... constituency. Well, themselves. Their constituents, the people who vote for them. Mm-hmm. For somebody that works. For, for, for Lubavitch, that doesn't work because we don't have a... We're, we're here for everybody. You see that with Marlka Dubin in, in, in, in Latvia. You see the approach of a, of a... He's a, he's a political... He's leading a political party. He ran campaigns, and he said, "Vote for me because they didn't help you, and I help you." But he helped them, and he helped everybody, and he helped people who did not vote for him in particular. And this was known, and this was even his

1:30:59 Speaker 4 biggest political opponents w- were always, and, and for the rest of history, always, always, always, always, um, begrudgingly, uh, um, um, um, acknowledge the... That's the fact. They didn't like the, the tactic of it because- Right ... what do you mean? You're getting f- favors, and really, according to democracy, which is what we're trying to help build, then these are our rights, and you're getting them as favors, so you're trading things. Whatever. That, that, that's a, that's a different, different conversation. But he, he helped everybody all along. Um, Yid-- So it's Yidden locally in, in, in, in Riga. It's Yidden who are coming in from... You know, in the early '20s, there was, like... The border wasn't still sealed in the same way between the Soviet Union and Latvia, so people were able to escape and move on to go to America or whatever until 1924, until, until the, the, the, um, the United States put up, uh, quotas then. And then, and then, um... Anyway, a very, very, very active person, obviously, and that's where 1927 comes along. You said about e- about education. What happened with education was that the, the, the parliament in Latvia was around for 12 years, okay? Until 1934. In 1934, there was a coup, bloodless coup in Latvia, and Ulmanis, who was the head of, like, this right-wing, um, nationalist Latvian peasant, peasant farmers party, he took control and became the dictator of Latvia. And he... There was no, there was no parliament after that. Agudas Yisroel changed

1:32:38 Speaker 4 its name to Machneh Yisroel, right? 'Cause Agudas Yisroel had to close down because it was a political party, so it changed its name to Machneh Yisroel just in terms of- That's where- Yeah. Yeah. That's where the name comes from? I'm sure of it, yeah. And, and there was a Mekhoz LeYionei Chinuch there. Whatever. It's just, like, a lot of the things you see, you see a lot of- Is that a name? Mekhoz LeYionei Chinuch? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That published, uh, paperwork, um- I understand ... then once ago. I... A lot of, a lot of things that you see that were established in America had already... were, were already being formed- So the Friediker Rebbe was continuing ... were already formed in, in, in, in Latvia dur- during that time. Interesting. So Marlka Dubin, after 1934, had, had no government position.

1:33:10 Speaker 5 Right

1:33:11 Speaker 4 But he had a lot of influence, and this was already... Also, a lot of people didn't like because, meaning his opponents, left-wing Jews, uh, w- got very nervous about the fact that he had a, he had a good relationship with, with Ulmanis. And Ulmanis said, "Okay, you're, you're, you're... You represent the Jews."

1:33:28 Speaker 5 And he wasn't even elected, right?

1:33:30 Speaker 4 No, no, he wasn't elected. He put, he put Chadekov as the head of the Jewish desk at the Ministry of Education. So the person who was in charge of Jewish education in Latvia, in the Latvian Foreign Min... In the Latvian, uh, Ministry of Education was Chadekov under Mark Edubin.

1:33:47 Speaker 5 And you have Chadekov has a similar history that he's really from Russia.

1:33:51 Speaker 4 Right.

1:33:52 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:33:52 Speaker 4 He's from those-

1:33:52 Speaker 5 He's from Lubavitch

1:33:53 Speaker 4 ... he's from those Jews who come from-

1:33:54 Speaker 5 He's Lubavitch from Russia

1:33:55 Speaker 4 ... right, everything's German. He went through educational... He went through Teira, Teira Veder Heretz, like they're, they're, they're, they're-

1:34:01 Speaker 5 Teira Veder Heretz.

1:34:01 Speaker 4 Yeah, but like-

1:34:02 Speaker 5 He's a Lubavitcher from Russia.

1:34:03 Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. He's, he's a, he's a Russian Jew. He was not, he's not a, you know, German.

1:34:06 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:34:07 Speaker 4 But, but they, they had a lot of that influence e-even in the Fruma Moistes. In, in, in, uh-

1:34:13 Speaker 5 Riga

1:34:13 Speaker 4 ... in, in Riga, it was, it was, uh, uh, had a lot of, like, that German, that German influence 'cause there, there were German Jews also. So German Jews and Russian Jews and anyway that what, what, what worked there, or at least what was, what was done there-

1:34:25 Speaker 5 It's the-

1:34:25 Speaker 4 ... wasn't like the regular Hasidisha or whatever, whatever was going on in Russia at least. It was, like, more like a, like a... Even the Fruma school.

1:34:33 Speaker 5 Teira Veder Heretz.

1:34:34 Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

1:34:35 Speaker 5 Okay.

1:34:36 Speaker 4 Um, the s- name of the school is Teira Vaaveda. Um, so the, the... So Mark Edubin was now in a position of power in 1927. He's in parliament. There was two members. He has Aguda, which is associated with Agudas Yisroel, but he's a Lubavitcher. Like, he's not taking his, his, his directions from anywhere else at all, ever. And i-adrav, he represented Chabad in Agu... Meaning the Fridy Karav's wishes and, and, and, and, and, yeah, and, and, and, and in, in, in, later in, uh... Before and after in general Aguda conferences.

1:35:16 Speaker 5 Right.

1:35:16 Speaker 4 He was very, very involved with the Knisi Agudas. Like, he was, he was, he was very involved.

1:35:20 Speaker 5 Especially the Fridy Karav moves to Riga, so yeah.

1:35:23 Speaker 4 Oh, for sure. But even, even before that, he, uh, there, there, there, there's, there's, um... Yes. So-

1:35:29 Speaker 5 So he was like the Fridy Karav's representative to Agudas Yisroel also?

1:35:33 Speaker 4 Mmm, yeah, like, like unofficial.

1:35:35 Speaker 5 Unofficially.

1:35:35 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yes, 100%. So, and he was very influential. He's wow, very, very... A big personality. He, he would sit in shul. He would daven very early in, in, in shul in, in, in one of the, one of the Chabad, uh, minyanim in, in Riga. He would daven early in the morning. He would stay to learn a perek Mishnahs with a group, and then he would go. And by the time, meaning wh-when he's already at the end of learning, there's, there were people already waiting for him by the shul, right? Waiting for his help.

1:36:06 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

1:36:07 Speaker 4 And then he would walk home, and those people are walking with him. And by his house, there was more people waiting already. He would stop by his house. He would go to the office, and basically the crowd around him would continue, would continue growing.

1:36:19 Speaker 5 Right.

1:36:20 Speaker 4 And we mentioned the, the Riga seaside, right? He would go there also. He went, you know, he's a gvir. He used to... He went to the dacha also. So in the summer, from, from Shavuot, I, I saw in a newspaper that in Shavuot he was already, he was already there. They mentioned him as a member, as a, as a mispall in one of the minyanima over there in, in the, in Bulduri or whatever, like in, in that area on the, on the beach. And w-when he would come back to the city, which is, it's, it's close, like half an hour or something. B- In the train station, people were already waiting for him. Right there, the same, the same thing. And they would follow him, and then he would go into ministries, and he would ha- He had, he had teams of, of secretaries dealing with things. And, and he ha- He would alw- He would emphasize the person who, who, um, who came from, from abroad, meaning who came from a town, you know, in the provinces to help them because this person is, is in Riga. Is... It's an expense for them every single day that they're in Riga, right? So he would, he would prioritize helping them first. But, uh, he helped a tremendous amount of people and was up, meaning working early and w- until the latest, latest hours of the day. So obviously, when the Fridy Karav, when this, when this comes up, then, then, then the Fridy Karav is

1:37:32 Speaker 4 arrested. And now Latvia... I wanna see when, when... I wrote it down. When did they... They signed the, the... They signed the trade deal. I think they signed, signed the trade deal in June 1927. The Latvians and the, and the, and the Soviets signed, signed this trade deal. It had been very, very hard to negotiate, like we said, it, because the Russians are the Russians, and the Latvians are paranoid and worried about what they're doing, like opening the door to, to, uh, to a, uh, you know, to your mortal enemy. So they, they... It took a long time, but they, they, they signed it, but it still needed to be ratified, right? They needed the, the parliament to vote on-

1:38:19 Speaker 5 Maybe the, the Latvian parliament

1:38:21 Speaker 4 ... to, yeah, to, to the Latvian parliament. So that's where Mark Edubin already played a very big role. The Fridy Karav writes that he came. He traveled three times the... Over that summer, he traveled three times to the Soviet Union, which is already like a... It's not a, it's not a simple thing, and talking to them on that, on that level, and, uh, uh, it was, was, was, was, uh, complicated. And they also... W-We know that the, that there was the German side, right? There was Meir Hildesheimer in, in, in the, in the, in the, uh, Leo Baeck, um, Oscar Cohen, and these people. And Oscar Cohen was really, was, w-was sent as a representative of the German Jews, um, to, to, to the Soviet Union also as part of this effort to, to, to, to save the Fridy Karav. And it's very clear that Mark Edubin and Oscar Cohen were, were, were... There they presented themselves as being on opposing sides, that they were fighting. Each one was fighting to bring the Fridy Karav to their place. He to Berlin, he to, to Riga. But it's very clear from newspapers at that time, like right after the Fridy Karav was out, it's very clear that they had been, that they had been, um, uh-

1:39:29 Speaker 5 They were working together

1:39:30 Speaker 4 ... working together. That they were working together through, through this, through this whole time. Oscar Cohen had very deep connections. He, he, he was personally friends, I think, with, with Chicherin that I mentioned, who had been part of with, with Voykov. He, he, he... 'Cause he was, like, from the left. He was a liber- He was a socialist, a Poale Zion. Whatever. He was, he was... He had been a member, like a Social Democrat member of the, of the, of the, of the parliament in, in, uh-

1:39:53 Speaker 5 So what was their interest in helping the Fridy Karav then? 'Cause-

1:39:56 Speaker 4 They're helping the Fridy Karav. The, the, the Hildesheimer, they, they... Meaning they... La-later on, they became very involved with the, with, with the Matzo campaign, Beites. They became very, very involved, very helpful. But they, they, they, they wanna help Eden. It's not a shock that they didn't wanna help, uh-

1:40:10 Speaker 5 I'm saying the Poale Zion, you know, there's, there's a whole history

1:40:11 Speaker 4 ... why, why, why him? I, I, I don't know. The truth is it's something, it's something-

1:40:15 Speaker 5 actually wrote about it in the Haaretz recently.

1:40:16 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:40:17 Speaker 5 About the Beitez scene. They were fighting the, the Bach-- the, the Bach and the Lubavitch. They were trying to get peop-- They were... They had... And there's a whole story.

1:40:23 Speaker 4 Right.

1:40:23 Speaker 5 Attacked a few of the Karaba physically.

1:40:25 Speaker 4 Right.

1:40:25 Speaker 5 Yeah, I guess it was a different time.

1:40:27 Speaker 4 Different time, different place, meaning these are the Russians, these are Germans. Whatever. Like the, the, the, the... I think it-- The Russian, the Russian branches of all these movements were always much more violently anti-religious and violently-

1:40:39 Speaker 5 Oh

1:40:39 Speaker 4 ... 'cause it was a... Whatever. I-

1:40:41 Speaker 5 I can imagine some of the Beitez scene maybe became Yevsektsiya.

1:40:44 Speaker 4 For sure, a hundred percent.

1:40:45 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:40:45 Speaker 4 A hundred percent.

1:40:46 Speaker 5 Okay.

1:40:47 Speaker 4 Um, yeah. So the, the, the, the... So the trade deal was, wa-was, was, was, was, was continuing at this time, and Mark Edubun traveled to, traveled to, traveled to Russia.

1:41:02 Speaker 5 So now it needs, it needs a vote now, right? It needs a vote-

1:41:02 Speaker 4 It needs the, it needs the vote

1:41:04 Speaker 5 ... in the parliament.

1:41:05 Speaker 4 And over that summer it was, it was, it was, um, impressed on the, on the Soviets, and, and Mark Edubun said this very, very clearly that I want... Meaning I want... You're asking, you're asking something from me. Was the, the, the, the, the, the votes were very... Meaning who was for what. The, the, the votes aligned in the, in the parliament were, were v-very obviously very split. You want these, these votes from me, and I'm asking you for one thing. I'm asking you for the rabbi. I w- I want this rabbi, and I want him to come. I want him to, to... And you're gonna give him, you're gonna allow him to go to, to Berlin, to Berlin-

1:41:42 Speaker 5 Yeah

1:41:42 Speaker 4 ... and we're gonna be mortally, mortally offended. And, uh, so this was a big, this was a, this was a big deal that was happening the entire time. And, uh, and, uh, the bottom line is that they wanted this, they wanted this, this trade deal, and that's back to again. They wanted this trade deal because there, they, there, there's this capitalist encirclement. You have to go back to that whole era of what's going on. So this is an important piece to them to stick it to the West side to, to peel Latvian, the Latvians away from the West. And, and by the way, the... all these things actually worked a little bit. The British were not happy with, with, with the Latvian trade deal, right? I, we already mentioned the, the, the Baltic states within themselves were not happy. So this whole sowing discord amongst them w-worked, and that's really the main piece of why the, the Soviets want and need this is because it fits into the wo- their worldview, and therefore they're going to sign this trade deal because they're really getting something much bigger than trade and some goods that, that from a country the size of West Virginia. They, they don't... That doesn't matter. The Soviet Union's an em- it's an empire at the end of the day. So, but there's a lot of things, and it's Soviet ideology itself that is dictating what's happened. That's what's so interesting is that they see capitalist encirclement, and they see trade deal, and

1:43:09 Speaker 4 they see we're gonna, we're, we are going to, to, to, to peel them off, and we're gonna, we're gonna go after Latvia in this way 'cause you have to do this, meaning there's a lot of work that needs to be done. But they see all of this, and it's worth w- worth it for us to expel this, this, this, this rabbi or to, to, to release this rabbi in order to make this, in order to make this, this happen.

1:43:29 Speaker 5 Soviets want it.

1:43:30 Speaker 4 They wanted it. And you see the extent of, of, of, of, of how high this went just by the people. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, there was a meeting of this Chicherin, of Litvinov, of, of, uh, Rochtin, a bunch of people. The, the ambassador, the, the Soviet ambassador to Latvia was there, who came in from Riga to go tell them how, how important this whole, this whole thing was, right? So that meeting is where they decided that, that the Free the Karaba can go. And if I'm not mistaken, that, uh, that, that's when they decided also the, the... 'cause the, the last sticking point was, um, the family, the family, his family and the, and the-

1:44:15 Speaker 5 They did

1:44:15 Speaker 4 ... and the library, right?

1:44:17 Speaker 5 They-

1:44:17 Speaker 4 The, the ten thousand, uh, ten thousand's farm-

1:44:19 Speaker 5 They didn't wanna let the, the, the family-

1:44:20 Speaker 4 They didn't... They want, they want to let only the Free the Karaba out himself, which obv-obviously was not gonna work without his family.

1:44:26 Speaker 5 And the Free the Karaba insisted that the, uh, that the, that the-

1:44:28 Speaker 4 His family and the library

1:44:29 Speaker 5 ... and they also let the Rebbe, which wasn't part of the family. It should be part of it also.

1:44:33 Speaker 4 Right, which still wasn't part of the family, and he insisted. Right. That's the famous story. Yeah. Like a son-in-law like this, you can't find anywhere else.

1:44:38 Speaker 5 Right.

1:44:38 Speaker 4 So yeah, a hundred percent. Um, and, and, and the Rebbe was like hiding out during that time in, in, in, in, um, I think Shi-Shi... What's his name? Shi Yoshov Cohen? The, the chief rabbi of, uh-

1:44:50 Speaker 5 Chief rabbi of Israel?

1:44:52 Speaker 4 Was he of Israel or Haifa? Was he... At some part of the whole Israel. I don't remember.

1:44:55 Speaker 5 Maybe not. But yeah, okay.

1:44:57 Speaker 4 He... Whoosh. His family, there was somebody who was like, the Rebbe was staying in their house in a, in a, in a... During this period. Uh, it, it, it seemed like the Rebbe was laying-

1:45:12 Speaker 5 He was-

1:45:12 Speaker 4 ... l- was laying low there in, in Lida or Luda or something, something like that.

1:45:16 Speaker 5 Not at Free the Karaba in Malachowka.

1:45:18 Speaker 4 No, no, no. Not at, not Malachowka.

1:45:19 Speaker 5 This was, this was before.

1:45:20 Speaker 4 The, the Free the Karaba, uh, the Rebbe did, well, did go to, and Mark Edubun was in, in Malachowka also during that time.

1:45:24 Speaker 5 And this is before as well he's telling the-

1:45:25 Speaker 4 Malachowka, for sure, there's a period where Mark Edubun was there and I, I don't know if convincing is the right word but was making the case to the Free the Karaba that, that, that, that it's, it's gonna be more effective to, to leave, that the, that the... And again, part of the reason why it would, it would be more effective for the Free the Karaba to leave. First of all, the situ-sita- the circumstances were to change and very, very quickly, right? After this becomes more, exponentially more dangerous, you know, uh, uh, g- moving forward. Um, and then, and then, uh, the other piece is That, uh-

1:46:04 Speaker 5 In general, you weren't allowed to emigrate.

1:46:06 Speaker 4 No, you're not allowed to leave. No.

1:46:06 Speaker 5 No one's, no one's allowed to leave.

1:46:07 Speaker 4 For sure not. Um, meaning you can get whatever. There was spe-special permission, but, um, the local KGB in, in, in Leningrad was out for blood 'cause they had been-

1:46:20 Speaker 5 They've been overruled

1:46:21 Speaker 4 ... they had done this, and they'd been overruled-

1:46:23 Speaker 5 Yeah

1:46:23 Speaker 4 ... and whatever, so they, they were out for-

1:46:24 Speaker 5 They're gonna arrest the Frierdiker Rebbe again.

1:46:26 Speaker 4 Y- yeah, that's basically... That, that, that, that, that's what was going on. So bottom line is that for the function of, of the Frierdiker Rebbe's work in, in, in, in the Soviet Union, the, the option was, the option was, uh, was to go. Um, and he went to Riga. And so he came to Riga, the Frierdiker Rebbe. He was escorted then by, by Mordechai Dubin was there, right?

1:46:47 Speaker 5 Yeah.

1:46:47 Speaker 4 They left Isrichad.

1:46:48 Speaker 5 Oh, you're jumping ahead.

1:46:50 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:46:50 Speaker 5 So Frierdiker Rebbe's released. Yubesh Tammuz.

1:46:52 Speaker 4 Yubesh Tammuz. Over the next summer-

1:46:54 Speaker 5 He goes to Malachofka

1:46:54 Speaker 4 ... for six weeks, the Frierdiker Rebbe was in Malachofka. No... Very few people were allowed to go there, right? There's the... I think there's, like, eyewitness accounts from Polikhan, whatever. There's very, very few people though al- were allowed to go there. Their rebbetzin was there. Their rebbetzin, like, our rebbetzin and, and their rebbe was there, uh, meaning visited there. Uh, Mordechai Dubin came there. But there were very, very few people. People were ordered not to, not to go there. This was specifically to be, you know, undercover. I think during that time, the Frierdiker Rebbe goes, went, went to Rostov for the last time.

1:47:22 Speaker 5 He went to the IO.

1:47:23 Speaker 4 Yeah. And, um, and, um, yeah. And then already Tish... So Tishrei was the last Tishrei in the, in the, in the, in the Soviet Union. So you remember, the second day of Rosh Hashanah was when, when this decision was, was made. Um, and then I think they, they, they, they, they told people in Leningrad not to, meaning they said, uh, that people shouldn't... Chassidim shouldn't come in to, for, for Tishrei. But I think people did and it continued. Like, more and more, they, they did-

1:47:57 Speaker 5 I think a lot of Chassidim made... had Besiat Hashem to come-

1:48:00 Speaker 4 Right

1:48:01 Speaker 5 ... for Simchat Torah and for Sukkot to the Frierdiker Rebbe 'cause they, the word got out that the Frierdiker Rebbe was leaving Russia-

1:48:05 Speaker 4 Right, right

1:48:06 Speaker 5 ... shortly afterwards, and that was the last opportunity-

1:48:08 Speaker 4 Right

1:48:08 Speaker 5 ... to see the Frierdiker Rebbe.

1:48:09 Speaker 4 And the Rebbe was not there. The Rebbe was by his parents. And, and-

1:48:11 Speaker 5 'Cause the Frierdike- 'cause the Rebbe was also leaving Russia.

1:48:15 Speaker 4 He left later, though. The Rebbe left, like, a week or two later.

1:48:18 Speaker 5 The same period, but then-

1:48:18 Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah, yeah

1:48:18 Speaker 5 ... I think that was the last time the, the Rebbe was spending time with his parents.

1:48:22 Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 100%.

1:48:23 Speaker 5 Until-

1:48:24 Speaker 4 So-

1:48:24 Speaker 5 Yeah. Because-

1:48:24 Speaker 4 So the, the... So then, then he came. He left the Frierdiker Rebbe and the family, everything. There was a whole... Right? They... There, there was a lot of people on the train. The Frierdiker Rebbe wrote a tr- a letter on the train to, to the Chassidim left behind in Russia. Um-

1:48:36 Speaker 5 There's a lot of stories. There's the story of Chaim Alter.

1:48:38 Speaker 4 Right. There's, there, there's, there's... And, and they went, and they went until, um, they got off. I think they got off, like, before... Meaning Rabbanim in, Chassidim in, in Russia, a group of them at least got off before the train continued on. And Mordechai Dubin and the family, whatever, everybody was there until they, they came to Riga, and there was a big, uh, there was a big, um, celebration. I think it was Friday morning. I think it was Erev Shabbos that the Frierdiker Rebbe came, Isrichad, and, uh, arrived in-

1:49:06 Speaker 5 The day after he left?

1:49:07 Speaker 4 Yeah.

1:49:07 Speaker 5 Okay.

1:49:07 Speaker 4 Yeah, right away. And, uh, he arrived in Riga, and the vote to ratify the Latvian trade deal took place a week later-

1:49:20 Speaker 5 Hmm

1:49:20 Speaker 4 ... or five days later, even four days later, something like that. There was a midnight vote, which if you look at the votes, the votes were 52 to, uh, to 45 with a few abstentions. But so the, the... Mordechai Dubin's two votes-

1:49:32 Speaker 5 Broke the vote

1:49:32 Speaker 4 ... meaning, yeah, the, the, the... You see it was 52 that passed it.

1:49:36 Speaker 5 It needed, it needed-

1:49:37 Speaker 4 And the newspapers at that time in Latvia, they, they, they make reference to this frequently, that saying, "We're running a crazy..." Oh, yeah, they had tidiness about, about how the, the political system in, in Latvia, that little political parties have so much control. It's like one of these places. And later on, they used this as an excuse. Like, the, the dictator used this on a, as a... Not this case in particular, but, like, the kind of the broken, that it was very hard to get things done because all these little parties, whatever.

1:50:02 Speaker 5 Well, in general, that's the parliamentary systems. That's how it works, right?

1:50:04 Speaker 4 Yeah, but then some... Yeah. So, so, um, so they said, like Mordechai Dubin, he was against the trade deal, and then hoy, he gets to the Lambard River, and now he's for it. So I don't know what he was portraying to the, to the, to the... That tells you that he was, he was... Now we're looking at it, and he was f- you know, he had this plan the entire time. But it w- it appears that he publicly, in Latvia, for m- weeks or for months even, was portraying himself as an opponent to the deal. Because I saw already two different news p- news articles referencing this, this bit, and they're like, "This is ridiculous." Okay, very good. We're, we're happy that the... I think one of them goes like, "We're happy that the Lambard River is here and free, but, like, you, you can't run a country like this." Like, because he got the Lambard River, so now we're gonna change our whole, you know, ma-ma-make this massive ma-massive, uh, um, um, change, which is, like, almost rapprochement with the, with the Soviet Union, right? Like, like these are... They, they, they, they, they're... And, and their paranoia wasn't, wasn't false, right? They, they... The, the, the Russians, the Russian- Russians marched in within 12, 13 years of, of, of this, uh-

1:51:11 Speaker 5 They took over Riga

1:51:12 Speaker 4 ... took over the entire Latvia. Yeah, all the Baltics. But they, they, they took over. So it's not like they were-

1:51:17 Speaker 5 And sadly, uh, sadly-

1:51:17 Speaker 4 ... they were saying something crazy. Not that the trade deal changed anything, but that's, uh, that's, that's the, the... You know, their w- fears were warranted.

1:51:25 Speaker 5 And sadly, Mordechai Dubin, the Russians got to Mordechai Dubin himself.

1:51:30 Speaker 4 So, so yeah. So that was, that was, that was, that was later. That was later. Okay, so the Frierdiker Rebbe came to, to Riga. He was in, in, in, in, in, in Riga during this time. The trade deal passed. So anyway, just to, to finish off on this, on this, on this piece, now you look at the sicha where the Rebbe was saying that it's of what you see, Gimel Tammuz. Gimel Tammuz in particular, you see all these... And, and the, the, the, the... This entire miracle is happening within The world of communism in a real, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a very, very real way. It's the lo- it's, it's by their own logic that it takes place. The Rebbe uses even a lotion like that, that, that the, that the teva agrees kaveyachol to what, to, to what's... That's what you see. And I think that's, that's, that's the most amazing thing that you're, you're able to pull out when you, when you look at it in, in, uh, in the broader context. When you read up, you see it coming through in a, in a very real way. I wanna add one, one, one, one thing that in general, it's like we, we learned about these stories about the Soviet U- uh, b-about Mr. Schnapfisch in, in, in Russia, in the Soviet Union, what Chassidim did. So at first it's, um, it's like a camp play, right? That's what you're told. You're told, "Here's, here's the good guys,

1:53:05 Speaker 4 here are the bad guys. They were arrested." Why? They were arrested because they were Chassidim of the, of the, of the Rabbeim, and they knew, da, da, da, da. Okay, this is the way, the way it is. We have camp plays like this, but it's like rah, rah. So then you get a little older, and you go, "Wait a second. No." And there's like the, you know, the cynical line of, uh, of, um, of, um, they were, it was time, they were, they were, um, uh, specula- s-s-speculation, right? They, "Oh, what did they get arrested for?" Speculation. Nothing to do with the different... And you're like, "Oh, so-"

1:53:36 Speaker 5 What does that mean, speculation?

1:53:37 Speaker 4 Speculation, like the, some kind of economic crimes or whatever that-

1:53:40 Speaker 5 Oh, okay

1:53:41 Speaker 4 ... obviously Chassidim, everyone was involved with economic crimes. If you're making a living for your family, you're, you're... But like, uh, kilul, that, that's the reason why Chassidim were, were gone after, were, were, were hunted down in the Soviet Union. So then you look at that. So you're like a little older, and you're a little more mature, and you're like, "Oh, so it wasn't such a big deal." Meaning, whatever. Okay, it's nice, but it's not such a big deal. Then I think what I find is that you go a little bit further, you're like, "No, no, no. It was right in the first place."

1:54:08 Speaker 5 Right.

1:54:08 Speaker 4 And much more so than you can ever imagine. That when the Rebbe brings out a detail, it's, it's, it's not just a nice little... No, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's real and true on many, many, many different levels. And, and okay, you have to work, do the work of, of putting all those pieces together. But I was reading Stephen Kotkin's book on Stalin, and like the whole piece on this period, right? The last, I don't know, 60 pages, 80 pages of the book, something like that, are, are specifically about this, about this period or, or this, this, th- this time. It's the... You can... My, my, my volume is, is l- all noted down, all because I already see what, what, what's going on vis-a-vis Yud Beis Tammuz. And by the way, even in the bigger picture, in terms of like we're talking about this trade deal and whatever, the Friediker Rebbe, the Friediker Rebbe left the Soviet Union in October of 19- 1927. Stalin consolidated power, finished consolidating power, same time, the same exact time. The, the, the front page of the, of the Riga Free Market, the newspaper in Riga, which, which has a picture of the Friediker Rebbe and says, "He came, and we're gonna have a special report," and whatever. That same thing has an item about Trotsky and Zinoviev, these Jewish whatever, but like, uh, kind of independent power base, power bases of, o- o- of independent, uh, uh, uh, of Stalin on the central committee in, in the Communist

1:55:36 Speaker 4 Party in the Soviet Union were expelled from the central committee. That's already the beginning of the end of any opposition to Stalin in the Soviet Union, and that's already the beginning of the end of... Meaning it's, it's, we're now entering a new tekufa. So, you can say black and white that this period of 1927, when the Friediker Rebbe leaves the Soviet Union, a new period of, of Soviet history begins, not just from our perspective, but from, from, from objective Soviet perspective of what, of, of, of the history. And, and, and what I believe, what I think, and what I s- the way that, the prism that I see it through is I don't know which one is more import-- Meaning, I think those thing, those events are happening around our events, right? It's not that there's events going on, and our events are somewhere circling, circling nearby, right? We're like somehow impacted a little bit by the waves. No. The history, this is, this is, this is the main thrust of history. What happened to the Friediker Rebbe, what's going on, this trade deal, that-

1:56:44 Speaker 5 You're saying, you're saying, you're saying that's our outlook, or that's like the-

1:56:46 Speaker 4 That's the way I see it.

1:56:47 Speaker 5 Okay, yeah.

1:56:47 Speaker 4 Meaning our outlook, I don't know. It's not like, like, uh, it's not... It just, that, that's, that's the way I, that's the way that I personally see it. And you see, when you start looking at it in that way, you see all these other pieces exactly. Like Stalin came, uh, uh, consolidates power when? Then. It's like to the day. That's, that's, that's tremendous. And then, and then, and then move on. Whatever. And then, and then goes on, and there's, there's, there's, uh, uh, you know, more, more, more, more, um, chapters that continue, and all that, all that, all that continues. I can, can make the same argument, uh, about 1950, 1951, whatever, that there's a new tekufa there-

1:57:25 Speaker 5 With Stalin

1:57:25 Speaker 4 ... there, there as well. 100%, 100%. Whatever. It's for a different conversation. But like that's the, that's, that's what's... Anyway, so the camp play version, maybe it's a little bit sometimes unsophisticated the way we say it.

1:57:37 Speaker 5 Right.

1:57:37 Speaker 4 But if you look at, you look at the s- the, the, the Soviet charging documents, uh, they're, they're amazing. There's, there's Chassidim being charged with having a picture of the Friediker Rebbe. That's black and white. You have that. There was... I wrote an article, uh, last year, two years ago. I, well, I published, uh, uh, and I translated a memo to Abakumov, who was the head of the KGB, right? Abakumov. This is 1949, 1950. Uh, it's, it's, it's detailing the, the Tadik Schneersohn is in New York, and, and, and, and the Chassidim tried crossing the border and whatever. But it's not being written from one KGB man to another. It's not within a case file, right? Case files, everyone has a case file. Like, I mean, if, if you're arrested and there's hundreds of pages on you, fine, great. No, this is to the head of the KGB in Moscow, who's reporting directly to Stalin.

1:58:29 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

1:58:30 Speaker 4 And, and, and it's a whole detail... It's a, it's a detailed memo of, of whatever. I don't know. Four Chassidim tried crossing the border and, and, and, and got arrested. And Moshe Greenberg, tho-tho-tho-tho-that group of people tried crossing into, into Romania. Why? Uh, Lepkovsky, Yunik.

1:58:49 Speaker 5 So it wasn't four peop- ... The, the communists didn't look at, look at it as four people.

1:58:52 Speaker 4 No, they see it as a... Look, w- I mean, they're, they're-- They see it as something. They, they, they didn't come to Gan Yisroel and see it like, "Oh, it's important." No, they, they see it in this way th- on their own.

1:59:01 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

1:59:02 Speaker 4 But by the way, these guys all got 25 years, meaning in that, in that period. They got 25 years, uh, uh, uh, se- 25-year sentences, which was at that time the highest sentence in the Soviet Union. So that's, that's the, that, that's the fact that they're, they're looking at like... And, and, and, and, and so when, when... Because that's the bottom line, that Chassidim are seen as a Jews are the enemy. Chassidim as, are seen as a organization, as a counter-revolutionary organization that's fighting to take us down, and their rebbe is seen as the, as the, the head of this counter-revolution. And besides for the fact that they believe that that, that to be true, which means at least on their end it's true, right? So that on our end it's true as well, meaning you see it also. Okay? So we're not there to actively take apart the Soviet Union. But if, if, if you-

1:59:53 Speaker 5 We're there to fight it

1:59:54 Speaker 4 ... if you're, if you're, if you're, uh, if you're a Yid and you do Torah and mitzvahs in, in the Soviet Union, then, then meaning it's implicit over there in, in, in the Klach Bais Hamikdash where the Rebbe was talking about it. It's like it's implicit that the whole thing is gonna fall because, because of what the power that you have to do it. Our goal is not democracy. Our goal is Torah and mitzvahs. But through Torah and mitzvahs, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're destroying. Anyway, so that, I think you see that in the story of Yu- of Yud Beis Tammuz, and you see that in the trajectory and, um, I think that's an amazing, uh, it's an amazing thing when you, when you open your eyes to be able to look at it that way.

2:00:26 Speaker 5 Yeah. And it gives us a deeper understanding in the letter that the Frierdiker Rebbe wrote, that the Rebbe quotes probably every Yud Beis Tammuz that-

2:00:33 Speaker 4 Right

2:00:33 Speaker 5 ... "Lo eisi bevad, gaul haKadosh, Baruch Hu." Not only was I freed-

2:00:37 Speaker 4 Right

2:00:37 Speaker 5 ... "Ve kol machavevei teirisenu hakdesha, kol sheimrei mitzvah, kol asher beshem Yisroel yichuda." Every single Yid was, has a part in the m-miracle of Yud Beis Tammuz. It's not just the P- Frierdiker Rebbe's personal imprisonment. So the way, I think having this informative and historical background and understanding of it really helps us understand these words, how Yud Beis Tammuz is a Yom Tov for sure for all Chassidim but for-

2:01:04 Speaker 4 For everybody

2:01:04 Speaker 5 ... klal, klal Yisroel.

2:01:05 Speaker 4 100%.

2:01:06 Speaker 5 Yeah.

2:01:06 Speaker 4 100%. 100%. Because when the Rebbeim are looking at something, when the Frierdiker Rebbe is writing something, when the Rebbe is referring to it, there's no two separations. There's no two different worlds. There's one world. The Rebbe knows. The Rebbe mentions Voykov, the ambassador. Darkagov, he just mentions him here and there. I don't think it's very commonly brought up, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know. I'm not, uh, you know... But, like, I, I don't think it... It's not, like, regularly always brought up. But there's a lot of these asides where the Rebbe mentions. It's coming with all of that knowledge and knowing what it all means and, and, and, and so there's, there's l- there's layers to all of it, and the Rebbe means all of them. It's not Torah is one thing and, and the other. No, this is all Torah.

2:01:52 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

2:01:52 Speaker 4 So that's, that's, that's, that's the, that's the... You, you could, you could, you, uh... Yeah. When you, when you see all those, all those other parts, you're able to, you're able to see now that literally every, every el-element, element of the story is exactly as the Rebbe said it, which is what? A nes melubesh in teva, which, which, which, which, um, yeah, I guess is the, right? The gimel Tam- uh, gimel Tammuz, Yud Beis Tammuz is the schar tidigula. So that's, that's, uh, l'chayim also, you know. Continues on. This entire thing that everything happens within teva is, is, is, begins there and continues, uh, continues to, to our day.

2:02:34 Speaker 5 Amazing. Okay. Thank you very much. Very, very Gishmek and informative, and, uh, I'm sure many people will enjoy it.

2:02:42 Speaker 4 Thank you very, very much. I appreciate it.

2:02:44 Speaker 5 Okay. Hatzlocha rabba.