This mother-daughter team will captive the audience in the combined story of two generations: Sylva's daring escape attempt from the USSR and Anat's award winning documentary, made 45 years after the event: Operation Wedding.
Sylva Zalmanson Artist, former renowned Activist for Human Rights & Engineer
Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov An Israeli filmmaker.
1. Q&A followed the film screening.
2. Lecture with slideshow presentation.
Contact anat.zk.email@gmail.com
Languages Hebrew, English
Based in Israel, Center. Available to travel abroad or join on skype.
Operation Wedding, trailer
Biographies
Today Sylva Zalmanson lives in Israel and was recently honored as part of Jerusalem Post Russian-Speaking Jews who shaped Israel in Zionism.
In the 1970's she made headlines as a Soviet refusenik, a Prisoner of Zion, whose unwavering courage and dignity, even while in captivity, made her a symbol of freedom and faith.
Born in 1944, Sylva grow up in a traditional Jewish Zionist family in Riga.When Sylva was 20, she started her Zionist activity which included spreading Hebrew teaching books to USSR Zionist groups in different cities.She graduated with a degree in engineering from the Riga Polytechnic University. Zalmanson had dreams of making a home in Israel.At the age of 25, in 1970, after repeatedly being denied exit from the Soviet Union, Sylva, her husband then Edward Kuznetsov, two brothers and 12 other Zionist activists, were arrested by the KGB for an escape attemt from the USSR.Also known as “Dymshits-Kuznetsov Hijacking Affair” or “The First Leningrad Trial” or “Operation Wedding” a code name for a plan to take an empty plane outside the Soviet borders, over to Sweden, bound for Israel.Young, fearless, and the only woman in the dock, Sylva was ordered to stand and state her case. She proclaimed: “Even here, on trial, I still believe I’ll make it someday to Israel. This dream, illuminated by 2,000 years of hope, will never leave me. Next year in Jerusalem!” The first Leningrad trial was broadcast around the world, creating furious street protests in America, Australia, Europe, and Israel, triggering an international outcry from 24 governments.Sylva’s sentence was 10 years imprisonment but due to pressure on the world audience, released after 4 years and arrived in Israel.“For me, the idea of freedom became a goal in life which was more important than anything else, for which I was willing to do anything. I moved toward this goal without looking back, no matter what. My freedom was connected to my homeland, Israel.” Sylva Zalmanson After four years in the gulag and a worldwide campaign on her behalf, Zalmanson was freed. Arriving in Israel in 1974, she fought for the release of her two brothers, her husband – whose death sentence was commuted to 15 years hard labor – and other Prisoners of Zion, raising the cause with world leaders and holding a 16-day hunger strike at the United Nations.Eventually her pressure, and that of numerous other activists and world leaders, bore fruit, and most of the defendants were released before the end of their terms.In 1979, after nine years apart, Zalmanson and Kuznetsov reunited in Israel; a year later the couple had a daughter, Anat, who is now a filmmaker.
Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov is an Israeli filmmaker. Known for her award-winning documentary
"Operation Wedding", about her parents escape attempt from the USSR - an event that kickstarted the movement to Free Soviet Jewry.
Anat studied filmmaking at the prestigious London Film School in England.
She had co-directed and created the online educational Refusenik Project, along with The Lookstein Center of Bar-Ilan University in 2018.
Anat is now developing a production for a feature film based on her father's book "Prison Diaries" and her documentary "Operation Wedding".
"I carry both my parents’ names.
Growing up, everybody knew about this event, but over the years it started to fade away from the public's collective memory. Though there are many films trying to describe this fascinating story, they only give a short 5 minute description and the only full length films about this event were made in Russia 2010. Those films are calling the group members "terrorists" and they re-write history – false imaginary history, or as my father calls it "documentary fairytales".
I realized that the faith of public memory is on my shoulders. This is an inspiring story that remind us all that civilians have power and even one person can change history, but would have to be willing to pay the price…"
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