Page 241 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

Ari Wolvowski was released from prison in 1987, during the initial stages of the Soviet Union's collapse. Shortly after his release, his twenty-year-old daughter Kyra received an exit visa and made Aliya. Several months later he and his wife Milla also received exit visas, made Aliya to Israel and settled in Efrat in the Gush Etzion.
The Contribution of the Radio Broadcasts
An important contribution to the huge "Let My People Go!" Operation was made by the radio broadcasts from Israel that were received well in the Soviet Union and particularly in the hearts of many Jews. The Jewish Agency began this by establishing and financing "Kol Zion LaGola" (Voice of Zion to the Exile) in the Fifties. This was continued with the Foreign Broadcasting Division of the Broadcasting Authority.
At first, the program's editors and presenters (in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew and in a later period in English as well) were uncertain that they even had listeners, but after receiving the letter of the 18 Georgian families, the dam broke and listenership swelled with each passing month. In these broadcasts, an effort was made not to intervene in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union while simultaneously reacting to each news item and event concerning the Jews there. On more than one occasion, the news that a Zionist activist was arrested in Moscow or Kiev was broadcast even before the police completed its investigation on his matter. Beginning in the late Sixties, and over the following twenty years, the broadcasts from Jerusalem, which were considered particularly reliable, were received in hundreds of thousands of Jewish homes throughout the huge expanses of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Jewry knew that there was someone who was tracking them at every moment and immediately reporting upon the happenings therein.
The Soviet Government attempted to jam the transmissions from Jerusalem and Israel purchased special equipment to "jam the jammers." Tiny Israel overcame the Russian bear and the Jews in Russia did not hide their pride.
Among the Olim that arrived from the Soviet Union beginning in the early Seventies, a custom emerged whereby they would go up to Jerusalem shortly after landing in Israel and visiting two locations: The Western Wall and the "Kol Israel" studio that transmitted via short waves the tidings of Zion to the "Silent Jewry" until the day of its release.
The Acceptance of "Dropouts" in the Seventies
The Jews that left the Soviet Union in Israel's first decades did so after the "Nativ" personnel arranged Israeli "demands" for them and presented evidence to the Soviet authorities that they have entry visas to Israel. Since there were no direct flights from Moscow to Israel, many Jews who
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