‘Voices of Ascent: The Return of the Soviet Jews to Israel’ on Display at Carleton College

An exhibition titled “Voices of Ascent: The Return of the Soviet Jews to Israel” will be on display at Carleton College’s Gould Library through Friday, Nov. 30. The exhibit is a collaborative work of photographer Patricia Dalzell of Virginia and writer Michele Clark, a 1974 Carleton graduate, of Washington, D.C. It tells the story of the return of Soviet Jews to Israel and how that journey continues to affect Jews’ lives.

The exhibition premiered in the Russell Rotunda of the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C., in September 2000. It commemorated the 10 year anniversary of the peak exodus of Soviet Jews to Israel, and was sponsored by the United States Helsinki Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and the former National Conference on Soviet Jewry.

The release of the Jews from the former Soviet Union has been characterized as one of the most compelling events of the 20th century. For decades, Soviet Jews were imprisoned for their religious activism, denied the right to emigrate, and suffered a second-class status within their country of birth.

Following Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost, the Soviet government finally permitted Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel in 1989. Some 200,000 people immigrated to Israel in 1990, marking a significant milestone for Soviet Jews and their advocates.

Clark spent five years in Haifa, Israel, where she volunteered in an assistance center for recent Russian Jewish immigrants. Her experiences there were the inspiration for this exhibit. Dalzell has been a professional portrait photographer for over twenty years. She collaborated with Clark in Israel for two years.

This event is free and open to the public. For disability accommodations please call (507) 646-4309.