Triumph Over Tyranny is the most complete account to date of the remarkable stories of courageous people to change the policies of a totalitarian regime. It is a panorama of the history of the international Soviet Jewry movement and the fight for human rights in the former Soviet Union. This is the first book in English to reveal some of the clandestine activities of the Chabad movement to keep Judaism alive in the Soviet Union during the regimes of Stalin and Khrushchev. It discloses the dramatic story of the Israeli government's secret missions to contact and aid Soviet Jews in their quest to emigrate from an oppressive regime and live as Jews in Israel. Quoting from newly translated KGB documents, the book shows how leaders in the Kremlin rationalized their brutal and repressive actions. Motivated by their realization that European Jews had been abandoned to suffer the horrors of the Holocaust, the activists in the U.S.S.R. and abroad were determined to give meaning to the slogan "Never Again!" They waged successful campaigns to save their brethren, the Jews of the Soviet Union who courageously refused to be victims.
About the Author
Philip Spiegel and his wife, Carolyn Kommel Spiegel, traveled to the Soviet Union in 1985 and 1987 as participants in the Moscow Marathon. They also visited and befriended refuseniks in Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. When they returned to California the Spiegels gave numerous talks about their findings in the Soviet Union and organized letter writing campaigns supporting resfuseniks and prisoners of conscience.
From 1985 to 1995 the Spiegels served on the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews. During this time the author was chairman of the Social Action Committee of Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto and represented the congregation on the local Jewish Community Relations Council.
During his professional career in the electronics industry Spiegel authored technical papers, marketing materials and training courses. In 2000 he wrote and published Remembering Ottynia, a 64-page book about his parents' hometown in Ukraine. Copies of the book were donated to several Holocaust museums in the United States and Israel and the book was accepted by Yad Vashem as a Yizkor (memorial) book.
From 2002 to 2008 Spiegel has researched the history of the international Soviet Jewry movement and interviewed over 200 activists, political leaders, former refuseniks and prisoners of conscience. In 2006 he developed and taught "The Journey of Soviet Jewry," a five-session course for Lehrhaus Judaiaca, the Adult School for Jewish Studies in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since October 2008 when TRIUMPH OVER TYRANNY was published Spiegel has lectured about the subject of his book at Harvard, Columbia, and dozens of synagogues, churches, libraries and community organizations in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York.
