9th Annual Herbert H. and Irma B. Risch Memorial Program on Immigration: Stateless
On Sunday, April 26, the JMM in partnership with the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, the Gordon Center for Performing Arts and the Baltimore Jewish Film Festival held the 9th annual Herbert H. and Irma B. Risch Memorial Program on Immigration. Each year, thanks the generosity of Helen and Frank Risch, the JMM holds a program exploring immigration. Past programs have featured scholars, activists, storytellers and performers. This year we presented a film screening, Stateless, that documents a little known story that impacted tens of thousands of Soviet Jewish immigrants who sought safe haven in the US in the late 1980s.
Stateless’s director, Michael Drob, was inspired by his own personal experiences as a child when his parents made the difficult decision to emigrate from Latvia to the US in 1988. The document features interviews with several families – including his parents – who describe how difficult life was under the Soviets, the challenges they faced leaving and the chaos they encountered as they passed through customs and boarded trains on their way to Vienna and then Italy. Sadly for many immigrants, the situation did not improve in Italy as their applications for visas to the US were denied because they were forced to prove that they had been persecuted in the Soviet Union. Thousands of immigrants found themselves stranded in Italy for many months until the US policy changed following the passage of legislation and they were allowed to proceed to the US.
We were privileged to have three distinguished guests in attendance with ties to the film– director, Michael Drob; author, Lev Golinkin; and HIAS director, Mark Hetfield – who participated in a panel discussion following the film. The three panelists shared additional insight about the events depicted in the film and fielded questions from curious audience members. Attendees also had the opportunity to purchase copies of Mr. Golinkin’s book, A Backpack, A Bear and Eight Crates of Vodka which details his experiences as a child refugee from the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
The Gordon Center proved to be a beautiful setting for the program and we were delighted to see more than 400 people in attendance including representation from Baltimore’s Russian community. I was moved to hear so many people speak of their own personal experiences as immigrants during this time period. Many more talked about how surprised they were to learn about the events depicted in the film.
Frank and Helen Risch established the Herbert H. and Irma B. Risch Memorial Program in order to honor Frank’s parents who were refugees from Germany who escaped to Baltimore in the 1930s. Each year’s program shines a light on the importance of immigration to contemporary Jewish life and inspires conversation and dialog on this topic. We are grateful to the Risches for giving us this opportunity.