Fear No Evil

"Fear No Evil is an autobiography of Natan Sharansky, a Russian Jewish dissident who was imprisoned. The Soviet Union basically repressed all expressions of Judaism and forbade Jews from leaving for Israel . As a student in Moscow, exposure to Judaism led Natan to feel that lacking freedom of conscience is like a living death. He becomes a human rights activist and applies for a visa to emigrate to Israel. He is thrown in a gulag, tortured and held in solitary confinement for years. The campaign for his release, which his wife undertook, led to a worldwide campaign for the freedom of all Soviet Jews. Sharansky’s story is, in essence, about resistance to a coercive empire that punished people who didn’t conform. It echoes the story of the Maccabees. He describes being stripped of his menorah in the gulag and how he tricks a warden to light the candelabra with him. As he writes in his book, he was inspired by the Hanukkah story."