OperationWedding_ClubZ

"Operation Wedding" Screening and Panel

  • 3/11/2021
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    ​The Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest and Club Z invite you to a screening and discussion.

    About this Event
    Leningrad, 1970. A group of young Soviet Jews who were denied exit visas, plots to “hijack” an empty plane and escape the USSR.

    ​It started as a fantasy, Operation Wedding, as outrageous as it was simple: Under the disguise of a trip to a local family wedding, the group members would buy every ticket on a small 12-seater plane, so there would be no passengers but them, no innocents in harm’s way. The group’s pilot would take over the controls and fly the 16 runaways into the sky, over the Soviet border, on to Sweden, bound for Israel.

    Caught by the KGB a few steps from boarding, they were sentenced to years in the gulag and two were sentenced to death; they never got on a plane.

    Operation Wedding is a documentary film about the Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair, an escape attempt from the Soviet Union by a group of young Soviet, mostly Jewish, who were denied exit visas. The documentary is told from a personal point of view of the filmmaker, Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov, daughter of group members: Eduard Kuznetsov and Sylva Zalmanson.


    This panel will be moderated by Masha Merkulova, Founder & Executive Director, Club Z.

    Guests include:

    -Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetsov, Filmmaker

    -Sylva Zalmanson, Refusenik

    -Shlomi Kofman, Consul General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest

    -Danny Grossman, CEO, San Francisco Jewish Federation


    Register for the discussion and receive a link to watch the film FREE for 3 days before the event or the day after. Screening link will be EMAILED closer to event date, along with a link to the March 21st webinar.


    Register now!