Euroasian Jewish News

Efraim Sevela

EAJC Condolences On Death of Efraim Sevela

It is with deep regret that we have learned of the passing of writer, filmwright, and producer Efraim Sevela. His life and works are true mirrors of an entire epoch, in which falsehood, cynicism, and indifference were most curiously mixed with goodness, changes, and hope.

Sevela never parted with hope - not through the Great Patriotic War, when he, merely a child, participated in combat, not when he was alone and homeless, nor during the years of the Jewish battle for the right to repatriate. Soviet authorities forced him to use this right and threw him out of the country. He was one of those who provided the moral foundation for the freedom of Soviet Jews.

Hope nurtured his works, whatever their subject and wherever he wrote. Sevela shared his ruthless insight and unique bitter humor with his readers in the Soviet Union, in Israel, in America, in modern Russia, and was loved for them by millions of diversely-tounged readers. He wrote and produced plays about many subjects and many people; wrote with talent, without deceit and sleaze. He was one of us, one of those for whom hope is both the essence of existence and a hymn to it.

We grieve together with all family and friends of the deceased, and pray to the Almighty for succor.

Alexander Mashkevich, EAJC President

Michael Chlenov, EAJC Secretary General

Josef Zisels, EAJC General Council Chairman

Yuri Raskin, EAJC Executive Vice President