This past February 11 marked the 40th anniversary of one of the most consequential moments in modern Jewish history: the release of Natan Sharansky from Soviet prison.

In 1986, Sharansky, then the world’s most famous Soviet Jewish dissident, walked across the Glienicke Bridge from East Germany into the West, ending nine years of imprisonment and forced labor. His liberation was more than a personal victory. It marked the culmination of a global movement that united governments, activists, and ordinary citizens around a single demand for freedom.

For Stan Polovets, co-founder and chairman of The Genesis Prize Foundation, the anniversary is both historic and deeply personal. “Natan’s journey,” he says, “helped shape how an entire generation understood Jewish identity, moral courage, and responsibility.”

“For those who may not know Natan Sharansky, his story is not simply about the Soviet past – it is about the power of one person’s moral courage to change history,” Stan Polovets reflects. “He was an ordinary citizen who refused to surrender his identity or repeat a lie, even when it cost him many years in prison. That decision helped inspire a global movement and ultimately opened the gates for more than a million Jews to leave the Soviet Union.”

“At a time when antisemitism is rising, and truth itself often feels negotiable,” Polovets adds, “Sharansky’s life reminds us that clarity and conviction still matter. Forty years after his release, his story is not just inspirational. It is instructive.”

Born in 1948 in what is now Donetsk, Ukraine, Sharansky was a gifted mathematician and chess prodigy. In the early 1970s, he abandoned a promising scientific career to join the refusenik movement, Soviet Jews denied permission to emigrate to Israel. The Soviet regime treated such requests as acts of treason. Sharansky soon emerged as a leading spokesman for the movement, working closely with physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov. In 1977, the KGB arrested Sharansky on fabricated charges of espionage and anti-Soviet agitation, leading to years of solitary confinement and brutal labor camps.

“When Natan speaks about refusing to live a lie, he’s not speaking in metaphor. He lived it,” Stan Polovets says. “The moment he stopped pretending the Soviet system was legitimate, he became internally free, even before he was physically free.” That idea, Polovets notes, has stayed with him for decades as a reminder that moral clarity precedes real change.

While Sharansky endured harsh prison life, his wife Avital became the face of an unprecedented international campaign for his release. The “Let My People Go” movement mobilized Jewish communities, human rights advocates, and world leaders. U.S. President Ronald Reagan personally raised Sharansky’s case with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, helping make Soviet Jewry a diplomatic priority.

Sharansky’s release in 1986 was the first freeing of a political prisoner under Gorbachev. Within a few years, Soviet policy shifted dramatically, allowing mass Jewish emigration. For Stan Polovets, Sharansky’s release demonstrated the enduring power of coordinated advocacy. “The campaign to free Soviet Jews showed that sustained, coordinated action across borders can move governments and change policies,” he observed. “That lesson remains relevant today.”

For many people, surviving nine years in Soviet prisons would have defined their lives. For Sharansky, Stan Polovets says, it became the foundation for everything that followed. “Over the next forty years, Natan worked tirelessly to strengthen Israel’s democracy, help Soviet Jews escape oppression, and reinforce the bonds between Israel and the Diaspora. What impresses me most is the consistency of his values across decades and across activities.”

That moral consistency also shaped the Genesis Prize. “When we were creating the Genesis Prize, Natan helped us think through what the Prize should stand for,” Stan Polovets recalls. “He insisted that it couldn’t just honor success; it had to link Jewish achievement with Jewish responsibility. Sharansky also helped connect the initiative with Israel’s leadership and articulate why its premise was important to strengthening the bonds between Israel and the global Jewish community.

In 2020, the Genesis Prize Foundation awarded Sharansky the Genesis Prize in recognition of his lifelong struggle for political and religious freedom. True to his principles, Sharansky chose to forgo the $1 million award, directing the funds instead to organizations supporting vulnerable populations during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stan Polovets recalls seeing Sharansky speak on the National Mall decades after Sharansky spoke from the same spot at the Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews. “Seeing Natan speak in 2023 brought everything full circle for me,” he says. “In 1987, he spoke of a people, Soviet Jews, demanding freedom. In 2023, shortly after the horrific October 7^th Hamas attack on Israel, Natan reminded us that freedom and the ability to defend Israel also require defending the truth. Different eras; same moral voice.”

As Jewish communities around the world marked the 40th anniversary of Sharansky’s release, the moment served as both remembrance and lesson. It underscores what collective action can achieve, and what moral courage demands. Four decades on, Sharansky’s journey from Soviet prisons to global symbol of freedom remains a powerful testament to Jewish pride, democratic values, and the enduring power of truth.