Against All Odds

by Rabbi Gedaliah Fleer, Breslov Research Institute

The odds were totally stacked against him. On one side stood his teachers and friends, who wished they could come along but were too frightened to try. On the other side stood a most formidable enemy: Communist Russia, land of the secret police, Siberian exile, and ruthless religious oppression. In the center was the goal: to pray at the gravesite of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov in Uman, Ukraine, which was off-limits to foreigners. How could a young chassid from New York do the impossible and break through the Iron Curtain?

Unbelievably, he succeeded. And his book, Against All Odds, tells how in spellbinding detail. Part adventure story, part undercover intrigue, part heroic epic, this appealing autobiography by Rabbi Gedaliah Fleer follows the author from his childhood in the Bronx to his emergence as a hero of the Breslov movement. Thanks to his single-minded determination to infiltrate the Soviet Union and sneak into Uman in the early 1960s, Fleer helped open the door to thousands of Jews who have since traveled to Uman to pray at Rebbe Nachman's gravesite.

The book contains several bonus chapters that offer a wider look at the Breslov movement and its followers. A host of biographical sketches, together with stories about Breslover chassidim who survived Communist oppression and imprisonment, provide valuable background material for both beginning and advanced students of Breslov. For readers who would like to know more about the Uman experience, an illuminating description of Rosh Hashanah in Uman is included.

English, 221 pages, hardcover, includes illustrative photographs.