For the Caravan’s roving crew, I recruited four college students with Jewish camp experience, musical skills and a track record of Soviet Jewry activity. The team leader was David Forman, a gung-ho, uninhibited, fifth year rabbinic student at Cincinnati Hebrew Union College; then there was David’s wife, Judy, an education major at the University of Cincinnati; and two University of Toronto students, David Sadowski and Mark Clarfield. Lastly, my wife, Evy, operating from home, managed the schedule of the Caravan’s camp visits throughout the summer.

Evy Rosenblum

At the end of May, the team members descended on our home for a tumultuous two weeks of brainstorming, practice and preparation. For our four kids it was a ball. They adored having this boisterous bunch in residence. On the last morning, the team loaded up their rental van and, with the Rosenblum family waving them off, headed for the Buffalo, New York, border crossing and their first assignment at a Canadian summer camp. However, it was not the last of the crew I would see that day. About noon there was a distress call from David Forman, “please come, you gotta vouch for us: the Canadian border guys won’t let us in!” Yep, this was the era of the hippy movement. For officials it was the barbarians are at the gates: curb entry of scruffy, sandal-wearing bearded young men and be-jeaned, bra-less young women (And who knows? They may be LSD-scarfing, pot-smoking, political radicals to boot). Three hours and 200 miles later, credentials in my suit pocket and wearing an unaccustomed tie, I drove to the border station; attested to the earnest nature of the Caravan’s mission; and tarried long enough to witnessed their release into Canada.

The rest is history. From June through August the Caravan wended its way to 40 Jewish youth camps — engaging, enlightening and enthusing 9000 campers and staff people.
 

David discusses with campers what life is like for Jews in the Soviet Union.
 

Working on petitions to Soviet officials
 

Songs for heart and head

Judy Forman had a long fruitful career teaching two generations of young children and children with developmental disabilities — to say nothing of raising their four girls and managing the Forman household and, more recently, grandmothering their seven grandchildren.

 < David and Judy, 2008      

Mark Clarfield went on to medical school at McGill University, Montreal, specialized in several disciplines and ended in geriatrics. He married Ora Paltiel in 1975, had three children, and moved to Israel in 1992. Now, Mark is Head of Geriatrics at Soroka Hospital, Beersheva and Professor of Geriatrics at Ben-Gurion University. Ora is a hematologist at Hadassah Hospital. In a recent email, Mark comments “with respect to our work on behalf of Soviet Jewry, I have only fond memories and a sense of pride. Ironically, many of my colleagues here are from the ex-USSR (as are 50 percent of my patients). I don't know what the Israeli medical system would have done without the influx of these physicians.”

David Sadowski still lives in Toronto.

He has established a solid reputation as an accomplished developer of governmental, institutional and commercial properties. In the just last decade, he has been responsible for two major projects. First, he managed the conversion of a 640-acre, former Toronto military base into Canada’s first urban park, Parc Downsview Park, intended to be a place where Canadians can celebrate their country’s history and physical and human diversity.

Lately, David has overseen for the UJA Federation of Toronto development of the 50-acre Lebovic Jewish Campus, which includes schools, community agencies, recreation facilities, and open green spaces.