Nehemiah Levanon (Hebrew: נחמיה לבנון; March 23, 1915 – September 2, 2003)[1] was an Israeli intelligence agent, diplomat, head of the aliyah program Nativ, and a founder of kibbutz Kfar Blum.
Due to the covert nature of his work, Levanon's decades of service were largely unknown until after his retirement, during the last days of the Soviet Union.
[3] In response to the invasion of Latvia by Germany during World War I, Niuma's sister, mother, grandmother, and other relatives moved to Perm, Russia, and later to Petrograd.
They relocated in 1922 to Tallinn, Estonia (where one of Levitan's aunts lived) with assistance from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, while his grandmother was arranged to sail to America.
[3] A contingent of the Anglo-Baltic group settled in the Hula Valley in 1941 to work lands owned by the Jewish National Fund.
In October 1943, Levitan married Beba Levin, a fellow community member who he met years earlier at a summer camp in Latvia.
Levanon and his family then moved to Moscow, where he disguised his covert activities by working as an agricultural attaché in the Israeli embassy.
Bar was tasked specifically with encouraging the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel and even received funding from the CIA to aid its cause.
[8] In December 1968, Levanon received an emotional letter written by Moscovite engineering student Yasha Kazakov, originally directed to the Supreme Soviet.
[12] Levanon intentionally downplayed Israel's involvement with the conference so as to leave the impression that other, more powerful countries (particularly the United States) were especially interested in the issue.
[13][14] The conference was marred by the arrival of controversial rabbi Meir Kahane, who the day before had been convicted in New York of disorderly conduct for his actions at a 1969 protest.
However, word reached Western governments when a Ukrainian Jew forwarded a copy of the decree to Levanon, who then passed it to American and Israeli officials.
[15] Levanon allied with Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson to pass a law denying most-favored nation trade status to countries that restricted the free emigration of its citizens.
[16] According to Levanon, there was an expectation among the political elite that his alignment with Israel's left-wing establishment would cost him his job under right-wing premier Menachem Begin, who was elected in 1977.
"[18] By the late 1970s, Israeli officials and American grassroots groups were clashing over the direction and purpose of the Soviet Jewry movement.
A large number of Soviet emigrants were "dropping out"—abandoning their exit visas intended for Israel and seeking refuge in the United States instead.