pensions from Moscow

See after the jump a link to my just published story in the Jewish Week about a meeting in Moscow from June 4-6 between Russian authroities and the US Social Security Administration (SSA) over US advocacy that the Russians should pay pensions to emigres here who worked their whole lives in the Soviet Union. The remarkable story of how this all came about-one very determined Yakov Gutman from Mozyr, Belarus meeting New York politicians, first and foremost, Jerry Nadler, but also State Comptroller Billy Thompson, State Assemblyman Bill Colton and City Councilman Lewis Fidler etc. Nadler pushed SSA and the State Department, who pushed the Russians who agreed to a meeting on the issue for the first time ever. All of this despite the fact that the entire Russian leadership class dislikes and distrusts Gutman, who had his issues with the Jewish leadership in Belarus before coming here (charges and countercharges) and is known here as a cagy free-lance operative. Still, as Alec Brook-Krasny acknowledges in the Jewish Week piece, Gutman pushed this issue single-handedly to the point where the whole world is now taking notice; a very impressive piece of politicing that a political animal like B-K cannot help but admire. As Gutman himself put it in a quote that was left on the cutting room floor at the Jewish Week, "I am gratified this thing has gotten to the popint where it is no longer just one crazy Gutman pushing it.."