When KGB agent Putin was hosted in the Upper Galilee by the man deported from Moscow on espionage charges
Shortly after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Foreign Ministry prepared the staff in Kfar Blum that an important delegation was on its way to them.
This, included the mayor of St. Petersburg, his young aide Vladimir Putin and his wife, Ludmila.
Eventually, the anonymous adviser standing on the grass in the kibbutz became the Russian president who invaded Ukraine
Eli Ashkenazi
25/02/2022
Friday, 25 February 2022, 11:45 Updated: 23:07
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In 1994, an important delegation made its way to a hotel on Kibbutz Kfar Blum.
This, included the mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, who was marked in those days - after the fall of the walls, as a future candidate for the presidency of Russia.
He was accompanied by his young assistant Vladimir Putin and his wife, Ludmila.
These were received by Nehemiah Lebanon, who after retiring from a long mission in the Israeli Foreign and Intelligence Service, continued to work at his kibbutz Kfar Blum.
He is one of the kibbutz's hotel staff as a host and guide for hotel guests.
Thus, on the grass in the village of Blum stood next to each other a retired KGB agent who began rowing to the top and an Israeli activist who acted secretly beyond the Iron Curtain and was deported from the Soviet Union. An important delegation on its way to the village of Blum.
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Pastoral Hotel Kfar Blum.
On the left is Putin and next to him is Nehemiah Lebanon.
1994 (Photo: Courtesy of those photographed, Pastoral Hotel, Avinoam and Dan Lebanon)
In 1991, after the fall of the walls and the collapse of the regime in East Germany, Putin ended his role as an outstanding KGB officer in Dresden, retired from the Secret Intelligence Organization and began looking for his way. Nehemiah Lebanon was born in Latvia in 1915 and was one of the founders of Kfar
Blum
in the northern Hula Valley. Shaul
Avigor
, David Ben-Gurion's secret man, and his job was to be in touch with and help the silent Judaism beyond the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.
The three were defined as "persona non grata".(Unwanted personality) and together with their families were deported to Israel by the Soviet authorities.
On the grass in Bloom Village.
From the right: Putin, Ludmila Putina, Nehemiah Lebanon, Sobchak (Mayor of St. Petersburg) and another aide.
1994 (Photo: Courtesy of those photographed, Pastoral Hotel, Avinoam and Dan Lebanon)
Lebanon continued to engage for decades in the issue of Soviet Jewry and was even appointed head of Nativ.
He was also responsible for the establishment of the lobby in the United States, which led the struggle to open the gates of the Soviet Union for those who refused to immigrate.
"When Putin came with Sobchak to the village of Blum, he certainly knew very well what Nehemiah's past was," Dan Lebanon said.
The upheavals of history have led to Sobchak's runway being halted.
In 1996 he lost the mayoral election and fled to Paris after being accused of government corruption.
His young aide, Putin, who is also suspected of financial irregularities, was not harmed despite the suspicions against him.
He moved to Moscow and continued to advance in the governing apparatus.
In 1999 he was appointed Prime Minister of Russia.
He was grateful to the man who gave him the first opportunity after he retired from the KGB and appointed Sobchak as his assistant.
Lebanon, who sat down to write his memoirs in the book "Code: Path", went through the photos on the album and pointed to the anonymous adviser who stood on the grass in the village of Blum and said to his family - "This is Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia."
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