In the late 1970s, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent Daniel M. Jaffe trav­eled to the USSR, where polit­i­cal dis­si­dents and refuseniks — Sovi­et Jews denied per­mis­sion to emi­grate — turned to him for sup­port. Dur­ing his two sum­mers there, friend­ships form fast, under pres­sure, and soon the KGB makes its inten­tions clear: Daniel is arrest­ed and warned nev­er to return. He returns any­way. Over sub­se­quent trips to the USSR, Daniel qui­et­ly sup­ports pris­on­ers of con­science and their fam­i­lies by deliv­er­ing mon­ey, med­i­cine, and infor­ma­tion from West­ern human rights orga­ni­za­tions. Back in the US, he leads a Jew­ish human rights com­mit­tee at Har­vard Law School, trans­lat­ing and cir­cu­lat­ing smug­gled dis­si­dent tri­al tran­scripts and pro­mot­ing inter­na­tion­al pub­lic­i­ty cam­paigns to free his friends. Inspired by these friends’ courage in the face of author­i­tar­i­an­ism, Daniel con­fronts his pri­vate hid­ing — he comes out as a gay man will­ing to fight for his own civ­il rights at home. Russ­ian Sil­hou­ette is a grip­ping mem­oir, show­ing that when we pur­sue the Jew­ish val­ue of tikkun olam, heal­ing the world, we might also be heal­ing ourselves.