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The Southern Israelite
The Weekly Newspaper For Southern Jewry • Since 1925
Vol. LXII Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, February 14, 1986 No. 7
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This year in Jerusalem
Wearing a knitted yarmulke given him after he arrived in Israel, Anatoly Shcharansky is carried to the
Western Wall on the shoulders of well-wishers.
NEW YORK, (JTA) — The
release Tuesday of Soviet Jewish
Prisoner of Conscience Anatoly
Shcharansky as part of an East-
West exchange of prisoners brings
to a close one of the most cele
brated human rights cases which
drew international attention and
the concern of numerous govern
ment leaders and politicians.
Nearly nine years after he was
bundled into a car by Soviet secret
police agents on Gorky Street in
Moscow, to later be tried on
charges of treason, in a move by
Soviet authorities with few pre
cedents since the days of Stalin,
Shcharansky's name became syn
onymous with Soviet human rights
violations and the harsh realities of
life for Jews in the Soviet Union.
Now, he has been reunited with
his wife Avital, who emigrated
from the Soviet Union in July
1974, just one day after they were
married by a rabbi in Moscow, a
marriage Soviet officials later de
clared invalid. Although she has
not seen her husband since that
time, Avital’s tireless effort on his
behalf is credited with keeping
Shcharansky’s name in the fore
front of international public
opinion.
Born in the Ukrainian city of
Donetsk on January 20, 1948, the
son of a journalist and Communist
Party member, Shcharansky gradu
ated from the Moscow Institute’s
Physics Department ofComputers
and Applied Mathematics in June
1972. An expert in computer tech
nology and cybernetics, he began
work for a research institute con
nected with the oil and gas
industry.
Shcharansky’s application to emi
grate was denied in 1974 on the
grounds that “it is against state
interests.” He soon became the
subject of continuous harassment,
surveillance and interrogation as
he joined the growing ranks of
Soviet Jewish refusniks. At times,
as many as eight KGB agents
trailed him to monitor his acti
vities. In early 1975, he was fired
from his job at the Moscow Re
search Institute. In March 1975,
after a series of arrests, he was
reported informed by the KGB.
“Your destiny is in our hands ... No
one in the West is interested in you
and what you are doing here and
nobody will say a word in the
entire world if there is one more
Prisoner of Conscience in the
Soviet Union.”
by David Kantor
BONN, (JTA) — Anatoly
Shcharansky stepped into the
world of freedom Tuesday. The 38-
year-old Soviet Jewish dissident
and aliya activist who became a
symbol of the worldwide struggle
for human rights during his eight-
year ordeal in Soviet prisons and
forced labor camps, arrived in
Israel Tuesday night to a hero’s
welcome.
Shcharansky was released by the
Soviets Tuesday morning iit con
junction with an East-West spy
swap and was flown immediately
from West Berlin to Frankfurt.
There he was reunited with his
wife Avital, who flew from Israel to
meet him. It was in Frankfurt, too,
that he received his Israeli pass
port, presented to him personally
by Israel’s Ambassador to West
Germany, Yitzhak Ben Ari. Ana
toly had first applied for Israeli
citizenship in 1974.
The prisoner exchange took
Shcharansky became active in
the Helsinki watch groups formed
to monitor Soviet compliance with
place at the middle of the
Glienicker Bridge which connects
West Berlin with Potsdam in East
Germany.
Shcharansky was arrested in
1978 allegedly for spying for the
U.S. But the charges against him
were regarded as patently false in
the West. The 13-year sentence
imposed, of which he served eight
years, was seen as punishment for
his activism on behalf of Jewish
and otherdissidents and his indefa
tigable struggle for the right of
himself and other Russian Jews
to emigrate.
The exchange ceremonies were
brief. Shcharansky, slight of build,
wearing a grey coat and a brown
“chapka," the traditional Rus
sian fur cap, smiled and waved at
the small crowd of reporters and
spectators.
He was surrounded by dozens of
officials, greeted personally by
U.S. Ambassador to West Ger
many. Richard Burt, and whisked
away to Tempelhof Airport in the
the Helsinki rights accords
More importantly, he served as a
key link between Jews seeking to
back seat of a grey Mercedes limou
sine flying the Stars and Stripes on
its fenders.
At Frankfurt Airport he was
allowed a half hour of privacy with
Avital in the VIP lounge before the
couple was surrounded by officials
and jubilant well-wishers. They
had not seen each other for 12 years,
during which Avital campaigned
tirelessly and unremittingly all
over the world, but especially in
the U.S. for release of her husband.
Shcharansky’s spirit was never
broken during his harsh ordeal in
the Soviet Gulag. But for long
periods it appeared he would not
survive. He reportedly developed a
heart condition. When Avital flew
to Frankfurt from Israel she was
accompanied by a cardiologist.
But the doctor who examined
Shcharansky at Frankfurt Airport
said he found no medical problems
and pronounced him fit to fly to
Israel without delay.
emigrate and Russians and others
wanting to stay and liberalize the
society.
David Shipler, the New York
Times correspondent in Moscow
when Shcharansky was arrested,
wrote in 1977 that “He was a con
summate public relations man,
fluent in English and scrupulously
accurate with his facts, who acted
as a spokesman to the Western
press on behalf of Jewish activists.
“As such, he was part of a chain
that Soviet authorities ... found
threatening, a chain of communi
cations that runs from the dissi
dents through Western corre
spondents to worldwide publica
tions and back into the Soviet
Union again via foreign radio
stations such as BBC and the Voice
0 of America.”
| In 1977, Shcharansky filed suit
2 along with fellow activist Via-
| dimir Slepak — whose emigration
cc
g visa has still not been approved —
J and claimed that Soviet Jews were
defamed as a result of the broad
casts of a blatantly anti-Semitic
television documentary, “Buyers
of Souls,” which was apparently
aimed at the Soviet masses.
Shcharansky soon found himself
the subject of a vicious attack in an
article written by Dr. Sanya
Lipavsky, a former roommate, and
published in the Soviet newspaper
Izvestia. Lipavsky accused the
Soviet activist of working for the
Central Intelligence Agency, a
charge vehemently denied by
Shcharansky, and also by then
President Jimmy Carter.
Ten days after the Izvestia
article, Shcharansky was arrested
and detained in Moscow’s Le
fortovo Prison until his trial in
July 1978. He was convicted on
charges of “treason” and “anti-
Soviet agitation and propaganda”
and sentenced to 13 years in prison
and labor camps. He began his term
at Chistopol Prison, 500 miles east
of Moscow.
Throughout his 18-month deten
tion, while awaiting trial,
Shcharansky was held incommuni
cado, unable to see or speak to
anyone except the Soviet secret
police. He was also not permitted
legal counsel, despite relentless
efforts by his family to secure an
attorney for him
See This year, page 19.
The road to freedom
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