Today is the midpoint of Anatoly Shcharanskys ordeal. which began with his arrest on March 15. 1977. followed by his 13year sentence beginning in 1978. It is fitting to look back as well as ahead at this time. Had Anatoly Shcharanskys first request for an exit visa been accepted by Soviet authorities back in 1973. he would have been one of 34.758 Jews allowed to leave the Soviet Union that year. And yet. just 10 years later in 1983. only 1.315 Jews were allowed to join their families outside the Soviet Union. The 3 million Jewish citizens who remain there are victims of a twopronged policy: official Soviet policy is to curtail the free practice of Judaism within the country and. at the same time. to restrict severely the free flow of emigration out of the country. The bleak situation for other prisoners of conscience is well known. Last October Yostf Begun received the maximum sentence that he could have received7 years in a labor camp and 5 years in internal exile in the Soviet Unionfor the crime of seeking to emigrate and for studying and teaching Hebrew. Similarly. Yuri Tarnopolsky. an outspoken critic of the harsh restrictions on emigration who also taught Hebrew. was sentenced last June to 3 years in a labor camp for slandering the Soviet State. Another example is the case of Lev Elbert. who was sentenced in May to 1 year in prison for evasion of reserve duty. There are many more cases which demand our attention. like those of Ida Nudel. known as the conscience of Soviet Jewry.
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emigrate emigration visa