It’s almost ten years since Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich appeared in Novy Mir, the Soviet cultural periodical. This was the first time that the Soviet reader was officially given the facts, even if in fictional form, about the spiritless, monotonous brutality of a labour camp in the USSR. Today Solzhenitsyn’s … Read more
On 3 August the Council of Ministers of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR passed a resolution to levy a ‘diploma tax’ on all Jews who wished to go to Israel. This meant basically that all qualified Jews have to pay back the cost of their education to the Soviet government before emigrating. The tax … Read more
One of the oddest cases of Jews trying to settle in Israel is that of Naum Alshansky of Minsk. together with his wife, Clara, Naum recently wrote to Meir Vilner, the leader of Israel’s Moscow-oriented Communist party, Rakah. They firmly declared themselves to be Marxist-Leninists and requested membership of Rakah so that they could continue … Read more
In July 1969, six young Jews, Shimon Grillius, Yuri and Valery Vudka, Oleg frolov, Shimon Zaslavskyand Yevgeny Martimonov were arrested in Riazan in the Lithuanian soviet socialist Republic and charged under Articles 70 and 72 of the Soviet Criminal Code which deals with anti-soviet propaganda. The trial began on February 10 1970 behind closed doors. … Read more