Raiza Palatnik of Odessa went home last Friday after serving a two-year sentence in a Soviet prison that sources say has left her “quite ill.” Miss Palatnik, who staged hunger strikes while incarcerated, is a 36-year-old ex-librarian who was arrested in Dec., 1970, and convicted on June 25,1971, of “keeping and distributing materials slanderous to the State.”
Miss Palatnik and her parents have already applied again for visas to Israel, according to Jewish sources in the USSR. Her younger sister, Katya, went to Israel earlier, but the parents would not leave without Raiza.
Mrs. Jacqueline Levine of Essex County, New Jersey, chairwoman of the Women’s Appeal for Soviet Jewish Prisoners of Conscience, said she was “thrilled” by Miss Palatnik’s release and wished her “great happiness.” The Women’s Appeal, scheduled this year for Dec. 12, emphasized the Palatnik case last year.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
