David Azbel, a 62-year-old physics professor, has threatened to begin a Hunger strike in Moscow which he said was in protest against the treatment of Soviet dissidents Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as well as over the denial of an exit visa to himself. The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry which learned of Azbel’s intended action by telephone from Moscow, said the scientist was circulating an open letter in which he says he feels as much a prisoner in the Soviet Union now as he was for 16 years between 1935 and 1951 during the Stalin era when he was in forced labor camps. Prof. Azbel first applied for a visa in April, 1972 and has been rejected repeatedly; the SSSJ said; Meanwhile, two friends of Azbel have agreed to join him in the hunger strike: Prof. Vitaly Rubin, an expert on China, and Benjamin Gorokhoz, a screenwriter. The SSSJ said that both men had applied for exit visas but had been denied them.
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.
