For the first time since August 1979, the mother and brother of Prisoner of Conscience Anatoly Shcharansky were permitted to visit him, according to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. The meeting took place Sept. 5 in the Perm labor camp in the Ural Mountains.
Shcharansky’s mother, Ida Milgrom, reported that their visit was limited to two hours, and a guard was present throughout. They were not permitted to give or leave anything for him, including a Jewish calendar or food. Shcharansky was not allowed to receive any mail from abroad but, his mother said, looks in better health than during her previous visit when she described him as “looking like an Auschwitz prisoner.”
Meanwhile, the SSSJ and UCSJ learned that on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, over 2000 Jews, many young, gathered outside the Moscow Synagogue. The groups also revealed that from Sept. 1-9, Jewish emigration from the USSR totaled 378, with 272, or 72 percent, not continuing to Israel.
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.
