Michael Shirman, who has terminal leukemia, will undergo a bonemarrow transplant at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem next week if tests show that the tissues of his sister, Inessa Flerova, are compatible. The transplant is his only chance to live.
His hopes were raised Wednesday when Inessa, the only possible donor, arrived in Israel with her husband, Viktor Flerov, and their children, Dariya, 7, and Mariana, 5. The entire family was granted exit visas by the Soviet authorities late last month after an agonizing and desperate campaign, joined by leading physicians, Soviet Jewry activists and humanitarians all over the world.
Shirman, 31, a biologist, had not seen his sister for six years, since he and their mother immigrated to Israel. “Thank God we are in Israel and united with my brother,” Flerova told reporters at Ben Gurion Airport. The brother and sister appeared on a television interview an hour later.
Shirman said he was convinced the Soviets relented because of his presence, with an attending physician, at the summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland, October 11-12.
Later Shirman came to the United States where he told a press conference on Capitol Hill that he was given about a month to live unless he receives a bone-marrow transplant. “They (the Soviets) apparently finally decided it was simpler to let the family out than for the campaign on our behalf to continue,” Shirman said.
The campaign began nearly a year ago when the Soviet authorities, after refusing Inessa permission to leave, told her she could go to Israel, but without her husband and children. Later they said she could take her children but her husband, a physicist, must stay behind because his estranged father refused to sign documents releasing him from possible financial obligations — a requirement of Soviet law.
Shirman urged his sister not to come to Israel without her husband because she might never see him again. He insisted that the family’s staying together was more important than his chance for survival. After an international outcry and intervention by U.S. officials, Viktor Flerov was allowed to leave with his wife.
Shirman said Wednesday that his personal problem may have been solved, but the major problem of Soviet Jewry remains.
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.
