Avital Shcharansky, wife of imprisoned Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky, returned to Washington today appealing for continued support to help obtain her husband’s release so that he can join her in Israel.
Looking worn from her ceaseless efforts for her husband’s freedom, Mrs. Shcharansky met with reporters at a breakfast at the National Press Club this morning appended on television and later was a guest at a reception at the Capitol, hosted by Rep Robert Drinan (D. Mass.), who she described as a “dear friend of our family.”
The reporters received copies of her personal account of her life, entitled “Next Year in Jerusalem” which were Anatoly’s last words when his trial ended in Moscow in 1977. The book, written with Ilana Ben-Joseph and translated from Russian by Stefani Hoffman, is the story of two young people who married for love and were separated because they are Jewish. Mrs. Shcharansky emigrated to Israel in July 1973, the day after her wedding in Moscow. She has not been permitted to visit her husband since then.
Mrs. Shcharansky explained the background of what she called the double standard the Soviets employ regarding dissidents. As an example, she said the Soviet government produced “the very aggressive” television film against Israel and Zionism that emphasized to the Soviet peoples “we have here in the Soviet Union soldiers of Zionism, meaning, she said, “persons like Anatoly, the Slepaks and lda Nudel.”
Mrs. Shcharansky observed that “On the one hand, the Soviet government makes an anti-Semitic atmosphere in the street and on the other hand it won’t let them (the dissidents) out. “She said that with the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow only eight months away, Jews in the Soviet Union are saying, “we’re afraid” that the round-ups and removals from Moscow and other cities that preceded the visit of President Nixon in 1972 will be repeated to avoid possible contacts with foreigners.
Mrs. Shcharansky urged that letters from individuals and statements by officials be sent to the Soviet authorities to explain to the Russians in a “big public campaign” that in her special case “Anatoly is sick” and that other Jews want to emigrate, too. “In my husband’s case and in general we must not only speak but do, “she said.”
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