Lipavsky is a former Soviet Jewish dissident who purportedly wrote an open letter that appeared last Friday in Izvestia accusing soviet Jewish emigration activists and dissidents of working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The two groups said that their demand was prompted by the fact that they just received letters dated Feb. 25 from Lipavsky to Reps. Dante Fascell (d.Flas.) and Robert Drinan (D.Mass.) asking their aid to emigrate to Israel. The SSSJ and the UCSJ noted that the Izvestia attack came on Purim “which recalls the evil Haman’s accusations against the Jewish people. Just as the Jews were triumph even if Lipavsky is ultimately discovered to have been a KGB agent.”
SVERDLIN GETS 1-YEAR SUSPENDED SENTENCE
In another development, the SSSJ and UCSJ reported that Leningrad activist Vladimir Sverdlin was given a one-year suspended sentence last Friday. He had been charged with “stealing ammunition” after several 17-year-old bullets from the time he was a student sportsman were found during a search of his home last August. Leningrad Jews asserted he was persecuted because he led an informal weekly “Shalom Club” to study Jewish subjects and celebrate Jewish holidays.
Sverdlin was restricted to Leningrad for the year and warned that if convicted again on any charge, the suspended term would be added to his sentence. A former chief engineer of a chemical projects office. Sverdlin, 42, applied to leave the Soviet Union in 1974 but was refused an exit visa on the grounds tat his bother was employed in a job with national security clearance.
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