Judy Silver Shapiro appealed directly to President Nixon today to “help get my husband out of the Soviet Union.” The 21-year-old social worker who was married to Soviet Jewish activist Gavriel Shapiro in a religious ceremony in Moscow last Thursday said in a telegram to the President that her husband was “being held at Militia Station 26 where Commandant Leonid Kanakochkin is in charge.”
Shapiro was arrested at Moscow Airport Monday when he came to see off his wife who was forced to leave Russia because her visa expired. In her message to President Nixon, Mrs. Shapiro said “The charges are still unknown. My husband is on a diet of bread and sugar and his parents have been unable to see him; his fate is unknown. As an American citizen, I appeal to you to help my husband get out of the Soviet Union.”
Mrs. Shapiro arrived in New York yesterday. According to friends she planned to ask President Nixon for an appointment and also intends to visit the Soviet Embassy in Washington.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
