Judith Lerner, wife of Prof. Alexander Lerner, the Soviet Union’s noted specialist in cybernetics, was buried yesterday in a cemetery outside Moscow, it was reported here today by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. She died last week at the age of 65 after suffering a heart attack. Both she and her husband had sought since 1970 to receive exit permits to immigrate to Israel. Scores of Jewish activists attended the funeral in Vostriakovo.
When Mrs. Lerner died, Soviet authorities refused permission for her body to be flown to Israel for burial. The two Soviet Jewry groups characterized Soviet emigration chief Constantin Zotov’s refusal to allow her to be buried in Israel “the ultimate Kremlin indignity, even to a dead refusenik’s last wishes.”
However, Soviet authorities did permit the Lerners’ daughter, Dr. Sonya Lerner of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot to attend her mother’s funeral after foreign pressure was applied through political and scientific circles, the two Soviet Jewry groups reported.
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