Soviet KGB agents broke up on attempt several days ago by Moscow Jewish activists to mark the ninth anniversary of the 1970 Leningrad Trial, it was reported here today by the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ).
The two groups said that most of the Jews who sought to demonstrate at the Lenin Library near the Kremlin were detained in their homes. The three who managed to reach the protest site — Vladimir Prestin, Pavel Abromovitch and Elena Dubenskaya — were put in a KGB bus and driven around for two hours before being released in a remote suburb of Moscow.
The SSSJ and UCSJ also reported that on Dec. 19 in Kishinev, refusnik Vladimir Tsuckerman was arrested and sentenced to 15 days after he attempted to demonstrate by carrying a placard bearing the logo of the International Year of the Child and the slogan: “Let Me Immigrate to My Wife and Son.”
Meanwhile, the two groups said that Prof. Alexander Voronel, founder of the unofficial samizdat Moscow journal Jews in the USSR, and who now teaches at Tel Aviv University, has issued as open appeal for imprisoned Moscow author, Igor Guberman, one of the magazine’s current editors. Guberman, a well-known author of popular science books for younger readers, was arrested Aug. 13 on the false grounds of “dealing in stolen icons” after he refused to inform on the journal’s contributors to the KGB.
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.
