“I feel as if I am re-born….I can say what I have not said for so many years, I am happy.” Those words were spoken today by Mrs. Esther Markish, widow of the Soviet Jewish writer Peretz Markish, as she landed at Lod Airport with her son David, The Markishes, mother and son, were granted exit visas by the Soviet authorities a week ago after two years of vain appeals during which David Markish, a writer, was ousted from the writers union and forced to work as a porter and a baker to support himself and his mother.
“We waited and struggled for a long time to come. We passed through very difficult days,” Mrs. Markish told reporters at the airport. David, 30, broad shouldered and bearded, was re-united with his wife, Irena who came to Israel nearly a year ago. Embracing his weeping wife, he said, “We have been living a year of hope. Only now can we start our own life again. Had my father been alive now, I am sure he would have come as well.” Peretz Markish was murdered in 1952, a victim of the Stalin purge of Jewish writers and intellectuals.
David Markish disclosed today that months ago he had enrolled himself by telephone in Israel’s militant Herut party. He said he knew nothing of Israeli politics but that Herut appealed to him because “I know Herut to be the party of the maximalists. They cherish every inch of this country.”
Israel’s President Zalman Shazar celebrated his 83rd birthday Tuesday.
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