Soviet Jewish Activist Sentenced to Three Years in a Labor Camp

Mark Nepomniaschy, a 53-year-old Soviet Jewish activist from Odessa, was yesterday sentenced to three years in a labor camp for “anti-Soviet slander,” it was learned by the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. Nepomniaschy first applied to emigrate six years ago. He was arrested October 11, 1984 and interned in a psychiatric hospital prior to his two-day trial.

The charges of anti-Soviet slander emerged following the arrest last year of Yaacov Levin, a 25-year-old Hebrew teacher from Odessa, picked up by security officials just days before he was scheduled to marry Nepomniaschy’s daughter, Yehudit. Levin was sentenced last November to three years in a prison camp.

In a desperate appeal on behalf of Levin, Nepomniaschy wrote to the West, “I appeal on behalf of Yaacov Levin … When the authorities learned that Yaacov was to marry my daughter, he was told he would not marry her but would be put in a cell with criminals and she would be raped before his eyes.”

“This is a risk for me,” the appeal continued, “but nothing could be worse. My daughter is not allowed to emigrate, not allowed to marry. I could have kept quiet, but what will I achieve. Only the death of my family. I beg you to help my daughter to leave, get married and live a normal life.”

Nepomniaschy and Levin are but two of many Jewish activists and Hebrew teachers recently arrested in the USSR, according to Soviet Jewish activist groups in the U.S. Along with numerous arrests, searches of homes of Jewish activists have also increased, with a wave of 50 searches at the end of 1984 and about 15 in January.