Funeral services were held in Tel Aviv last Thursday for Tanya Levich, 66, the wife of Dr. Benjamin Levich, world renowned physical chemist and the most prominent Jewish scientist ever to emigrate from the Soviet Union, it was reported here over the weekend.
Mrs. Levich (Tatiana Solomonovna Rubinstein) died August 28 in Locarno, Switzerland, after a short illness. The Leviches had been in Europe on vacation before Dr. Levich was to resume his dual teaching responsibilities as Albert Einstein Professor of Science at the City College of the City University of New York and as a faculty member of Tel Aviv University.
Mrs. Levich, a gifted writer and translator with an excellent command of English, was born in Moscow and lived there until 1978. For almost seven years she and her husband endured the frustrations of life as refuseniks, having been dented permission to emigrate to Israel when they applied in 1972.
Dr. Levich, a corresponding member of the prestigious Soviet Academy of Sciences, head of a department in the Academy’s Institute for Electrochemistry, and a professor at Moscow University, was dismissed from his teaching posts. Although their two sons, Alexander and Evgeni, were allowed to leave in 1975, the Leviches had to wait three more years before they were given exit visas thanks to the continued efforts of Western scientists, political leaders and Jewish human rights organizations.
Despite her poor health as a result of those stressful years, Mrs. Levich maintained her zest for living and sense of humor.
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