“Today I found a new motherland and an almost new family,” Valery Kukui, a 36-year-old Soviet Jewish engineer declared today as he arrived in Israel after three years in Soviet prisons on charges of Zionist activity. Kukui was met at Ben Gurion Airport by his wife and daughter who have been in Israel for almost two years.
One of the aliya activists in the town of Sverdlovsk, Kukui was sentenced to three years imprisonment in 1971 and was kept with criminals who made his life miserable because of his Jewishness. However, “after I learned that my wife and daughter arrived in Israel my stay in prison was easier.” he said. “I knew I need not worry for them.”
When his sentence ended he was immediately notified that he had an exit permit and his departure from the USSR was arranged without any hitch. He brought information about other Jews arrested, Vladimir Markman and Leonid Zabelishensky, both interned in the same prison Kukui was held Kukui arrived with a large group of Russian immigrants. On Friday, Yankl Khantsis, who was sentenced in 1971 to 18 months general regime, arrived in Israel.
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