Two Soviet Jews, who were sentenced to five years imprisonment in the second Leningrad Trial in May, 1971 have been released, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported today. The two “Prisoners of Conscience,” Lev Yagman, 35, and Lassal Kaminsky, 55, have been told they must leave the USSR by Aug. 8. Both men were arrested June 15, 1970 and were charged with anti-Soviet agitation and undermining Soviet power. Both of their wives are already living in Israel.
The NCSJ also reported that Vladimir Markman, one of the first Jews in Sverdlovsk to apply to emigrate, will leave for Israel this week. In April, 1972 Markman was sentenced to three years for anti-Soviet activity after he applied for an emigration visa and also fought for the release of his friend Valery Kukui.
Anna Berkovskaya, who was sentenced last year along with her husband, Yuri, after applying for exit visas, has been released under the amnesty for the International Women’s Year, the NCSJ said, Sources in the USSR say she is in poor health. Her husband is still in a labor camp.
EXIT VISA REQUESTS INCREASING
The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported that Dr. Ovsei Gelman, a 43-year-old Tbilisi activist physicist has received permission to emigrate to Israel. Dr. Gelman was dismissed from his post as director of the laboratory of the Cybernetics Institute of the SSR when he applied to leave. The SSSJ suggested that he received his visa because a group of Western scientists who are attending an upcoming conference in Tbilisi were planning “to do public battle for Dr. Gelman.”
The SSSJ noted that despite all the harassments from the Soviet government the number of people applying for exit visas to go to Israel is increasing. The SSSJ said more first-time applicants are receiving permission to leave but at the same time those who have been repeatedly refused visas continue to have their applications rejected. Meanwhile, the SSSJ also reported that crowds of Jews gathered at the Moscow Synagogue on the eve of Tisha B’Av.
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