Prisoner of Conscience Yitzhak Shkolnik arrived in Israel from the Soviet Union via Vienna last night and was met at the Ben Gurion Airport by his wife Feiga and his 18-year-old daughter Lousa, whom he had not seen for 13 years.
He said he thought his sudden permission to leave the USSR, after years of continual refusals, may have been due to the appointment of a new Foreign Minister in Moscow.
Shkolnik was first charged in 1972 on charges of espionage for Britain, as he worked as an engineer in a Ukraine factory at which British engineers were also employed. When the courts found there was insufficient evidence against him, he was charged with spying for the Americans, but again with insufficient proof to sentence him. He was therefore charged with spying for Israel and for teaching Hebrew, for which he was given a seven-year prison sentence.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
