Kharkov Jewish activist Evgeny Aisenberg was convicted of “defaming the Soviet State ” and sentenced to two and a half years in a labor camp, the Coalition to Free Soviet Jews reported today. Aisenberg, 33, had been intensively involved in studying and teaching Hebrew and Jewish culture since 1978, when his pro-emigration activities led him to lose his job as a mechanical engineer.
The major evidence used against him was the text of three Purim skits which he participated in last year. Aisenberg will be forced to separate from his wife, Marina, who has breast cancer and requires surgery.
“Once again, the mere observance of Jewish holidays is interpreted by the Soviet government as ‘circulating false fabrications against the State,” said Coalition chairmen Herbert Kronish. “The real fabrication, however, is the charge of slander. A Purim skit is simply not a defamation of the Soviet State.”
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