Recently convicted Moscow Hebrew teacher losif Begun was accused of “committing an especially dangerous state crime” while “following instructions of foreign Zionist centers … directed at causing a disintegration of the Soviet regime,” according to a transcript of the verdict obtained by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ).
Convicted of “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” on October 14, Begun is currently trying to appeal his maximum sentence of seven years in a labor camp and five years internal exile.
The verdict attacked Begun for distributing so-called “anti-Soviet literature” in the form of open letters, appeals, statements, lectures and other materials “in order to cause harm to Soviet interests in the international arena and to discredit its internal and foreign policy.”
In language reminiscent of the officially organized Public Anti-Zionist Committee’s claim that it represents “the vast majority” of Soviet Jews, the document states that all this was done “under the guise of disseminating the Hebrew language and drawing Jews closer to national culture and the struggle for the rights of the Jewish people,” the NCSJ reported.
CHARGES AGAINST BEGUN
According to the NCSJ, the veneer under which Jewish rights are actually abused by Soviet authorities is exposed in the court’s verdict. Begun was found guilty of crimes against the state because he “provoked nationalistic, emigration tendencies among Soviet citizens of Jewish nationality,” and promoted “the thesis of the exclusiveness and isolation of the Jews.”
The document specifies the confiscated materials used against the 51-year-old activist, implicating several other Moscow residents, particularly his fiancee, Inna Shlemova. The “slanderous nature” of these materials is ostensibly “proved” by derogatory references to Begun’s character taken from a previous sentence for “parasitism.”
The materials cited date back nine years, and include appeals to the UN Commission on Human Rights, the 1977 Review Conference of the Helsinki Final Act, held in Belgrade, Western foreign language students and other groups; open letters broadcast or published abroad; and items authored by others, found in Begun’s apartment.
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.
