Avital Sharansky
Avital Sharansky (born Natalia Stieglitz (Ukrainian: Наталія Стігліц, Russian: Наталья Штиглиц) in Ukraine, 1950;[1] married name also Shcharansky)[2] is a former activist and public figure in the Soviet Jewry Movement who fought for the release of her husband, Natan Sharansky, from Soviet imprisonment.
Activism
Natalia Stieglitz and Nathan Sharansky met in October 1973.[3] Shortly after meeting, Nathan Sharansky's exit visa was denied, and he became an active refusenik. Natalia applied for a visa to Israel, and the couple began to discuss marriage. They married in 1974, one day and a half before Natalia's exit visa expired.[2] The day after their wedding, Natalia left for Israel while Nathan remained in the Soviet Union. He was imprisoned in 1977 on charges of high treason.
In Israel, Natalia changed her name to Avital and began to campaign for her husband's release. In the fall of 1975, she made her first trip to the United States and Canada with the help of activists from the Union of Councils. During this time, she met with members of Congress.[2] In 1978, Nathan was sentenced to 13 years of forced labor. The reaction catapulted the Sharanskys into the spotlight as figures of the Soviet Jewry Movement. Gal Beckerman writes:[2]
Shcharansky's trial and conviction unleashed a wave of support. Dozens of petitions were signed. Committees were established on university campuses and in Congress. The thirty-five-thousand-member Association for Computing Machinery cut all ties with the Soviet Union. By the end of 1978, twenty-four hundred American scientists--including thirteen Nobel laureates as well as researchers representing the leading scientific institutions--had joined on to a "statement of conscience," pledging to avoid all cooperation with the Soviet Union until Orlov and Shcharansky were freed. Avital's celebrity reached new heights. She found herself in the Rayburn House hearing room on Capitol Hill surrounded by lawmakers climbing over one another to issue the most indignant statements and the angriest proclamations about what should be done in retaliation. [...] Avital had met with Cyrus Vance, the secretary of state, and UN ambassador Andrew Young the day after the verdict was announced, and on July 17, she was ushered into the White House for a half-hour meeting with Walter Mondale, the vice president. [...] He praised her for her "courage, dignity and strength" and then referred to Shcharansky's final speech at the trial, saying that it would "go down in literature as a great statement by an oppressed person."
For years after Nathan's sentence, Avital met with government leaders in the United States and around the world.[4] In 1979, Avital published a book on the couple's struggle: Next Year in Jerusalem.[3]
The struggle of the Sharanskys was picked up particularly in New York.[5] During Nathan Sharansky's trial, a sign reading "Free Shcharansky" was lit up on Times Square.[3]
Avital's activism on behalf of her husband was aided by many, including Rabbi Avi Weiss, Rabbi Ronald Greenwald, and others.
Nathan Sharansky was released on February 11, 1986, after which Avital stepped away from public life. The Sharanskys live in Israel, where they raised two daughters, Rachel and Hannah.
References
- ^ "Avital Sharansky". Archived from the original on 13 July 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
- ^ a b c d Beckerman, Gal. When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
- ^ a b c Sharansky, Avital with Ilana Ben-Josef. Next Year in Jerusalem. Translated by Stefani Hoffman. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1979.
- ^ Rubenstein, Joshua. Soviet Dissidents: Their Struggle for Human Rights. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980. 249.
- ^ Gurock, Jeffrey S. Jews in Gotham: New York Jews in a Changing City, 1920-2010. New York: New York University Press, 2015. pp. 204-205.
- v
- t
- e
- Human rights movement in the Soviet Union: Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR
- Committee on Human Rights in the USSR
- Solzhenitsyn Aid Fund
- Moscow Helsinki Group
- Ukrainian Helsinki Group
- Lithuanian Helsinki Group
- Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes
- Helsinki-86
- Memorial
- Mikhail Agursky
- Vasily Aksyonov
- Lyudmila Alexeyeva
- Andrei Amalrik
- Chabua Amirejibi
- Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko
- Gunārs Astra
- Mykola Bakay
- Anna Barkova
- Vasile Bătrânac
- Arkadiy Belinkov
- Nikolai Berdyaev
- Yuri Bezmenov
- Larisa Bogoraz
- Alexander Bolonkin
- Yelena Bonner
- Leonid Borodin
- Vladimir Bougrine
- Joseph Brodsky
- Vladimir Bukovsky
- Valery Chalidze
- Lev Chernyi
- Boris Chichibabin
- Viacheslav Chornovil
- Lydia Chukovskaya
- Yuli Daniel
- Vadim Delaunay
- Andrey Derevyankin
- David Devdariani
- Ivan Drach
- Yuri Druzhnikov
- Mustafa Dzhemilev
- Ivan Dziuba
- Abulfaz Elchibey
- Alexander Esenin-Volpin
- Eliyahu Essas
- Efim Etkind
- Benjamin Fain
- Viktor Fainberg
- Moysey Fishbein
- Ilya Gabay
- Balys Gajauskas
- Yuri Galanskov
- Alexander Galich
- Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev
- Zviad Gamsakhurdia
- Vladimir Gershuni
- Alexander Ginzburg
- Yevgenia Ginzburg
- Anatoly Gladilin
- Semyon Gluzman
- Natalya Gorbanevskaya
- Pyotr Grigorenko
- Sergei Grigoryants
- Vasily Grossman
- Igor Guberman
- Tengiz Gudava
- Paruyr Hayrikyan
- Ivan Hel
- Oleksa Hirnyk
- Mykola Horbal
- Bohdan Horyn
- Mykhailo Horyn
- Grigory Isayev
- Boris Kagarlitsky
- Romas Kalanta
- Sofiya Kalistratova
- Ihor Kalynets
- Iryna Kalynets
- Vitaliy Kalynychenko
- Dina Kaminskaya
- Ivan Kandyba
- Ephraim Kholmyansky
- Yuliy Kim
- Nikolai Klyuev
- Lev Kopelev
- Boris Korczak
- Anatoly Koryagin
- Nahum Korzhavin
- Merab Kostava
- Lina Kostenko
- Sergei Kovalev
- Zoya Krakhmalnikova
- Victor Krasin
- Yuri Kublanovsky
- Jüri Kukk
- Anatoly Kuznetsov
- Eduard Kuznetsov
- Malva Landa
- Alexander Lavut
- Mikhail Leontovich
- Alexander Lerner
- Yaroslav Lesiv
- Eugene Levich
- Veniamin Levich
- Eduard Limonov
- Jüri Lina
- Pavel Litvinov
- Levko Lukyanenko
- Nikolay Lossky
- Kronid Lyubarsky
- Michail J. Makarenko
- Vasyl Makukh
- Guram Mamulia
- Nadezhda Mandelstam
- Anatoly Marchenko
- Valeriy Marchenko
- Myroslav Marynovych
- Grigorii Maksimov
- Roy Medvedev
- Zhores Medvedev
- Naum Meiman
- Mykhailo Melnyk
- Alexander Men
- Yosef Mendelevitch
- Vazif Meylanov
- Andrei Mironov
- Ion Moraru
- Viktor Nekipelov
- Viktor Nekrasov
- Alexander Nekrich
- Valeriya Novodvorskaya
- Vasile Odobescu
- Alexander Ogorodnikov
- Yuri Orlov
- Raisa Orlova
- Yulian Panich
- Lagle Parek
- Boris Pasternak
- Konstantin Paustovsky
- Gleb Pavlovsky
- Zianon Pazniak
- Yekaterina Peshkova
- Viktoras Petkus
- Alexander Piatigorsky
- Leonid Plyushch
- Alexandr Podrabinek
- Grigory Pomerants
- Vladimir Pribylovsky
- Dmitri Prigov
- Anatoly Pristavkin
- Boris Pustyntsev
- Irina Ratushinskaya
- Eliyahu Rips
- Arseny Roginsky
- Maria Rozanova
- Mykola Rudenko
- Yuly Rybakov
- Ain Saar
- Valery Sablin
- Andrei Sakharov
- Dmitri Savitski
- Shmuel Schneurson
- Iryna Senyk
- Victor Serge
- Efraim Sevela
- Igor Shafarevich
- Varlam Shalamov
- Avital Sharansky
- Natan Sharansky
- Alexander Shatravka
- Vladimir Shelkov
- Yurii Shukhevych
- Danylo Shumuk
- Andrei Sinyavsky
- Vladimir Slepak
- Victor Sokolov
- Sergei Soldatov
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Pitirim Sorokin
- Galina Starovoytova
- Vladimir Strelnikov
- Aleksandras Štromas
- Vasyl Stus
- Nadiya Svitlychna
- Ivan Svitlichny
- Vasyl Symonenko
- Les Tanyuk
- Alexander Tarasov
- Valery Tarsis
- Enn Tarto
- Lev Timofeev
- Valentin Turchin
- Andrei Tverdokhlebov
- Tatyana Velikanova
- Tomas Venclova
- Georgi Vins
- Georgi Vladimov
- Vladimir Voinovich
- Michael Voslenski
- Anatoly Yakobson
- Gleb Yakunin
- Venedikt Yerofeyev
- Yevgeny Zamyatin
- Alexander Zinoviev
- Yosyf Zisels