- Part Of
- Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region fonds
- Committee for Soviet Jewry series
- Refusnik cases sub-series
- Individual Refusnik cases sub-sub series
- Level
- File
- Fonds
- 17
- Series
- 3-6-1
- File
- 18
- Material Format
- textual record
- Date
- 1977-1983
- Physical Description
- 1 folder of textual records
- Admin History/Bio
- Iosif Begun was a mathematics and engineering teacher born in 1932 in Moscow who taught himself Hebrew and worked as a Hebrew teacher. He was first denied permission to emigrate in 1971 and was subsequently dismissed from his job as a researcher at the Moscow Central Research Institute. While working as a Hebrew teacher Begun was arrested in 1977 for parasitism, for "avoiding socially useful work and living on unearned income". He was exiled to Magadan in Siberia and following appeals and hunger strikes was recharged in 1983 for anti-Soviet agitation. His case received a lot of attention because of his role in building a grassroots Jewish culture in the Soviet Union and his attempts to have Hebrew recognized as a national language, protected under Soviet law. In 1988 Begun was released and granted permission to emigrate to Israel with his son Boris's family, his wife Inna and his mother-in-law, Dvoira Lazar.
- Source
- Archival Descriptions
- Part Of
- Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region fonds
- Committee for Soviet Jewry series
- Refusnik cases sub-series
- Individual Refusnik cases sub-sub series
- Level
- File
- Fonds
- 17
- Series
- 3-6-1
- File
- 50
- Material Format
- textual record
- Date
- 1981-1986
- Physical Description
- 1 folder of textual records
- Admin History/Bio
- Lev Elbert was a construction engineer from Kiev. He and his wife Inna, a cardiologist, were active in promoting the Hebrew language in Kiev and were also fluent in English. His case garnered international attention when he went on a hunger strike and threatened suicide over his treatment during incarceration in Siberia in 1983, on draft evasion charges. Charges of drug smuggling were fabricated by prison authorities against Lev while he was in prison and he was subsequently held in isolation with violent inmates. In 1988 he emigrated to Israel with his family where he eventually became director of the Department of Construction of Power Stations for the Israel Electric Company.
- Source
- Archival Descriptions