Natan Sharansky

Natan Sharansky (2016)

Natan Sharansky ( Hebrew נתן שרנסקי, Russian Натан Щаранский ; * January 20, 1948 in Stalino , Soviet Union ; today Donetsk , Ukraine ), originally Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky (Анатолий Борисович Щаранский), is an Israeli politician and author . He became known worldwide for his commitment as a Soviet dissident and refusenik . Sharansky was imprisoned in a Gulag prison camp in Siberia for nine years during the communist dictatorship .

Life

Soviet Union

After studying at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology , Sharansky received a diploma in applied mathematics . After his request to leave Israel in 1973 was rejected, he worked as an interpreter for the dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov . He was also a human rights activist, a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Group and one of the founders and spokesman for the “Refusenik” movement in the Soviet Union. He was arrested in March 1977. He was sentenced to 13 years of forced labor on July 14, 1978 following charges of treason and espionage in favor of the United States . After 16 months in Moscow's Lefortovo prison , he spent nine years in the Siberian prison camp Perm 35. The trial of Sharansky and the situation of his fellow sufferers in the Soviet Union aroused the interest of international human rights activists in the situation of Soviet Jews .

Emigration to Israel and political career

In 1986 he was flown to Berlin and exchanged for a Soviet spy as part of an agent exchange on Glienicke Bridge , whereupon he emigrated to Israel and changed his first name to Natan.

In 1995 he founded the political immigration party Jisra'el ba-Alija , which promoted the immigration of Soviet Jews and their integration into Israeli society. From 2003 to 2005 he was Minister without Portfolio , but in the Cabinet responsible for Jerusalem and social and diaspora issues. He resigned from office in April 2005 to protest against the planned Israeli withdrawal from Gaza . Before that, he had been Israel's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Construction since March 2001, and in 2000 he resigned as Minister of the Interior after just under a year. He was also Minister of Trade and Industry between 1996 and 1999. In March 2006, Sharansky was a member of the Likud - fraction back into the Knesset elected. Six months later, he announced his retirement from politics.

At the end of June 2009 he was unanimously elected head of the Jewish Agency .

criticism

The American Conservative accuses him of not wanting to grant the Palestinians the human rights that he had claimed for himself as a Soviet dissident.

See also

That was suggested by him

• Marketplace sample as a test for freedom of expression in a country, as well
• the 3-D test for anti-Semitism as a test of whether criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitic.

Honors

• 1986 Gold Medal of Honor of the Congress
• In 2006 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom , the highest civilian honor in the United States.
• 2020 Genesis Prize

Web links

Commons : Natan Sharanski  - collection of images

• The liaison man . (PDF) Israelnetz 3/2017, pp. 10–11; interview

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The website of the Arbeiterzeitung is currently being redesigned. The linked pages are therefore not available.
2. ^ Sharansky's Double Standard
3. ^ Former minister Sharansky receives Jewish prize. Israelnetz.de , December 10, 2019, accessed on December 28, 2019 .