Editing Refusenik (section)

== History of the Jewish refuseniks ==
{{See also|Persecution of Jews#Russia and the Soviet Union}}

A large number of Soviet Jews applied for [[exit visa]]s to leave the Soviet Union, especially in the period following the 1967 [[Six-Day War]]. While some were allowed to leave, many were refused permission to emigrate, either immediately or after their cases would languish for years in the OVIR ({{langx|ru|label=none|ОВиР, Отдел Виз и Регистрации|translit=Otdel Viz i Registratsii}}) or Office of Visas and Registration, the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|MVD]] (Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs) department responsible for exit visas. In many instances, the reason given for denial was that these persons had been given access, at some point in their careers, to information vital to Soviet [[national security]] and could not now be allowed to leave.<ref name=BTP2>{{cite web|url=http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/66.html|title=Beyond the Pale: The Right to Emigrate II|website=www.friends-partners.org}}</ref>

During the [[Cold War]], Soviet Jews were thought to be a security liability or possible traitors.<ref name="Joseph Dunner 1975. pages 69-82">Joseph Dunner. ''Anti-Jewish discrimination since the end of World War II''. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wh3ZUWExDEcC&dq=discrimination+against+jews+in+the+soviet+union&pg=PA75 Case Studies on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: A World Survey. Vol. 1.] Willem A. Veenhoven and Winifred Crum Ewing (Editors). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. 1975. Hague. {{ISBN|90-247-1779-5}}, {{ISBN|90-247-1780-9}}; pages 69-82</ref> To apply for an exit visa, the applicants (and often their entire families) would have to quit their jobs, which in turn would make them vulnerable to charges of [[parasitism (social offense)|social parasitism]], a criminal offense.<ref name=BTP2/>

Many Jews encountered systematic, [[Antisemitism in the Soviet Union|institutional antisemitism]] which blocked their opportunities for advancement. Some government sectors were almost entirely off-limits to Jews.<ref name="Joseph Dunner 1975. pages 69-82"/><ref>Benjamin Pinkus. [https://books.google.com/books?id=52Ew77pZsNUC&dq=discrimination+against+jews+in+the+soviet+union&pg=PA229 The Jews of the Soviet Union: the history of a national minority]. [[Cambridge University Press]], January 1990. {{ISBN|978-0-521-38926-6}}; pp. 229-230.</ref> In addition, Soviet restrictions on religious education and expression prevented Jews from engaging in Jewish cultural and religious life.  While these restrictions led many Jews to seek emigration,<ref>Boris Morozov (Editor). ''Documents on Soviet Jewish Emigration.'' [[Taylor & Francis]], 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-7146-4911-5}}</ref> requesting an exit visa was itself seen as an act of betrayal by Soviet authorities.  Thus, prospective emigrants requested permission to emigrate at great personal risk, knowing that an official refusal would often be accompanied by dismissal from work and other forms of social ostracism and economic pressure. {{Citation needed|date=November 2012}}
At the same time, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to significantly increase the emigration quota. In the years 1960 through 1970, only 4,000 people (legally) emigrated from the USSR. In the following decade, the number rose to 250,000,<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/books/ALEXEEWA/alexeeva_toc.htm|last=Alexeyeva|first=Lyudmila|publisher=Vest'|year=1992|location=Vilnius|language=ru|script-title=ru:История инакомыслия в СССР|oclc=489831449|author-link=Lyudmila Alexeyeva|trans-title=The History of Dissident Movement in the USSR|access-date=2013-04-28|archive-date=2017-02-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222231247/http://www.memo.ru/history/diss/books/ALEXEEWA/alexeeva_toc.htm|url-status=dead}}<!-- invalid ISBN 5-89942-250-3 is as used for 1992 edition by multiple libraries on worldcat (eg British Library in UK and Brown and Cornell University libraries in US) --></ref> to fall again by 1980.

=== Hijacking incident ===
{{Main|Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair}}

In 1970, a group of 16 refuseniks (two of whom were not Jewish), organized by dissident [[Eduard Kuznetsov (dissident)|Eduard Kuznetsov]] (who already served a seven-year term in Soviet prisons), plotted to buy all the seats for the local flight [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]]-[[Priozersk]], under the guise of a trip to a wedding, on a small 12-seater aircraft [[Antonov An-2]] (colloquially known as {{langx|ru|label=none|кукурузник|translit=kukuruznik}}), throw out the pilots before takeoff from an intermediate stop, and fly it to Sweden, knowing they faced a huge risk of being captured or shot down. One of the participants, Mark Dymshits, was a former military pilot.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

On 15 June 1970, after arriving at [[Rzhevka Airport|Smolnoye (later Rzhevka) Airport]] near Leningrad, the entire group of the "wedding guests" was arrested by the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|MVD]].{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

The accused were charged with [[high treason]], punishable by the [[death sentence]] under Article 64 of the Penal code of the RSFSR. Dymshits and Kuznetsov were sentenced to [[capital punishment]], but after international protests, it was appealed and replaced with 15 years in prison; [[Yosef Mendelevitch]] and Yuri Fedorov: 15 years; Aleksey Murzhenko: 14 years; Sylva Zalmanson (Kuznetsov's wife and the only woman on trial): 10 years; Arie (Leib) Knokh: 13 years; Anatoli Altmann: 12 years; Boris Penson: 10 years; Israel Zalmanson: 8 years; Wolf Zalmanson (brother of Sylva and Israel): 10 years; Mendel Bodnya: 4 years.{{Citation needed|date=April 2009}}

=== Crackdown on the refusenik activism and its growth ===
[[File:Jewish emigration from USSR Leningrad trial operation wedding.png|thumb|Jewish emigration from USSR, before and after the First Leningrad Trial]]
The affair was followed by a crackdown on the Jewish and dissident movement throughout the USSR.{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}} Activists were arrested, makeshift centers for studying the [[Hebrew language]] and [[Torah]] were closed, and more trials followed.<ref>{{cite web |last1=The Refusenik Project staff |title=Historical Overview |url=https://www.refusenikproject.org/history/#historical-overview |website=The Refusenik Project |access-date=30 December 2018}}</ref> At the same time, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to significantly increase the emigration quota. In the years 1960 through 1970, only about 3,000 Soviet Jews had (legally) emigrated from the USSR; after the trial, in the period from 1971 to 1980 347,100 people received a visa to leave the USSR, 245,951 of them were Jews.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

A leading proponent and spokesman for the refusenik rights during the mid-1970s was [[Natan Sharansky]].  Sharansky's involvement with the [[Moscow Helsinki Group]] helped to establish the struggle for emigration rights within the greater context of the [[human rights]] movement in the USSR.  His arrest on charges of espionage and treason and subsequent trial contributed to international support for the refusenik cause.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}}

=== International pressure ===
[[File:Yuli_Edelstein.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Yuli Edelstein]], one of the Soviet Union's most prominent refuseniks, who served as [[Speaker of the Knesset]] (Israel's parliament) from 2013 to 2020]]

On 18 October 1976, 13 Jewish refuseniks came to the [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet]] to petition for explanations of denials of their right to emigrate from the USSR, as affirmed under the Helsinki Final Act. Failing to receive any answer, they assembled in the reception room of the Presidium on the following day. After a few hours of waiting, they were seized by the [[Militsiya|police]], taken outside of the city limits and beaten. Two of them were kept in police custody.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

In the next week, following an unsuccessful meeting between the activists' leaders and the Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs, General [[Nikolay Shchelokov]], these abuses of law inspired several demonstrations in the Soviet capital. On Monday, 25 October 1976, 22 activists, including [[Mark Azbel]], [[Felix Kandel]], [[Alexander Lerner]], [[Ida Nudel]], [[Anatoly Shcharansky]], [[Vladimir Slepak]], and [[Michael Zeleny]], were arrested in Moscow on their way to the next demonstration. They were convicted of [[hooliganism]] and incarcerated in the detention center Beryozka and other penitentiaries in and around Moscow. An unrelated party, artist [[Victor Motko]], arrested in [[Dzerzhinsky Square]], was detained along with the protesters in recognition of his prior attempts to emigrate from the USSR. These events were covered by several British and American journalists including [[David K. Shipler]], [[Craig R. Whitney]], and [[Christopher S. Wren]]. The October demonstrations and arrests coincided with the end of the [[1976 United States presidential election]]. On October 25, U.S. presidential candidate [[Jimmy Carter]] expressed his support of the protesters in a telegram sent to Scharansky, and urged the Soviet authorities to release them. (See Léopold Unger, Christian Jelen, ''Le grand retour'', A. Michel 1977; Феликс Кандель, ''Зона отдыха, или Пятнадцать суток на размышление'', Типография Ольшанский Лтд, Иерусалим, 1979; Феликс Кандель, ''Врата исхода нашего: Девять страниц истории'', Effect Publications, Tel-Aviv, 1980.) On 9 November 1976, a week after Carter won the presidential election, the Soviet authorities released all but two of the previously arrested protesters. Several more were subsequently rearrested and incarcerated or exiled to Siberia.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

On 1 June 1978, ''refuseniks'' Vladimir and Maria Slepak stood on the eighth story balcony of their apartment building. By then they had been denied permission to emigrate for over 8 years. Vladimir displayed a banner that read "Let us go to our son in [[Israel]]". His wife Maria held a banner that read "Visa for my son". Fellow ''refusenik'' and Helsinki activist Ida Nudel held a similar display on the balcony of her own apartment. They were all arrested and charged with malicious hooliganism in violation of Article 206.2 of the [[Penal Code]] of the [[Soviet Union]]. The [[Moscow Helsinki Group]] protested their arrests in circulars dated 5 and 15 June of that year.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.mhg.ru/history/14DB1C9 |title=Московская Хельсинкская Группа |access-date=2015-12-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170205170006/http://www.mhg.ru/history/14DB1C9 |archive-date=2017-02-05 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Vladimir Slepak and Ida Nudel were convicted of all charges. They served 5 and 4 years in Siberian exile.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://eleven.co.il/jews-of-russia/history-in-ussr/15420/|title=Советский Союз. Евреи в Советском Союзе в 1967–85 гг.|first=Редакция|last=энциклопедии|date=4 October 2018|website=Электронная еврейская энциклопедия ОРТ}}</ref>

Various activist organizations constituted the [[Soviet Jewry Movement]]. Human rights organizations included the [[Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism]] (1963), [[Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry]] (1964),<ref>{{Cite web|title=Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ)|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/student-struggle-for-soviet-jewry-sssj|access-date=2021-10-20|website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=June 2022}} [[Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews]] (1967), the [[Union of Councils for Soviet Jews]] (1970),<ref>{{Cite web|last=Ghert-Z|first=Renee|title=Once heroes of US Jewry, Soviet Refuseniks are largely forgotten. Not for long|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/once-heroes-of-us-jewry-soviet-refuseniks-are-largely-forgotten-not-for-long/|access-date=2021-10-20|website=www.timesofisrael.com|language=en-US}}</ref> and the [[National Coalition Supporting Soviet Jewry]] (1971).

Another major source of pressure in favor of the rights of refuseniks was the [[Jackson–Vanik amendment]] to the [[Trade Act of 1974|1974 Trade Act]]. Jackson–Vanik affected U.S. trade relations with countries with non-market economies (originally, countries of the Communist bloc) that restricted freedom of Jewish emigration and other human rights. As such, it was applied to the USSR. According to [[Mark E. Talisman]], those who benefited included Jewish refuseniks from the Soviet Union, as well as Hungarians, Romanians, and other citizens that sought to emigrate from their nations.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Pomeranz|first=William E.|title=The Legacy and Consequences of Jackson-Vanik: Reassessing Human Rights in 21st Century Russia|url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-legacy-and-consequences-jackson-vanik-reassessing-human-rights-21st-century-russia-0|access-date=2021-10-21|website=www.wilsoncenter.org|language=en}}</ref>