Chronology of events 1986 – 1988

Compiled by Yuli Kosharovsky and Enid Wurtman.

Employed Abbreviations: AA – the archive of the author; d.o.r.  - Date of record (not the event);

TM- a telephone message from Moscow in real time.

The sources of information are listed below. The numbers of the sources are placed in The Chronology  in parentheses.

1. Морозов Борис, “Еврейская эмиграция в свете новых документов“, “Центр Каммингса”, “Тель Авивский Университет”, “ЦХСД”, 1998.
2. Энн Шенкарь, Бюллетень “Комитета действия” (англ.).
3. “Википедия“, http://ru.wikipedia.org .
4. “Еврейская электронная энциклопедия” http://www.eleven.co.il .
5. Краткая Еврейская Энциклопедия, том.8, “Общество по исследованию еврейских общин”, “Еврейский университет в Иерусалиме”, Иерусалим, 1996.
6. Jewish Encyclopedia, CD-Rom Edition
7. Friedman, Murray and Chernin, Albert, Editors, “A Second Exodus, The American Movement to Free Soviet Jews“, Hanover, Brandeis University Press, 1999.
8. Gilbert, Martin, “Shcharansky, Hero of Our Time“, London, Macmillan London Limited, 1986.
9. Levin, Nora, “The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, Paradox of Survival“, Volume I, Volume II, New York and London, New York University Press, 1988.
10. Prital David, “Jews of the FSU in Israel and Diaspora“.
11. Soviet Jewish Affairs, Chronicle of Events, Sources are Western Press reports, unless specifically stated.
12. Rosenfeld Nancy “Unfinished Journey”.
13. Eizen, Wendy, “Count Us In, The Struggle to Free Soviet Jews”, A Canadian Perspective, Toronto, Burgher Books, 1995.
14. Washington Post.
15. Wurtman Enid, Articles in “Jerusalem Post” and audiocassettes of telephone talks with refuseniks in Russia.
16. Schroeter, Leonard, “The Last Exodus“, Jerusalem, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Jerusalem, 1974.
17. Insight, 70 Years of Soviet Union.
18. Нехемия Леванон, Код Натив, Ам овед, 1995, иврит.
19. Юлий Кошаровский, “Мы снова евреи“, том 1, 2007.
20. “Антиеврейские процессы в Советском Союзе 1969-1971 годов“, Издание Еврейского университета в Иерусалиме и Центра исследований восточноевропейского еврейства 1979 год.
21. Пинкус Вениамин, “Национальное возрождение“, Центр наследия Бен-Гуриона, 1993, иврит.
22. Интервью автору.
23. “Сборник писем, петиций и обращений“, “Центр по изучению восточноевропейского еврейства”.
24. Shindler, Colin, “Exit Visa, Détente, Human Rights and the Jewish Emigration Movement in the USSR“, London, Bachman and Turner, 1978.
25. Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. Newsletter.
26. Gilbert, Martin, “The Jews of Hope, The Plight of Soviet Jewry Today“, London, Macmillan London Limited, 1984.
27. Файн Вениамин, “Вера и разум“, Маханаим, Иерусалим 2007.
28. Bulleten UCSJ “Alert“.
29. Lerner, Alexander, “Change of Heart“, Minneapolis, Lerner Publication Company, Rehovot, Balaban Publishers, 1992.
30. Lein, Evgeny “Lest we forget“.
31. Israel Public Council for Soviet Jewry, Israel, Profile.
32. Gilbert, Martin, “The Jews of Hope, The Plight of Soviet Jewry Today” London, Macmillian London Limited, 1984.
33. Joel L. Lebowitz, James S.Langer, William I. Glaberson, Editors, “Fourth International conference on collective fenomena“, Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, Published by The New York Academy of Science, ANYAA9 337, 1-223, 1980.
34. Loel L. Lebowitz, Editor, “Fourth International conference on collective fenomena“, Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, Published by The New York Academy of Science, ANYAA9 373, 1-233, 1981.
35. Давид Зильберман, “Голодная демонстрация советских евреев в Москве 10-11 марта 1971 года, Дневник демонстранта, Сказание об исходе из России, Нацрат Элит, Израиль, 1971 год.
36. Инна Аксельрод-Рубина “Жизнь как жизнь, воспоминания“, Иерусалим 2006.
37. Информационный бюллетень по вопросам репатриации и еврейской культуры, еврейский информационный центр в Москве.
38. Jerusalem post, Soviet Jewry, Jewish World by Enid Wurtman.
39. Александр Парицкий, “Молитва”, Иерусалим 2006, Verba Pablishers, Jerusalem.
40. Evgeny Lein, Lest we forget, The Refuseniks struggle and World Jewish Solidarity, The Jerusalem publishing cebter, Jerusalem, 1997.
41. Anatoly Adamishin and Richard Schifter, Human Rights, Perestroika, and The End of The Cold War, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, 2009
42. Baruch Gur, Open Gates, The Inside Story of the Mass Aliya from the Soviet Union and its Successor States, Jewish Agence for Israel, printet by Graphit, Jerusalem 1996.
43. Lois Rosenblum interviews: Rosenblum Oral History Project: In­volvement in the Soviet Jewry movement, interviews with Louis Rosenblum, 1996-1999, Louis Rosenblum Pap­ers, MS 4926, Jewish Archives of the Western Reserve Historical Society.
    1. Jerry Goodman, Jews in the Soviet Union and the American Soviet Jewry Movement – A Time Line of Historic Events,  1917-1991.
    2. Pam Cohen, Time Line of the Soviet Jewry movement.

01.01.1986	92 Jews left the Soviet Union in December 1985.
08.01.1986	Leningrad refusenik Vladimir Lifshitz, a 45 year old Candidate of Mathematics, a member of the unofficial seminar on Jewish history, is arrested  on charges of “defaming the Soviet state and social system”. (11, Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986, p. 98).
13.01.1986	The International Committee of Scientists for Soviet Refuseniks holds a seminar at January 13-14 in Oxford on the “Plight of Soviet Refuseniks. Can  Western Scientific Communities help them?” Twenty-one leading international scientific bodies and learned societies participate. (11, Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986   p. 98).
17.01.1986	Simon Shnirman, Kerch, is released upon completion of his three-year sentence for draft evasion.  (11, pp. 98-100).
18.01.1986	Moscow refusenik scientists hold two day seminar on January 18th and 19th on themes relating to physics, biology and medicine.  Some Western academics contribute specialist lectures. (11, Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986, p.99)
23.01.1986	Leningrad refusenik Yakov Gorodetsky and Odessa refusenik Yakov Mesh   and their families receive permission to emigrate. (d.o.r.)  The Gorodetsky family arrives in Israel on February 2nd. (11, Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986   p. 99).
27.01.1986	The World Jewish Congress holds its Eighth Plenary Assembly in Jerusalem at January 27-30. The resolutions adopted includes one on Soviet Jewry. (11,    Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986p. 99).
01.02.1986	79 Jews had left the USSR in January 1986. (11, p. 99).
03.02.1986	Alexander Kholmiansky released from labor camp on completion of his  18 month sentence. (see February 1, 1985), (11, Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986, p. 99).
11.02.1986	Anatoly Shcharansky released from imprisonment and arrives in the West in an East West exchange. (11,   Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986, p. 99).
13.02.1986	Vladimir Kislik opened a legal seminar in Moscow.
20.02.1986	142 refuseniks appeal to the Twenty-seventh CPSU Congress to release  Prisoners of Zion; to set a maximum five year waiting period for applications refused  on grounds of regime considerations; to publish regulations on emigration; and to conclude an agreement with Israel on repatriation. (11, Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986,  p. 99).
26.02.1986	Opening of the XVII CPSU Congress, which adopted a new program and a charter of the party, at which new slogans of  “democracy,” “socialist choice” and “new thinking” have been announced.
26.02.1986	Leading refuseniks from major Jewish population centers began a rota of hunger strikes in protest against conscription of the refuseniks and their children into the army. Refuseniks are hoping thus to draw the attention of the XVII Congress of the CPSU participants from the West to this issue. (11, Soviet Jewish Affairs vol. 16, no. 2, 1986, p. 99).
01.03.1986	84 Jews left the USSR in February. (11, p. 93).
05.03.1986	Representatives of the Presidium of the World Conference of Soviet Jewry were received by President Reagan. They expressed their gratitude to the President for his help in obtaining the release of Anatoly Shcharansky. (11, p. 93).
06.03.1986	A group of prominent Frenchwomen, which included Simone Weil, Simone de Beauvoir and Elizabeth Badinter, appealed to Gorbachev to permit Ida Nudel to emigrate to Israel, (d.o.r), (11, p. 93) .
13.03.1986	Tbilisi refusenik Bezalel Shalolashvili, a 21 year old student, is arrested on charges of evading conscription. (see April 21, 1986), (11, p. 93).
14.03.1986	Moscow refusenik and Hebrew teacher Alexei Magarik, a 27 year old cellist, is arrested in Tbilisi on charges of “possession of drugs”. (11, p. 93).
16.03.1986	Yuri Tarnopolsky released upon completion of his three-year sentence. (11, p. 93).
19.03.1986	Leningrad refusenik Vladimir Lifshitz is sentenced to three years imprisonment in a labor camp “for defaming  the Soviet state and social system”. (see January 8 and April 16, 1986), (11, p. 94).
23.03.1986	Leningrad refusenik and Prisoner of Zion Boris Kalendarev, who served a 2 year sentence in a labor camp (1979-1981) for draft evasion, leaves the Soviet Union. (11, p. 94).
01.04.1986	47 Jews left the USSR in March 1986. (11, p. 94).
26.04.1986	Announcement issued about beginning of perestroika.
08.04.1986	Anti-Zionist Committee holds a plenary session issued a statement condemning reactionary nature of the international Zionism. The Committee also expressed concern about the growing anti-Semitism in the West. (11, p. 94).
10.04.1986	Boris Gulko, a former Soviet chess champion, and his wife who have been seeking to emigrate to Israel since 1979, are prevented by Moscow police from demonstrating in front of the Moscow Chess Federation building. Gulko is beaten by a KGB agent. (See May 4, 1986), (d.o.r.) (11, p. 94).
14.04.1986	Thirteen Hebrew teachers living in the Soviet Union, are awarded honorary membership in the Israeli Teachers Association   in a ceremony at the Jerusalem Theater. (11, p. 94).
15.04.1986	A Conference on humanitarian contacts in the framework of the CSCE meeting is held in Berne April 15 – May 23. The Conference failed to adopt a final document. (11, p. 90).
15.04.1986	The 10th Session of the Conference on Confidence-Building Measures, Security and Disarmament in Europe is held in Stockholm at April 15-23. (11, p. 90).
16.04.1986	Moscow Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Vladimir Lifshitz, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment for “defamation”. (11, p. 94).
17.04.1986	At its annual meeting in Berne, held to coincide with the CSCE Meeting of Experts on Human Contacts in that city, the European Inter-parliamentary Conference for Soviet Jewry appeals to the Soviet Union to allow all Jews wishing to emigrate to Israel to do so; to release all Prisoners of Zion; and to guarantee Soviet Jews complete freedom to pursue their religious and cultural activities. The resolution is distributed to the CSCE meeting. (11, p. 94).
18.04.1986	Veteran Tbilisi refuseniks Gregory and Isai Goldstein, who were granted permission to emigrate following the intervention of Senator Edward Kennedy,  arrive with their families in Israel.(111, p. 94).
21.04.1986	Bezalel Shalolashvili in Tbilisi is sentenced to a year’s imprisonment on charges of draft evasion. (see also March 13 and May 21, 86), (11, p. 94).
26.04.1986	The accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,  Unit 4.
01.05.1986	A group of American Jews spent three weeks in the Soviet Union in a special tour organized by Intourist. They visited five national capitals, Bukhara and Kaunas, and met with members of the anti-Zionist Committee. ( d.o.r.), (11, p. 94).
01.05.1986	72 Jews left the Soviet Union in April 1986.
02.05.1986	Boris Gulko held a protest in Moscow against refusal to permit him and his family to leave the Soviet Union. (11, p. 94).
08.05.1986	Boris Gulko is promised by Moscow Visa Office (OVIR)   permission to emigrate. Gulko family arrives in Israel May 30, 1986. (11, p. 95).
09.05.1986	Leningrad KGB conducted a surprise raid on the art exhibition, organized by the refusenik Boris Devyatov in a private apartment. (11, p. 95).
13.05.1986	Anatoly Shcharansky is received by President Reagan in Washington. (11, p. 95).
21.05.1986	The Court of Appeal suspended for  three years the sentence of 1 year’s imprisonment for  Bezalel Shalolashvili. (April 21, 86), (11, p. 95).
22.05.1986	More than forty people attend a memorial service at Rumbuli in commemoration of Holocaust victims. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 95).
23.05.1986	By Decree of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the maximum term of imprisonment was increased from 15 to 20 years in cases where the death sentence is commuted and replaced by imprisonment. (11, p. 95).
23.05.1986	USSR Council of Ministers issued a resolution “On measures to strengthen struggle against unearned income”.
25.05.1986	The Soviet ambassador in Denmark Lev Isaakovich Mendelevich, the last Jew to hold that rank, is transferred to another post. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 95).
26.05.1986	A Latin American Conference for Soviet Jewry is held in Buenos Aires on May 26-29.  It is attended by 300 delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. (11, p. 95).
28.05.1986	The Soviet press publishes details of new legislation on “unearned income” effective as of July 1st 1986. The new legislation provides for tougher sentences for economic crimes and bribe-taking; reaffirms the possibility of the death penalty for abusing ones’s official position; the death penalty for “aggravated bribe taking”. (11, p. 95).
01.06.1986	49 Jews emigrated from the USSR in May. (11, p. 95).
02.06.1986	Refuseniks Yuri Rosenzweig, an eye doctor and Yuri Chekanovsky, an economist, and their families demonstrate near the Gogol statue in central Moscow, seeking permission to emigrate to Israel. Rosenzweig and Chekanovsky were sentenced to two weeks’ imprisonment. (11, p. 95).
04.06.1986	US Department of State announced that the Soviet authorities have approved the applications of 244 Soviet citizens wishing to be reunited with their families in the United States. (11, p. 95).
06.06.1986	Moscow veteran refusenik Leonid Ozernoy, whose case was raised by US Senator Edward Kennedy in talks with Gorbachev, receives permission to emigrate.  (11, p.95).
06.06.1986	Moscow refusenik and Hebrew teacher Alexei Magarik is sentenced in Tbilisi to a maximum of three years imprisonment in a labor camp for “possession of  drugs.” Magarik will be released before the end of his term in 1987. (11, p. 95).
11.06.1986	Several prominent Soviet citizens of Jewish origin, including the deputy chairman of the anti-Zionist Committee Samuel Zivs, sign a statement that there are no more than 4,000 Soviet Jews who wish to emigrate. (11, p. 95).
12.06.1986	Refuseniks Inna Kitrovskaya (wife of Naum Meiman), Benjamin Charny and Tatiana Heifetz-Bogomolnaya, all suffering from cancer, appeal to the Soviet authorities to allow them to emigrate. (11, p. 95).
20.06.1986	Congress of the Socialist International in Lima (June 20-23) adopted a resolution on the deteriorating situation of Soviet Jews, deprived of their right to study and teach their national language and the halting of emigration. The Congress called on the Soviet Union to redress these wrongs. (11, pp. 95-96.).
21.06.1986	26 gravestones were defaced in the Jewish cemetery in Moscow. (11, p. 96).
25.06.1986	National Conference on Soviet Jewry (USA), 38 of its member agencies and 14 individuals, who experienced harassment by the Soviet authorities during visits to the Soviet Union, file a lawsuit against the Soviet travel agency Intourist for violation of the New York state law on Consumer Protection. The lawsuit accuses the Intourist in illegal, fraudulent and misleading marketing, especially in concealing information that Americans who visit refuseniks may be subjected to harassment. (11, 96).
26.06.1986	Evgeny Eisenberg, Kharkov, is released after serving one year imprisonment “for slandering the Soviet system”. (11, p. 96).
01.07.1986	Alexander Yakir is released from labor camp upon completion of a two year sentence “for draft evasion”. (11, p. 96).
01.07.1986	Five Nobel Prize laureates appeal in from the US to President Mitterrand to intervene on his forthcoming visit to the Soviet Union in behalf of refusenik Victor Brailovsky. (11, p. 96).
01.07.1986	55 Jews emigrated from the USSR in June 1986. (11, p. 96).
10.07.1986	The court in Tbilisi rejects an appeal by Alexei Magarik and left the sentence  unchanged. (11, p. 96).
17.07.1986	British All-Parliamentary Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewry holds its annual awards ceremony for outstanding campaigners for Soviet Jewry.  The winners of the 1986 award are the writer Tom Stoppard and Moscow refusenik Natalia Khassina. (11, p. 96).
25.07.1986	The Moscow Stanislavsky Theater performs anti-emigration play of Arcadia Stavisky, “40 Sholem Aleichem Street “. (11, p. 96).
01.08.1986	31 Jews left the USSR in July 1986. (11, p. 97).
08.08.1986	Nadezhda Fradkova is released from labor camp upon completion of two year sentence for “parasitism”. (11, p. 97).
11.08.1986	1300 participants of the International Congress of Mathematics, Berkeley, California, sign a petition in support of refusenik-mathematicians,  addressed to Soviet authorities. (11, p. 97).
14.08.1986	Moscow refusenik Professor Yosef Irlin begins a hunger strike in support of his request for emigration. He will hold a hunger strike for three weeks. (11, p. 97).
18.08.1986	The Soviet-Israeli talks in Helsinki break off after 90 minutes. The Israeli delegation included Yehuda Horem and Hannah Bar-On. Soviet delegation – Henrikh Plihin and Nikolay Tikhomirov. (11, p. 94).
19.08.1986	Anatoly Shcharansky’s family (mother, Ida Milgrom, brother Leonid, his wife and two children)  are granted exit visas. They will arrive in Israel on August 25th. (11, page 97).
19.08.1986	The 20th and final session of the first stage of the Conference on Security Cooperation and Disarmament in Europe opens in Stockholm. (11, p. 94).
01.09.1986	88 Jews left the Soviet Union in August 1986. (11, p. 97).
04.09.1986	Glavlit (Censor Office) of the USSR issued the order number 29, according to which the censors were instructed to limit their activity for  the protection of state and military secrets and to inform the party bodies only about significant violations in the ideological sphere (Wikipedia).
10.09.1986	The Presidium of the International Council of the World Conference on Soviet Jewry meets in Paris on September 10th-12th. (11, p. 97).
13.09.1986	Founders of the Group for the Establishment of Trust between the USSR and the USA, Prisoner of Zion, Vladimir Brodsky, Yuri and Olga Medvedkov receive permission to emigrate. Brodsky was allowed to leave after having served only one year of  his three year sentence “for malicious hooliganism” (see August 15, 1985). He will arrive in Israel with his family on September 21st.  (11, pp. 97-98).
18.09.1986	Sverdlovsk refusenik Lev Shefer released from prison upon completion of his five years sentence term for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”.  (d.o.r.), (11, page 98).
21.09.1986	Soviet television shows the American-made ​​ documentary “The Russians Are Here” about former Soviet citizens in New York. The documentary is followed by a Soviet film which emphasizes that many emigrants regret their decision to leave the country. (11, p. 98.)
22.09.1986	Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Israel, and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the Soviet Union, met at UN headquarters and held a 70 minute conversation. (11, p. 95).
22.09.1986	KGB of Odessa interrogated Valery Pevsner for three hours.
25.09.1986	66 activists call upon Soviet authorities  to release Yosef Begun.​​
25.09.1986	Central Committee of CPSU made decision to stop jamming broadcasts of some foreign radio stations (“Voice of America”, “BBC”) and to strengthen the jamming of others (“Freedom,” Deutsche Welle “).
26.09.1986	Leningrad refusenik Semion Borovitsky, a computer programmer, is sentenced to five months’ corrective labor for refusing to testify against Vladimir Lifshitz.  (see March 19, 1986), (11, p. 98).
26.09.1986	A mikvah  in the Mar’ina Roshcha synagogue (Moscow) was destroyed by the orders of the authorities.
27.09.1986	Moscow refusenik-scientists conduct on September 27-28 three seminars in field of physics, biology and computer science. Seminar on physics is attended by scientists from abroad. (11, p. 98).
01.10.1986	126 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in September. (11, p. 98).
05.10.1986	The founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Yuri Orlov, is released from internal exile in Yakutia and allowed to depart with his wife to the United States. This follows a move involving the release of American journalist Nicholas Daniloff by the Soviets and of Soviet UN employee Gennady Zakharov by the US. (11, p. 98).
09.10.1986	Bezalel Shalolashvili and his family, Tbilisi, receive permission to emigrate. (see May 21, 1986), (d.o.r.), (11, p. 98).
11.10.1986	The second summit between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (the first was held in Geneva in autumn 1985) was held at October 11-12 in Reykjavik. The meeting ended without agreement. (11, p. 95).
14.10.1987	Vladimir Lifschitz, former Prisoner of Zion, Leningrad, receives permission to emigrate to Israel.
14.10.1986	Veteran refusenik Benjamin Bogomolny and his wife Tatiana, a cancer patient, leave the USSR. (see June 12, 1986) (11, p. 98).
16.10.1986	Long-term refusenik David Goldfarb, a professor, whose exit visa was withdrawn in 1984 after he refused to take part in a KGB attempt to implicate the American journalist Nicholas Daniloff, arrives with his wife in the US. He flew in a private plane owned by US industrialist Armand Hammer who helped negotiate his release. (11, p. 98).
19.10.1986	Fourteen members of the newly formed group of refusenik-women appeal to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to help secure a private meeting between Inna Begun and her imprisoned husband. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 99).
22.10.1986	The Jewish writer Elie Wiesel, Chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, visits the USSR on October 22nd-26th. Wiesel discusses with the Soviet authorities their participation in the conference on non-Jewish victims of Nazism planned on February 1987 in Washington. Wiesel concludes his visit with a press conference at which he calls upon the Soviet authorities to enable Jews seeking emigration to leave the USSR and to allow Andrei Sakharov to return to Moscow from exile in Gorky. (11, p. 99).
24.10.1986	Delegation of the American Jewish Congress, headed by Howard Squadron, visits the USSR at October 24th-27th. The delegation includes former President of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Theodore Mann, and Samuel Pisar, an international lawyer. (11, p. 99).
24.10.1986	Jewish doctors from the US, Canada, England, France, Israel and Sweden form an International Physicians Committee for the Protection of  Prisoners in order to provide professional assistance to refuseniks and their families. (d.o.r.) (11, p. 99).
25.10.1986	Five Jews were arrested after the celebration of Simchat Torah, and a meeting with Elie Wiesel at the Moscow synagogue. On October 27th the case is heard in a People’s Court. Samuel Pisar acted as defense counsel. Jews are charged with “petty hooliganism” and released with small fines. (11, p. 99).
26.10.1986	Refusenik Ida Nudel is prevented in Bendery from boarding a train to Moscow to meet Elie Wiesel. (d.o.r.) (11, p. 99).
26.10.1986	Refusenik Inessa Flerov is granted exit visa and arrive in Israel in early November. (d.o.r.) (11, p. 99).
30.10.1986	Long-term refusenik from Leningrad, Isaak Kogan, an observant Orthodox Jews, is granted permission to emigrate.  He and his family arrive in Israel in early November. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 99).
31.10.1986	Announcement about beginning of withdrawal of the “limited contingent of Soviet troops” from Afghanistan issued by the Soviet authorities.
01.11.1986	The third Review Conference of the “Helsinki process” begins in Vienna. (11, p. 91).
01.11.1986	104 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in October 1986. (11, p. 93).
04.11.1986	At a press conference n the Soviet Embassy in Washington 12 immigrants from the Soviet Union, including 8 Jews, expound on the reasons why they decided to return to the USSR. (11, p. 93).
04.11.1986	100 Jewish activists submit a detailed analysis on the situation of Refuseniks to the CSCE Review Meeting in Vienna. (11, p. 93).
06.11.1986	Albert Burstein is mercilessly beaten by KGB agents.
10.11.1986	Haim Elbert died of a heart attack after having been informed that the family was denied permission to leave.
11.11.1986	On November 11th-13th Moscow hosted an international conference “The Lessons of Nuremberg.” (11, p. 93).
12.11.1986	The Soviet delegation at the CSCE Follow-up Conference in Vienna held a press conference at which four Soviet emigrants, who were allowed to return to the USSR, are presented. (11, p. 93).
12.11.1986	Leningrad refusenik Semen Borovinsky who received a suspended sentence of five months for refusing to testify against Vladimir Lifshits, is allowed to serve his sentence at his workplace. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 93).
16.11.1986	Natasha Magarik, wife of Prisoner of Zion Alexei Magarik, who was beaten recently in the labor camp, spoke on a conference call to young European Jewish leaders. Natasha described his condition in prison and stated that she did not receive any correspondence from her husband  since the previous meeting. Their next meeting has been canceled. (38, Soviet Jews, 02/12/86).
18.11.1986	89 refuseniks appealed for assistance to the CSCE conference in Vienna, (d.o.r.), (11, p. 93).
18.11.1986	The Soviet authorities grant one week emergency visa to the daughter of Professor David Goldfarb to visit her father in the USA following his operation for lung cancer. (11, p. 93).
18.11.1986	Jerusalem Post of December 2 published an open letter of Michael Dinaburg and Alena Khasina to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. “We hate you, – Mike and Alena wrote. – We want for our children one language – Hebrew, one homeland – Israel, one education – Jewish and one ideology – Zionist … We hate the Soviet laws and the Soviet lawlessness … We do not want to live in your communist paradise … “.
18.11.1986	Marina Chudnovsky, 35,  detained for two days by the KGB and threatened with long imprisonment for the fact that she, not having official work, gives private lessons of English. Her husband, a physicist, was dismissed from the Kharkov University (38, 02/12/86).
19.11.1986	The law “On self-employment” is approved (Wikipedia).
20.11.1986	Leningrad activist Albert Burstein tried to call New York at November 17 from the Central post office. Four police officers broke into the phone booth and took Albert and his 15 year old sister to the police station. “Too bad Hitler did not destroy all of you” – they screamed at him. Burstein was sentenced to 15 days in prison for “willfully resisting arrest.” (38, 02/12/86).
20.11.1986	Leading Moscow Jewish activists appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan to draw up a program for the repatriation of Soviet Jews and to establish an international committee to oversee the implementation of this program. (11, p. 93).
20.11.1986	On November 5, an informal hearing about Yuli Edelstein’s case was held in a Novosibirsk hospital. In the presence of a physician and a representative of the local internal affairs bodies Edelstein was invited to confess to drug possession, after which he would be released early. After refusing a plea he was threatened to be sent to the Kuibyshev region, where the conditions for prisoners were particularly difficult. Yuli became disabled as a result of the incident in the camp, he had multiple bones fractures and ruptures in his internal organs. (38, 02/12/86).
23.11.1986	Long term refusenik and prisoner of Zion, Simon Shnirman is being treated for hepatitis at home. After release he was forbidden to leave the one-room apartment, where he lives with his wife Yana and daughter,  from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am. (38, 02/12/86, Enid Wurtman News Calendar).
23.11.1986	Moscow activist Victor Fulmacht appealed to Mikhail Gorbachev to reconsider his “lifelong refusal”, and received an answer for the third ‘lifelong refusal” (38, Enid Wurtman News Calendar, 02/12/86).
23.11.1986	Fanya and Yana Berenstein, wife and daughter of Prisoner of Zion, Yosef Berenstein, visited him in a labor camp in Ukraine, where he is serving a term of four years imprisonment for “resisting the police”. Vision of Berenstein was irrevocably damaged by severe beating by criminals. (38, 2/12/86, Enid Wurtman News Calendar).
26.11.1986	Alexei Magarik, who is serving a three-year sentence in Omsk, Siberia, receives from the prison authorities a warning that he will be severely punished if his father Vladimir did not stop the international campaign in his behalf. Vladimir holds a hunger strike during the opening of the Vienna meeting of the Helsinki process. (38, 12.02.1986).
26.11.1986	Activists appeal to Gorbachev and Reagan for the release of Prisoners of Zion, and to allow unrestricted immigration without any harassment.
27.11.1986	Leningrad activist Boris Dubrov is arrested by the police on his way to a private home to lecture on “The Jews of St. Petersburg“. (11, p. 93).
27.11.1986	Activists in Leningrad appeal to heads of states who signed the Helsinki Accords, condemning Soviet violations of the Helsinki agreement.
28.11.1986	Gregory Rosenstein is detained for his role in the construction of the mikvah.
28.11.1986	Seven immigrants who wish to return to the Soviet Union from Canada, held a press conference at the Soviet Embassy in Toronto. (11, p. 93).
30.11.1986	200 Jews gather in Rumbuli on the 45th anniversary of the massacre of  Riga Jews to commemorate the 38,000 Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis in 1941. Three participants made speeches and Kaddish is recited. (11, p. 94).
00.12.1986	Riots in Alma-Ata after the removal of Kazakh D. Kunaev from the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan and his replacement by a Russian G. Kolbin. Courts are overwhelmed with criminal cases.
01.12.1986	Delegation of the CPSU Central Committee visits Odessa and invites seven leading Jewish activists to the local OVIR to discuss why they wish to leave the USSR. (11, p. 94).
01.12.1986	102 Jews emigrated from the USSR in November 1986. (11, p. 94).
02.12.1986	Article of Shcharansky in Jerusalem Post on December 2, 86 in support of Alena Hasina, with a title “Angry condemnation”.
03.12.1986	Yuli Edelstein is discharged from hospital after a serious injury in the workplace.
04.12.1986	Final Conference on the Helsinki agreements started in Vienna.
04.12.1986	Galina Zelichonok is denied a meeting with her ​​husband.
04.12.1986	Moscow refusenik Professor Yosef Irlin and his family arrive in Israel, (see 14/08/86), (d.o.r.), (11, p. 94).
06.12.1986	Boris Klotz is summoned for interrogation by the KGB.
08.12.1986	Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko dies in prison after a long hunger strike. (11, p. 94).
10.12.1986	First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Anatoly Kovalev formally proposes at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna to host a Conference on humanitarian issues in Moscow (11, p. 92).
15.12.1986	Wife of Prisoner of Zion Alexei Magarik, Natasha Ratner appeals to the Supreme Soviet with a letter in connection with the persecution of her husband in prison (the second lock-up in a month). Natasha wrote: “For six grams of hashish planted in his luggage, my husband was sentenced to the maximum term of imprisonment provided for by law … but he was not sentenced to slow death from harassment and beatings”. (38, 30/12/86).
16.12.1986	Mikhail Gorbachev informs Andrei Sakharov by a personal phone call that he is free to return from internal exile to Moscow, and may be engaged in scientific work. Sakharov and his wife Elena Bonner returned to Moscow at December 23 (11, p. 94). Two month later, in February 1987, 140 dissidents were pardoned and released (Wikipedia). This period can be considered as the real beginning of perestroika.
16.12.1986	According to Galina Zelichonok, her 50-year-old husband, Roald Zelichonok, arrested in June 1985 “for slandering the Soviet regime”, suffers from serious health complications. Zelichonok has suffered from high blood pressure for a long time and doctors confirm Galina’s fears, that the symptoms  manifested during his imprisonment can lead to death from a stroke. (38, 30/12/86).
18.12.1986	5 refuseniks, suffering from cancer – Leah Maryasina, Yuri Shpeizman, Marianne Simantova, Michael Furman and Elizabeth Geyshis – appeal to the International Red Cross in Geneva for help. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 94).
18.12.1986	Rimma Bravais, suffering from cancer, and her husband, both refuseniks leave the Soviet Union (11, p. 95).
18.12.1986	Anna Lifshitz, wife of Prisoner of Zion Vladimir Lifshitz, 45, does not receive letters from her husband. Vladimir suffers from back pain, and is forced to work long hours standing in unheated, humid environment. Anna appealed to the leadership of engineers in Kamchatka with a request to give to her husband a job corresponding to his state of health. (38, 30/12/86).
22.12.1986	Prisoner of Zion Alexei Magarik completed his second term in a punishment. After the second lock-up and as a result of protests from abroad and within the Soviet Union Magarik was transferred to work from fiberglass to wood. (38, 30/12/86).
22.12.1986	Prisoner of Zion Moshe Abramov is released from labor camp upon completion of a three years sentence for “malicious hooliganism”. (see January 24, 1984), (11, p. 94).
22.12.1986	Long-term refusenik Menrert Berner died Dec. 16th in refusal from a severe hemorrhage. He was deprived to reunite with his son in Israel since 1976. Menrert who had survived the Holocaust, could not endure long-term refusal. (38, 30/12/86).
24.12.1986	Several hundred refuseniks from different cities started a hunger strike in solidarity with the Prisoners of Zion. (11, p. 94). One hundred refuseniks representing the Association of Israeli citizens in the Soviet Union, joined the hunger strike on the 16th anniversary of Prisoners of Zion Day, and sent a telegram to Gorbachev demanding the release of Prisoners of Zion. “We understand that each of us could be in their place – was written in the message – and we are proud of their courage and bravery. Their names are: Yosef Begun, Leonid Volvovsky, Alexei Magarik, Yuli Edelstein, Yakov Levin, Mark Nepomniashchy, Anatoly Vershubsky, Vladimir Lifshitz, Yoseph Zissels, Leonid Shreyer. (38, 30/12/86).
25.12.1986	The decision of the Politburo to allow joint ventures with foreigners.
25.12.1986	Boris Begun,who arrived for a meeting with his father, Prisoner of Zion Yosef Begun, was denied the right to meet with him. (38, 30/12/86).
26.12.1986	The meeting on the Helsinki process started in Belgrade.
29.12.1986	On December 29th-30th Bar Ilan University in Israel, hosted an International Conference on Jewish Culture and Identity in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the aborted unofficial symposium on Jewish culture in the USSR. (11, p. 94).
29.12.1986	42 Soviet emigrants, many of them Jewish, have returned to the USSR from the United States. (11, p. 94).
30.12.1986	Ministry of Foreign Affairs Speaker Gennady Gerasimov said that about 1,000 Soviet emigrants in the United States have applied for permission to return to the Soviet Union. (11, p. 94).
01.01.1987	A new decree on entry and exit from the Soviet Union is adopted.
01.01.1987	80 Jews who have been denied exit visas for an unlimited time, addressed a protest to the Council of Ministers.
01.01.1987	77 Jews emigrated from the USSR in December, bringing the total number of Jewish emigration in 1986 to 914. The respective figure for Soviet German emigrants is 698. (11, p. 94).
02.01.1987	In a letter to Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov, over 80 refuseniks detail their objections to the new Soviet emigration law which came into force in January 1987. They request inter alia that reunification with relatives more distant than those cited in the new law be permitted; repatriation to one’s historical homeland, to rejoin one’s national culture, and religious motives be included among valid reasons for emigration; and that a quarantine period be laid down in respect of those refused emigration on security grounds. (d.o.r.), (11, pp. 94-95).
07.01.1987	Several members of the group “Jewish Women Against Refusal” appealed to the International Red Cross for assistance to Prisoners of Zion. (d.o.r), (11, p. 95).
08.01.1987	Long-term refusenik Alexander Ioffe holds a hunger strike from 8th to 27th of January to protest against the authorities’ refusal to grant his son Dimitri and his family emigration permits. He ends his hunger strike after receiving assurances by the Soviet Academy of Sciences,  that his son will be permitted to leave. Dmitry and his family arrive in Israel in early March 1987. (11, p. 95).
12.01.1987	The Executive Committee of the World Jewish Congress meets in London at January 12-13. Soviet Jewry is one of the items on the agenda. (11, p. 95).
13.01.1987	Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a decree authorizing the creation of joint ventures of Soviet enterprises and firms in capitalist and developing countries (Wikipedia).
15.01.1987	12 Leningrad refuseniks appeal to Raisa Gorbachev on behalf of Yuri Shpeizman, a cancer victim, and his wife who have separated from their children since 1977. (See December 18, 1986). (11, p. 95).
16.01.1987	Yuri Kashlev, head of the Department of Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, says the USSR has begun  an intensive review of sentences of prisoners charged with “anti-Soviet activities” and that new, more liberal definition of family relations will produce a “drastic increase” in the number of Soviet citizens permitted to join family members in the West. (11, p. 95).
16.01.1987	The New York based National Conference for Soviet Jewry announces it will not contest the U.S. administration’s decision of January 15th to lift the ban on non-strategic exports of oil and gas equipment and technology to the USSR. (11, p. 95).
19.01.1987	Inna Meiman, permitted to visit the U.S. for one year to undergo treatment for cancer, arrives in Washington. She dies there February 9th. Her husband, Professor Naum Meiman, was not allowed to accompany her nor attend her funeral. (11, p. 95).
19.01.1987	Professor Benjamin Levich, regarded by many as the most prominent Jewish refusenik scientist to have been permitted to emigrate from the USSR, dies in Englewood, New Jersey aged 69. (11, p. 95).
22.01.1987	Mikhail Taratuta, son of Leningrad refuseniks Ida and Aba Taratuta, holds an unofficial exhibition of his paintings in a Leningrad home. (11, p. 95).
22.01.1987	75 refuseniks appeal to the Soviet Procurator-General Aleksey Rekunkov to review the cases of Prisoners of Zion. (d.or.), (11, p. 95).
23.01.1987	Long-term refusenik Lev Blitshtein is granted an exit visa. (11, p. 95).
27.01.1987	CPSU Central Committee plenum on personnel matters was opened in Moscow. Gorbachev made ​​a speech “On perestroika and personnel policies of the Party.” He talked about the transformation of the Communist Party from the state structure to a political party, the expansion of intra-party democracy, nomination of non-Party persons for executive positions, the elections on a competitive basis, and greater transparency (glasnost). In the summer of 1987, the first time in the history of the Soviet Union, competitive elections for local councils were held. (Wikipedia).
28.01.1987	Samuel Zivs, first Deputy Chairman of the Anti-Zionist Committee of Soviet public, discusses Soviet emigration policy on a program on Soviet Jewry shown on American television. A proposed debate between refuseniks and ‘official Jews’ fails to materialize. (11, p. 96).
01.02.1987	Kharkov refusenik and former Prisoner of Zion Professor Yuri Tarnopolsky arrives in Vienna with his family. (see March 15, 1986), (11, p. 96).
01.02.1987	A second film of the Soviet documentary series “Conspiracy Against the Land of the Soviets” is shown on Soviet television. (see Sept. 5, 1985), (11, p. 96).
01.02.1987	98 Jews and 85 Germans emigrated from the USSR in January 1987. (11, p. 96).
05.02.1987	Gennady Gerasimov, Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, says that the cases of thousands of Soviet citizens who applied for emigration are currently under review and should be resolved in the next few months. (11, p. 96).
05.02.1987	Refusenik Ida Nudel is asked to resubmit her application for emigration. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 96).
05.02.1987	Council of Ministers issued a decree “On creation of cooperatives for the production of consumer goods.” (Wikipedia).
06.02.1987	Prisoner of Zion Roald Zelichonok was released after serving half of his three-year sentence. (11, p. 96).
06.02.1987	Soviet human rights activist, Yuri Shikhanovich, imprisoned for editing samizdat publication “Chronicle of Current Events” is pardoned. (see October 9, 1984), (d.o.r.), (11, p. 96).
06.02.1987	Tbilisi refuseniks Itzhak and Bezalel Shalolashvili arrive in Israel with their families. (11, p. 96).
09.02.1987	A group of refuseniks hold daily demonstrations from February 9th to 13th on the Old Arbat Street in Moscow, demanding the release of Prisoner of Zion Yosef Begun. On February 11th, 12th and 13th, the demonstrators, Western journalists and television crews were attacked by young ruffians with the apparent connivance of the Soviet security forces. Several refuseniks and Western journalists are detained. On February 12th Begun’s wife, and son, Boris, and nine other refuseniks are fined 100 rubles each. On February 13th, Boris Begun is arrested and sentenced to 15 days in  jail. (11, p. 96).
10.02.1987	Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady Gerasimov announces that about 140 – 150 prisoners have been pardoned by Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the basis of the decrees of February 2 and 9, and that a another140 cases are under review. The relevant decrees are not published. (11, p. 96).
10.02.1987	The Israeli English language newspaper “Jerusalem Post” published an article by Martin Gilbert about family of Nepomniashchys and Yaakov Levin from Odessa. (38, 02/10/87).
12.02.1987	According to the newspaper “Evening Moscow”, the Visa Office launched   a review of refuseniks’ cases who applied for exit visas in boundaries of familes reunification. The newspaper believes that all but those denied exit visas on base of secrecy (Vladimir Slepak, Alexander Lerner, Yuli Kosharovsky, Yulian Hasin, Natasha Hasina, Valery Soifer, Lev Sud, and Yakov  Rakhlenko) will receive exit visas. These refuseniks are planning to complain to the Visa Office, because they see no reasons for further detention in the USSR. (38, 24/02/1987, Enid Wutman News Calendar).
14.02.1987	On February 14-16, 1987, Moscow hosted an international forum “For a nuclear-free world and the survival of humanity.” Seven “round tables” were organized by the Forum, which was attended by over 1,000 foreign visitors from 80 countries. In the section on religion were: Rabbi Adolf Shaevich from Moscow, Rabbi Daniel Mayer of Prague and Czech region, Rabbi Alfred Schoener of Budapest, and Rabbi Arthur Schneier from New York. Andrei Sakharov, who participated in a roundtable for scientists, has called for deep reductions in nuclear arsenals of the superpowers and appeals for the release of all Soviet political prisoners and for freedom of movement and speech in the USSR. In the lobby of the Forum an appeal of ten refuseniks to the participants of the Forum also was circulating, demanding freedom of emigration from the USSR. (11, p. 92).
14.02.1987	Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet declared a pardon for 140 political prisoners. Many of them refused to write a request for a pardon, demanding not amnesty but acquittal.
15.02.1987	Leningrad refusenik Albert (Chaim) Burstein, repeatedly subjected to harassment by the KGB during the last months, received permission to emigrate.(38, 24/02/1987, E.W.).
15.02.1987	According to TASS, the cases of the following Jewish prisoners: Vladimir Lifshitz, Yuli Edelstein, Leonid Volvovsky, Mark Nepomnyashchy, Zahar Zunshain, Alexei Magarik will be reviewed. (38, 2/24/1987, E.W.).
15.02.1987	Professor Mark Freidlin, refusenik from 1979, received permission to emigrate with his family. (38, 24/02/1987, Calendar News).
17.02.1987	Prisoner Yosef Begun was pardoned by decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was released from Chistopol prison on February 20 and returned to Moscow on February 23. (11, p. 96).
18.02.1987	TASS reports that 140 Soviet citizens, who declared that they cease illegal activities, have been released. Among those mentioned are  Vladimir Albrecht (see Dec. 15, 1983) and Michael Meilakh. (11, p. 96).
19.02.1987	Appeal in support of Prisoner of Zion, Mark Nepomniashchy, by 40 Leningrad refuseniks.
19.02.1987	Secrecy refuseniks appeal to the UN Commission on Human Rights.
19.02.1987	12 leading Jewish activists hold a press conference in Moscow. They announce a campaign to step up pressure on the authorities to make 3 to 5 years the maximum period for which a person can be denied emigration on “security” grounds. (11, p. 97).
20.02.1987	Samuel Zivs, first Deputy Chairman of the Soviet Anti-Zionist Committee, announces at a press conference in Geneva, that in January 500 Jews were granted exit visas, and that the rule requiring emigration applicants to have invitations from “first-degree” relatives abroad is being relaxed. (11, p.  97).
20.02.1987	Yosef Begun is released from Chistopol prison. (11, p. 96).
21.02.1987	General Pyotr Grigorenko, 79, a founding member of the Moscow and Ukrainian Helsinki monitoring groups and a former prisoner in Soviet psychiatric hospitals, dies in New York. Grigorenko was stripped of Soviet citizenship in 1978 while in the United States for medical treatment. (11, p. 97).
23.02.1987	The municipality of Leningrad refuses to grant a residence permit to former Prisoner of Zion Roald Zelichonok. (22).
23.02.1987	Seven refuseniks are presented with the annual award of the British All-Party Parliamentary Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewry at the British Embassy in Moscow.  (see July 17, 1986). Three members of the British Parliament, who wished to participate in the ceremony, did not receive entry visas. (11, p. 97).
00/03/1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Vladimir Tsukerman, Kishinev, has received an exit visa.
00/03/1987	Former Prisoner of Zion, Simon Shnirman and his wife received exit visas.
01.03.1987	Address of the British Parliament members to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a request to appeal to Gorbachev to grant exit visas to seven refuseniks’ families.
01.03.1987	Vladimir Magarik began 14-day hunger strike in front of Aeroflot’s offices in London with demand to release his son Alexei from prison.
01.03.1987	146 Jews and 187 Germans emigrated from the Soviet Union in February. (11, p. 94).
02.03.1987	Professor Alexander Lerner was once again denied an exit visa to Israel. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 94).
05.03.1987	Kiev refusenik and former Prisoner of Zion Lev Elbert and his wife hold  a hunger strike protesting being deprived of exit visas to Israel. The hunger strike lasts 45 days – until April 20th. (11, p. 94).
05.03.1987	Appeal of Inna Mizruhina, the wife of Lev Elbert, to Raisa Gorbachev.
05.03.1987	Cyrus Vance, and Jeane Kirkpatrick had a meeting with Lev Elbert.
06.03.1987	A British MP and wives of five British Parliamentarians who planned to visit  Moscow on International Women’s Day to meet refuseniks are refused entry visas to the Soviet Union. (11, p. 94).
06.03.1987	Prisoner of Zion Zahar Zunshain is released from labor camp on completion of a three years sentence for “defaming the Soviet state”. (see June 28th and July 24th 1984) He arrives in Israel with his ​​family on March 22, 1987. (11, p. 94).
07.03.1987	100 women-refuseniks, including Mara Balashinsky, Inna Uspensky, Lena Dubiansky, and Ida Taratuta, conduct a three-day hunger strike. (22, Lena Dubiansky).
08.03.1987	On International Women’s Day, March 8th, about 200 Jewish women-refuseniks in seven cities in the Soviet Union participate in hunger strikes. (11, p. 94).
10.03.1987	According to Western sources there are about 800 refuseniks in the Soviet Union who have received Israeli citizenship.
10.03.1987	98 refuseniks were allowed to leave in January of this year, and 146 – in February.
13.03.1987	Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel appeals to Mikhail Gorbachev on behalf of Professor Alexander Lerner, Vladimir Slepak and other refuseniks, who according to a statement in one of Moscow’s newspapers will never receive exit permits. (11, p. 94).
16.03.1987	Prisoner of Zion, Yosef Berenstein is released from labor camp before he has completed a 4 year sentence “for resisting the police in the execution of their duty”. (see January 7, 1985), (11, p. 94).
17.03.1987	Prisoner of Zion, Vladimir Lifschitz, 46, is released from labor camp before he completed a three year sentence for “defaming the Soviet state”. (11, p. 94).
18.03.1987	Moscow mathematician Valery Senderov, who was sentenced in March 1983 to seven years in labor camps and five years of exile for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda”, is released before the end of his term. (11, p. 94).
19.03.1987	Moscow refusenik physicist Leonid Yuzefovich holds a hunger strike from March 19 to April 27. He stopped the hunger strike after the authorities promised to reconsider his case. (11, pp. 94-95).
19.03.1987	Prisoners of Zion Yakov Levin and Mark Nepomniashchy are released from labor camps before they completed their three year sentences for “defaming the Soviet state”. They arrive in Israel July 2nd , 1987. (11, p. 94).
20.03.1987	Prisoner of Zion Leonid Volvovsky is released from labor camp before he has completed a three year sentence for “defaming the Soviet state”. (see December 5, 1985), (11, p. 95).
20.03.1987	A conference on the anti-Zionist “White Book” is organized in Kishinev by the Soviet Anti-Zionist Committee and the Association of Soviet Lawyers, cultural activists and public figures in the Moldovian SSR. (11, p. 95).
23.03.1987	A demonstration of 8 Leningrad refuseniks was held outside the headquarters of the regional Party Committee building (Smolny Palace) (11, p. 95). The demonstrators Roald Zelichonok, Ida and Aba Taratuta, Boris Lokshin, Michael Beizer, Leah Shapiro, Inna Rozhansky and Yelena Keis-Kuna held signs: “Let my people go,” “Let us go to Israel.” Before the demonstration they sent a letter to Gorbachev. An hour after the start of the demonstration participants were invited to Smolny Palace for a meeting with the head of OVIR Colonel Savitsky and three party officials. (38, 07/04/1987).
24.03.1987	Moscow refuseniks appealed to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet with a petition signed by 120 activists and former Prisoners of Zion. The petition requested to review the cases of Alexei Magarik, Yosef Berenstein and Yuli Edelstein (38, 04/07/1987).
24.03.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Roald Zelichonok was given a temporary one year residency permit in Leningrad for medical treatment after his release from prison. (38, 04/07/19 87).
25.03.1987	President of the World Jewish Congress, Edgar Bronfman, and Morris Abram, Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and of the US National Conference on Soviet Jewry  visit Moscow for talks with high Soviet officials on March 25th-27th.  (see SJA, vol 17, # 2, p. 49-52; 11, p. 95).
26.03.1987	Appeal of Ida Nudel to Margaret Thatcher and to Martin Gilbert .
26.03.1987	27 former Prisoners of Zion appeal to the Soviet Premier Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir for a satisfactory solution of the Soviet Jewish emigration issue. They demand that every Jew should have the right to emigrate to Israel whether he or she has relatives there: refusals based on “regime considerations” should be given in writing and indicate the time limit of the restriction. Prisoners of Zion and long-term refuseniks should be promptly granted exit permits; and a bilateral agreement should be reached by the USSR and Israel on the repatriation of Jews.  (11, p. 95).
26.03.1987	A group of refuseniks, which included Irina and Igor Gurvich, Nadezhda  Fradkova, Natasha Ratner, Erlena Matlina, Semyon Yantovsky, Pavel and Mara Abramovich, Faina and Yakov Rakhlenko, Mila Volvovskii and others appealed to Gorbachev, Gromyko and Shevardnadze to allow them to emigrate to Israel. “We’re not trying to be heroes, but just want to go” – they wrote. (38, 04/07/1987).
27.03.1987	Yuri Shpeizman, a cancer patient, receives permission to emigrate. He dies in Vienna on his way to Israel on May 10th, 1987. (11, p. 95).
27.03.1987	Long-term refuseniks in Moscow, Vladimir and Maria Slepak, begin a hunger strike to commemorate 17 years of refusal. (11, p. 95).
27.03.1987	About 30 refuseniks stage a demonstration in Moscow. Police did not intervene. (11, p. 95).
27.03.1987	Summit of Thatcher – Gorbachev in Moscow.
29.03.1987	About 35 refuseniks in Moscow stage a second protest demonstration in the center of Moscow. Police did not intervene this time too. (11, p. 95).
01.04.1987	Refuseniks Inna and Yosef Begun and Rosa Ioffe are invited to breakfast by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Foreign Minister Geoffery Howe who are on an official visit to the USSR. An iInvitation to Ida Nudel sent by post fails to arrive. (11, p. 95).
01.04.1987	Inna Mizrukhina and Lev Elbert continue a hunger strike begun March 5th, despite the appeal of the Chief Rabbi of Israel to stop. (38, 07/04/1987).
01.04.1987	300 Jews in Leningrad commemorated the Holocaust – a day of sorrow and heroism.
01.04.1987	470 Jews and 608 ethnic Germans emigrated from the Soviet Union in March. (11, p. 95).
02.04.1987	Former Prisoners of Zion Vladimir Tsukerman and Simon Shnirman, Kishinev, as well as an activist in Moscow, Boris Kanevsky receive permission to emigrate. The Tsukerman family arrive in Israel in May and the other families in June 1987.  (d.o.r), (11, p. 95).
02.04.1987	Moscow refuseniks Michael Losev, a technician, and his wife declare a hunger strike in protest against the refusal on the grounds of lack of close relatives in Israel. (11, p. 95).
07.04.1987	Press Conference by Gennady Gerasimov, the Foreign Ministry spokesman: USSR is reviewing cases of refusals on the ground of secrecy.
07.04.1987	Former prisoner of Zion Ida Nudel is once again denied permission to emigrate.  (d.o.r.), (11, p. 95).
09.04.1987	23 leading refuseniks, including Yosef Begun, Vladimir Slepak, Victor Brailovsky, Alexander Ioffe, Alexander Lerner, Lev Elbert, Yevgeny Lein, send a statement to “Leaders of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations in the Diaspora ” in connection with the visit to the Soviet Union of Morris Abram and Edgar Bronfman (see 25-27 March, 1987). The appeal urges that emigration provisions include the right of everyone who wishes to emigrate to Israel; that the period of security restriction be unequivocally determined; that emigration figures below those reached in the late 1970s should not be accepted as satisfactory; and that in future Soviet Jews be consulted before any talks are conducted with senior  Soviet officials on matters concerning Soviet Jewish religious and cultural life. (d.o.r.), (11, pp. 95-96).
10.04.1987	Meeting in Vienna in the framework of the meeting of the CSCE has completed the second session. (11. p. 91).
11.04.1987	Creation of the Jewish Historical Society with a view to rebuilding and further developing the study of the history of the Jews, mainly in Russia and the USSR, as well as to promote historical knowledge about the Jewish people. (22, Valery Engel).
12.04.1987	A delegation of Soviet Jewish women, all wives of long-term refuseniks is received by the deputy director of the consular department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs N.A. Makarov. He assures the delegation that the cases of some families refused on “security grounds will be reconsidered”. (d.o.r.) (11, p. 94).
13.04.1987	State Secretary of the United States George Shultz, who is on an official visit to the USSR, attends the Passover seder for about 2 dozen prominent refuseniks and their families hosted at the American Ambassador’s residence in Moscow. The seder, the third of its kind is attended by, among others, Professor Alexander Lerner, Vladimir Slepak, Victor Brailovsky, Yosef Begun and Ida Nudel (11, p. 96).
17.04.1987	A Jewish cemetery in Leningrad is desecrated: 78 graves were destroyed. TASS reported on April 23r that an investigation has been launched by the public procurator’s office. (11, p. 96; 38, 02/06/87).
19.04.1987	Anti-emigration play of Arkady Stavitsky “40 Sholom Aleichem Street ” is staged by the “Friendship” theater in Kiev.  (d.o.r.), (11, p. 96).
21.04.1987	Yuli Kosharovsky tried to register as a teacher of Hebrew but  in vain.(aa).
22.04.1987	Leningrad refusenik Boris Tankelevich started 16 day hunger strike – two days for each year he and his family have been Refuseniks. (11, p. 96).
23.04.1987	21 long-term refuseniks took part in a demonstration near the building of the regional Party Committee in Leningrad. There was no police interference but the demonstrators were attacked in the local media
	(11, p. 96).
23.04.1987	30 refuseniks in Moscow hold a demonstration and appeal to Gorbachev to allow them to emigrate.
24.04.1987	Tbilisi City Court reduces the term of imprisonment for Alexei Magarik by half. (see July 10th 1986), (11, p. 96).
25.04.1987	A group of hooligans-teenagers tried to force open the gates of the Leningrad synagogue, shouting anti-Semitic slogans. A variety of samizdat materials accusing Jews of all the troubles of Russia – from the Chernobyl accident to alcoholism and Stalin’s genocide – circulate in the country. (38, 02/06/1987).
26.04.1987	30 long-term refuseniks hold daily demonstrations on April 26th and 27th outside TASS news agency on Tverskoy Boulevard. There is no police interference but passers-by shout anti-Semitic remarks (11, 96).
26.04.1987	More than 200 people gather near the Jewish section of the Vostryakovskoe cemetery in Moscow for a Holocaust Day service. A similar service is held in the Jewish cemetery in Leningrad in which more than  400 people take part. (11, p. 96).
27.04.1987	Yuzefovich family with 4 children hold a protest demonstration in Moscow demanding permission to emigrate from the USSR to Israel.
30.04.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Nadezhda Fradkova, Leningrad, receives permission to emigrate. She arrives in Israel in June 1987. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 96).
30.04.1987	717 Jews emigrated from the USSR in April 1987. (11, p. 97).
00/05/1987	The first unauthorized demonstration of the society “Memory” in Moscow.
01.05.1987	Decree on individual self-employment came into force.
01.05.1987	The family of Moscow long-term refusenik Boris Lifshits, a doctor of physics and mathematics, holds hunger strikes in rotation from May 1st to July 14th 1987. (11, p. 97).
01.05.1987	Veteran refuseniks are informed that their children who have reached the age of majority will be allowed to apply for exit visas separately from their parents. An appeal to this effect was recently made to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR by a group of wives of long-term refuseniks. (11, p. 97).
02.05.1987	About 40 Jews attend a Holocaust memorial ceremony in Rumbuli near Riga. (11, p. 97).
03.05.1987	More than 200 Jews gathered in the Ovrazhki forest near Moscow to celebrate the Independence Day of Israel. The police did not interfere. (11, p. 97).
04.05.1987	A six member Soviet delegation led by writer Sergei Baruzdin arrives  in Israel to take part in the celebration of 42nd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. (11, p. 92).
05.05.1987	The CSCE follow-up meeting reconvenes in Vienna for its final session. (11, p. 92).
05.05.1987	Prisoner of Zion Yuli Edelstein is released from labor camp before he has completed a three-year sentence for “illegally possessing drugs”. The Edelstein family arrive in Israel in July 1987. (11, p. 97).
06.05.1987	About 400 members of the extreme Russian nationalist  anti-Semitic society Pamyat (Memory) demonstrate in the center of Moscow. Members of the society are received by the head of Moscow City Party chief and a  Politburo candidate Boris Yeltsin. (11, p. 97).
06.05.1987	A delegation of five leading Orthodox rabbis of the Rabbinical Council of America, led by David Hollander, visit the Soviet Union from May 6th to 17th. At a meeting with Chairman of the Board of Religious Affairs, Konstantin Kharchev, and two representatives of the Foreign Ministry the delegation receives assurances that the six Soviet Jews will be allowed to study for the rabbinate in the U.S. on the understanding that they will become Rabbis in Soviet synagogues. The possibility that the Soviets will open rabbinical seminaries in Leningrad, Moscow and Tbilisi, where the training will be carried out with help of visiting American rabbis, was also discussed at the meeting. A request for separate Jewish cemeteries is rejected.(11, p. 97).
06.05.1987	A delegation of Israeli women is invited to participate in World Women’s Congress in Moscow on June 23rd-27th. The delegation includes members of the Knesset Ora Namir, Nava Arad and Chaika Grossman. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 92).
08.05.1987	Soviet rabbinical students Isaac Fuchs and Yuri Kashinevich are ordained by the Jewish Theological Institute in Budapest. Fuchs becomes the rabbi of a synagogue in Kiev, and Kashinevich – the rabbi of the synagogue in the Mar’ina Roshcha suburb of Moscow. (11, p. 97).
09.05.1987	Over 2,000 Jews attend a memorial service at the Minsk monument to the victims of the Nazi massacre of March 8th 1942.
09.05.1987	The traditional Jewish meeting in Paneriai at the mass graves of victims of the Vilna ghetto is preceded by a ceremony at the Paneriai museum. The ceremony was attended by representatives of the Lithuanian authorities and there is a military honor guard. (11, p. 97).
11.05.1987	The Soviet Union announces its decision to accede to the International Convention Against Hostage Taking. (11, p. 97).
11.05.1987	A Soviet version of the American musical Fiddler on the Roof is staged at the Moscow State Operetta Theater. (11, p. 97).
16.05.1987	French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, who is on an official visit to the USSR, has a breakfast meeting at the French Embassy in Moscow with 15 leading refuseniks including Ida Nudel, Vladimir Slepak, Victor Brailovsky and Yuli Edelstein (11, p. 97). On the eve of the meeting Jewish activists conveyed to Chirac a call to protect the Jews of Syria: “As both France and the Soviet Union have a significant influence on Syria, we believe that it would be appropriate to raise the issue of Syrian Jews in talks with Soviet leaders”. (38, 02/06/87).
17.05.1987	Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and the Soviet Ambassador to US Yuri Dubinin hold talks at the Washington apartment of the World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman. (11, p. 92).
17.05.1987	500 members of the Pamyat society at their rally in Moscow blame the Jews for an explosion at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl.
17.05.1987	Mathematician Alexander Ioffe receives a notice from OVIR that his refusal will be valid until 1993. Ioffe did not have access to classified information. OVIR, as a year ago, did not indicate a reason for denying him an exit visa. From 1972 to 1976 Ioffe served as an associate professor at the Moscow Automobile and Road Institute, and after filing documents for an exit visa to Israel in 1976, was demoted. (38, 02/06/1987).
18.05.1987	Tanya and Yuli Edelstein expressed gratitude to the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for the role that Thatcher played in their fate. “Now we’re together – they wrote – and this brings us great joy. But the family of Magarik is still divided, as Alexei Magarik is still in jail. We ask you to use your influence to secure his release”. (38, 02/06/1987).
18.05.1987	Leningrad refuseniks Roald Zelichonok, Gregory Genusov, Leonid Rokhlin, Valery Fedorov, Lev Furman and others appealed to Mikhail Gorbachev and the local authorities of the city of Vitebsk in protest against the attempt of the Vitebsk prosecutor to fabricate a criminal case against Braude and his family after receiving permission to emigrate. (38, 02/06/1987).
19.05.1987	Yury Fedorov, one of two non-Jews who was convicted in the first  Leningrad trial in 1970, receives permission to emigrate. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 97).
20.05.1987	Moscow branch of the Pamyat movement stages another demonstration in Moscow. (11, p. 97).
22.05.1987	In a letter sent to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 15 former Prisoners of Zion plead for the release of Alexei Magarik and human rights activist Yosef Zisels. (11, p. 98).
23.05.1987	Peter Demichev, former Minister of Culture of the USSR, has been appointed head of a special commission of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet to review cases of refuseniks for security considerations. Thus far, the commission did not conduct discussions on cases of refuseniks. Refuseniks believe that the commission is simply another fiction. (38, 02/06/1987).
24.05.1987	Veteran refusenik Professor Avraham Englin, a world renowned chemist and twice winner of the Stalin Prize for achievements in the field of inorganic chemisty, arrives in Israel.
25.05.1987	Soviet Union stopped jamming of VOA broadcasts in Russian. (11, p. 92).
27.05.1987	Leningrad authorities try to draft religious activist Edward Krichevsky to the army, despite his illness which exempts him from military service (chronic rheumatoid arthritis). His diagnosis was specially modified by the Military Medical Commission, and his passport was confiscated. (38, 02/06/1987).
28.05.1987	A small plane of a German citizen Matias Rust smoothly landed at the Moscow Red Square. This event served as a convincing pretext for purges in the army, in which dissatisfaction with the new course of Gorbachev on disarmament matured (Wikipedia-peresrtoika).
29.05.1987	Appeal of women-refuseniks to the UN Commission on Human Rights with a complaint against the Soviet authorities in connection with the fact that their children are in constant stress.
30.05.1987	Army General D. Yazov was appointed Minister of Defense, replacing S. Sokolov. (Wikipedia-peresrtoika)
31.05.1987	In an address to the 7th  Congress  of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, held in Moscow, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations sharply criticizes Soviet policies towards Jewish emigration and Jewish religious and  cultural life in the USSR. (11, p. 98).
01.06.1987	Scores of refusenik children are the principal guests at seminars and lectures on aspects of the emigration movement which are organized by the group “Jewish Women Against Refusal” in Moscow and Leningrad  to coincide with International Children’s Day. 50 refusenik parents sign an open appeal for support. (11, p. 98).
01.06.1987	871 Jews emigrated from the USSR in May. (11, p. 98).
02.06.1987	A group “The second generation of refuseniks” made ​​a public appeal to the Western community with a call to end the infinite chain of persecution and suffering in refusal.
04.06.1987	OVIR proposed to Yuli Kosharovsky to renew his request for an exit visa after his appeal to the Supreme Soviet.
06.06.1987	Biochemist Erlena Matlina held a hunger strike during an international conference on chemistry.
10.06.1987	Some 30 refuseniks gathered in front of the Leningrad city hall to honor the memory of refusenik Yuri Shpeizman who died in Vienna on his way to Israel. They were detained for 2 hours for refusing to move to the Leningrad Cemetery. Several are later fined. Lev Furman and Boris Lokshin are sentenced on June 18th to 2 months’ work for the national economy.  (11, p. 98).
11.06.1987	Decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU and USSR Council of Ministers № 655 “On the transfer of businesses and organizations to full cost accounting and self-financing”. (Wikipedia).
14.06.1987	About 1,000 Latvians hold a demonstration in Riga on the 36th anniversary of Stalin’s mass deportations from the Baltic republics. Demonstration was dedicated to the memory of the 15,000 Latvian victims. Police did not interfere. (11, p. 98).
15.06.1987	Prisoner of Zion Yuli Edelstein was allowed to leave with his family. (22, Yuli Edelstein.)
18.06.1987	Alexander Belensky from Mogilev begins a hunger strike in protest against the authorities refusal to accept his emigration application. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 98).
21.06.1987	Moscow refusenik mathematician Alexander Ioffe begins a second hunger strike which lasted from 21st to the 30th of June. (11, p. 98).
23.06.1987	Women’s World Congress, which continued until June 27, began in Moscow. Israeli delegation included Knesset members Ora Namir, Chaika Grossman and Nava Arad. They had meetings with refuseniks. One of the women’s groups (Rosa Finkelberg) refused to meet them, because members in those groups considered them to be Communists. (a.a.).
23.06.1987	Following the rejection of their application to participate in the World Women’s Congress (Moscow June 23rd to 27th ) “Jewish Women Against Refusal” hold an alternative conference in two private homes. An appeal is sent to the congress participants. (11, p. 98).
25.06.1987	Former Prisoners of Zion, Simon Borovinsky from Leningrad, and Stanislav Zubko from Kiev receive permission to emigrate. The same day  Grigory Geishis arrives in Israel. (11, pp. 89-90).
30.06.1987	11 gravestones were destroyed in the Jewish cemetery in the city of Gorky. (d.o.r.), (11, p.99).
30.06.1987	A group of leading emigration activists write to Mikhail Gorbachev a protest against Pamyat’s anti-Semitic activities. (11, p. 99)
01.07.1987	796 Jews emigrated from the USSR in June. (11, p. 97).
05.07.1987	The International Council of the World Conference on Soviet Jewry meets in London on July 5th-6th. (11, p. 97).
07.07.1987	In the Moscow apartment of 81 year old long-term refusenik Semyon Yantovsky an unofficial exhibition of photographs of about 200 closed synagogues in the Soviet Union is opened. The exhibition is the result of  10 years long research conducted by Yantovsky. (11, p. 97).
08.07.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Moshe Abramov receives permission to emigrate. (11, p. 97).
10.07.1987	Moscow refusenik Sergey Brenner, a composer of popular songs, declares a hunger strike protesting the refusal of the immigration authorities to allow him and his family to emigrate due to his father-in-law’s lack of consent. The hunger strike will last from July 10th to August 12th. (11, p. 97).
11.07.1987	The head of the Moscow OVIR Rudolf Kuznetsov, in an interview with the weekly Novoe vremiya (New Time) says that Soviet immigration and emigration procedure has been changed since the introduction of the new law. Thus the consent of children and siblings is now necessary only if the applicant shares a home with them. (11, p. 97).
12.07.1987	An 8 member Soviet consular delegation led by Evgeny Antsupov, Deputy Director of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s Consular Department,  arrives in Israel for the first official Soviet visit in 20 years. The team’s officially stated task is to deal, during an expected 3 months’ stay, with passport matters of Soviet citizens living in Israel and to inspect the property of the Russian Orthodox Church. (11, p. 95).
12.07.1987	Yuli Edelstein and his family arrived in Israel.
16.07.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Alexander Panarev arrives in Israel. (see April 1st 1984), (d.o.r.). (11, p. 97).
18.07.1987	Komissar, a Soviet film condemning anti-Semitism and banned since it was made in 1967, is shown to selected audiences at the Moscow Film Festival. (11, pp. 97-98).
23.07.1987	The Boris Lifshits family from Moscow, resumes a hunger strike. (see May 1st, 1987), (11, p. 98).
26.07.1987	A six member delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church led by Metropolitan Filaret, the head of the Russian Patriarchate’s Foreign Relations Department, arrives in Jerusalem for celebrations of the 140th anniversary of the presence of the Church on the Holy Land. The delegation is received by President of Israel Chaim Herzog and Minister for Religious Affairs, Zevulun Hammer. (11, p. 95).
30.07.1987	89 Soviet citizens, most of them Jews, are allowed to join their relatives in Australia. (11, p. 98).
31.07.1987	The Vienna CSCE Follow-up Meeting goes into recess. (11, p. 95).
31.07.1987	The registration of former Prisoner of Zion Evgeny Lein as a private tutor is cancelled under the May 1st Law of Individual Labor Activity. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 98).
31.07.1987	Yosef Begun, Moscow, was once again denied registration as a teacher of Hebrew. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 98).
01.08.1987	819 Jews, 1563 ethnic Germans and 301 Armenians emigrated from the USSR in July. (11, p. 98).
06.08.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion, Evgeny Eisenberg of Kharkov, receives permission to emigrate. He arrives in Israel in early November. (11, p. 98).
07.08.1987	USSR Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady Gerasimov says at a press conference in Moscow that an investigation conducted last year confirmed that Raoul Wallenberg died in 1947. (11, p. 98).
12.08.1987	On the 35th anniversary of the execution of 24 Soviet Jewish poets, writers and intellectuals, five left-wing American Jewish organizations appeal to Mikhail Gorbachev to rehabilitate them posthumously. (11, p. 98).
14.08.1987	Vladimir Tarassov, Deputy Director of the of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department, and Dr. Nimrod Novik, a political adviser to Israel’s Foreign Minister Affairs, discuss in Bonn on August 14th-15th bilateral relations, as well as the convening of an international peace conference on the Middle East. (11, p. 95).
14.08.1987	14 Israeli academics, including Professors Ernst Krause and Shlomo Avineri participate in the 8th Congress on Logic Methodology and Philosophy at the Moscow University. (11, p. 96).
20.08.1987	Former Prisoners of Zion Moisei Tonkonogy and Semen Borovinsky arrive in Israel with their families. (see March 13th 1981 and June 25th 1987). (11, p.96).
23.08.1987	Alexander Belensky of Mogilev, began a hunger strike protesting against the refusal of the authorities to accept his request to emigrate. (d.o.r.) (11, p. 98).
24.08.1987	Decision was made on the opening of the first kosher take-away restaurant in the Soviet Union on the premises of the Moscow Choral Synagogue. A fully-fledged kosher restaurant is to be opened when suitable premises become available. (11, p. 98).
24.08.1987	Five thousand copies of the Pentateuch in Russian and Hebrew were shipped to  Moscow. They are available at synagogues in Moscow and other cities.(d.o.r.), (11, pp. 98-99).
01.09.1987	The new rules governing the procedure for holding meetings, street marches and demonstrations in Moscow require prior notification to the City Soviet, and ban demonstrations in Red Sqare and other areas of central Moscow unless approved by higher authorities. (11, p. 99).
01.09.1987	787 Jews emigrated from the USSR in August 1987. (11, p. 99).
02.09.1987	On the centenary of his birth an exhibition of some 90 paintings and 200 graphics by Marc Chagall (1887-1985) opens in the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum in Moscow. It is announced that a Chagall museum will be opened in Vitebsk, where Chagall was born. (11, p. 99).
07.09.1987	Seven Moscow Jews, including Yosef Begun and Mikhail Chlenov (not a refusenik), were summoned to the City Soviet and charged with Zionist provocation after they applied for permission to hold a rally in Friendship Park on September 13th to commemorate the 24 Jewish writers and intellectuals who were executed on August 12th, 1952, and to discuss the growing tide of anti-Semitism. (11, p. 99).
07.09.1987	Former Prisoners of Zion, Yosef Begun, Victor Brailovsky and Vladimir Lifschitz, as well as several long-term refuseniks, including Semyon Yantovsky, receive permission to emigrate. (11, p. 99).
08.09.1987	At the 6th Moscow International Book Fair, from the 8th to the 14th of September, Israel is permitted far more exhibition space than previously as well as a 30-strong delegation. The Soviet authorities ban 20 Russian language books and 2,000 posters belonging to the Israeli delegation, as well as 50 books in Russian belonging to US publishers.  (11, p. 96).
08.09.1987	58 refuseniks from Moscow, Leningrad, and Minsk write to the Israeli and Soviet Ministers of Culture demanding the restoration to the Soviet Jewish minority of elementary rights of national development, in particular the right to study Hebrew, Jewish history and tradition. (11, p. 99).
10.09.1987	The Leningrad synagogue is permitted to offer religious instruction.
	A Jewish lending library is opened in a Moscow apartment.  It contains 500 books in Russian, Hebrew, English and Yiddish. The authorities agree to its existence as a private library for invited guests.
	The establishment of  a Jewish cultural center is approved by Leningrad and Minsk authorities. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 99).
10.09.1987	Leningrad synagogue is granted the right of religious education. (11, p. 99).
10.09.1987	The Moscow Jewish Dramatic Theater Studio stages a concert of Jewish music, “I Love You So Much!” (11, p. 99).
11.09.1987	Nahum Nemchenko, 73, a Leningrad Jew, is murdered . Police maintain that the motive of the crime was robbery. Nemchenko collected materials on the Russian nationalist organizations Pamyat and Otechestvo (“Memory” and “Fatherland”). (11, p. 99).
13.09.1987	In the apartment of Yuri Sokol in Moscow the first private Jewish library was opened. Yosef Begun played a major role in the creation of the library.
14.09.1987	Prisoner of Zion Alexei Magarik is released from labor camp before he has completed a 3 year sentence for ‘illegally possessing drugs’. He and his family are granted permission to emigrate on October 1, 1987. (11, pp. 99-100).
17.09.1987	Leningrad synagogue receives permission to restore a mikvah. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 100).
17.09.1987	12 refuseniks who are denied exit visas (“poor relatives”) because close family members have refused to sign the required financial waiver  appeal to the appropriate CPSU committees to make the relatives declare their claims or sign a disclaimer. (11, p. 100).
20.09.1987	Isi Leibler, President of the Asian and Australian branch of the World Jewish Congress, visits Moscow as an official guest of the Moscow synagogue for the Jewish New Year from September 20th to 29th. He addresses the synagogue congregation; meets prominent refuseniks, leaders of Hebrew language and cultural groups; and the editorial board Sovetish Heymland; and holds discussions with senior Soviet officials, Dr. Andrei Sakharov and academics. (11, p. 100).
22.09.1987	CSCE Vienna meeting reconvened. (11, p. 96).
24.09.1987	In Moscow the Yakir family, including their son, Alexander, a former Prisoner of Zion, are given permission to emigrate. (11, p. 100).
25.09.1987	Abba Kovner, one of the leaders of the resistance in the Vilna ghetto and the commander of the partisans in the Rudnikai forest dies in Israel at the age of 69. (11, p. 100).
27.09.1987	The newspaper of the Tartu CPSU City Committee “Forward” published a proposal for the economic autonomy of Estonia being a member of the USSR. The proposal received significant support in the community. (Wikipedia).
27.09.1987	Moscow and Leningrad Jews hold a memorial and wreath-laying ceremony at the monument  to the victims of the Nazi slaughter at Babi Yar. The police do not intervene. A group of  women issue a statement urging that a specific tribute to the Jewish victims be included on the inscription on the monument. (11, p. 100).
27.09.1987	Moscow Jews hold with official approval a commemoration meeting in memory of victims of the Babi Yar massacre at the Vostryakovo cemetery. (11, p.100).
27.09.1987	724 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in September. (11, p. 100).
06.10.1987	About 50 Moscow Jews write to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with a complaint against the delay in replying to their appeals to the Presidium’s commission which reviews security-based emigration refusals. (11, p. 100).
07.10.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Yosef Berenstein arrives in Israel. (see March 16th 1987), (11, p.100).
12.10.1987	Alexander Goldfarb, a professor of microbiology at Columbia University, and an Israeli citizen, arrives in the USSR for an eight-day family visit, his first since he emigrated in 1975. He is met at the airport by representatives of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. (11, p. 100).
12.10.1987	The organizers of a 2 day symposium “Refusals for State Security Considerations” announce the symposium will start on November 23, and that 17 discussion papers have been approved so far. (11, p. 100).
13.10.1987	Israel has extended the stay of the Soviet consular delegation in Israel for an additional three months. (11, p. 97).
14.10.1987	On the eve of the USSR Supreme Soviet – U.S. Congress telebridge on human rights, around 40 refuseniks gather at the television center in Moscow’s Ostankino district. They protest against the authorities’ demand that emigration applicants supply a financial waiver from relatives and their refusal to accept any other proof that no financial obligations are outstanding. The demonstration is broken up by the police. (11, p. 100).
15.10.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Ida Nudel arrives in Israel in the private plane of Armand Hammer. Thousands greeted her arrival. (11, p. 100).
15.10.1987	During a live television discussion on human rights between members of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the U.S. Congress, Vadim Zagladin, deputy head of the CPSU CC International Relations Department, claims that those refused emigration on grounds of security are now informed of the precise period during which the refusal will be valid. (11, p. 101).
16.10.1987	About 150 Jews of Moscow gathered in the Ovrazhki forest near Moscow to celebrate the festival of Simchat Torah. The police do not intervene. (11, p. 101).
18.10.1987	Anya Kholmyansky, the wife of a former Prisoner of Zion Alexander Kholmyansky, begins a hunger strike at October 18th to draw attention to the plight of “poor relatives” who cannot supply financial waivers from close relatives, and to the authorities refusal to accept other evidence regarding financial obligations. The hunger strike lasts until November 10th.  (11, p. 101).
21.10.1987	Aaron Vergelis, editor of the newspaper Sovetish Heymland, Grigory Bondarevsky, an orientalist and Hersh Polyanker, a Soviet Yiddish writer from Kiev, arrive in London with the intention of meeting with representatives of the Anglo-Jewish organizations. (11, p. 101).
21.10.1987	Seven prominent refuseniks, including Professor Alexander Lerner, appeal to U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. They draw attention to the restriction on emigration under the new law and the arbitrariness of the existing emigration practices. They support a Western proposal submitted to the Vienna CSCE Conference regarding limitation of the validity of security restrictions. (11, p. 101).
22.10.1987	Moscow refusenik Leonid Yuzefovich and his family receive permission to emigrate. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 101).
22.10.1987	The exiled Russian-Jewish poet, Joseph Brodsky, who lives in New York, is awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature. (11, p. 101).
25.10.1987	60 people attend a concert of Jewish music in a private apartment in Leningrad. (11, p. 101).
25.10.1987	Five former Prisoners of Zion, including Yosef Begun, filed in the Supreme Council a statement calling for a formal rehabilitation of former Prisoners of Zion. (11, p. 101).
25.10.1987	The “Jewish Women Against Refusal” held the first of a series of monthly seminars. Daniel Romanovsky from Leningrad lectures
	on Jewish resistance in the ghettos, and a lecturer from London discusses aspects of modern Jewish history. (11, p. 101).
25.10.1987	The newspaper Izvestia has accused the former Prisoner of Zion Yosef Begun in postponing his departure from the USSR on the orders of Israeli secret service. Begun says he will remain in Moscow until members of his family are granted permission to emigrate with him. (11, p. 101).
26.10.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion, Vladimir Slepak and his wife Maria arrive
	in Israel. (See December 4th 1982 and March 27th 1987), (11, p. 101).
28.10.1987	The first shipment of foodstuffs, kitchen and other supplies from Budapest for the Moscow kosher take-away restaurant is admitted into the Soviet Union duty-free. (see August 24th 1987), (11, p. 101).
29.10.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Lev Elbert and his family arrive in Vienna. (11, p. 101).
30.10.1987	U.S. Department of State announces the upcoming summit between Reagan-Gorbachev in Washington.
00/11/1987	Permission to go to Israel was issued to Kira Volvovsky. Visa for her parents was denied until 1992.
00/11/1987	Exit visas to Israel after 14 years of refusal were issued to Ida and Aba Taratuta.
01.11.1987	Appeal of Igor Tufeld to the Soviet authorities to permit his parents to join him in Israel as his Mother suffers from cancer (brain tumor).
01.11.1987	912 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in October. (11, p. 94).
02.11.1987	62 refuseniks appeal to Andrei Gromyko and Mikhail Gorbachev requesting a reply to their applications to the Supreme Soviet commission which is reviewing security based emigration refusals. (11, p. 94).
04.11.1987	“The Jewish Historical Society,” led by the doctor of historical sciences, Valery Engel is created in Moscow. An active participant in the creation of the society is Alexander Razgon, editor of the periodic samizdat magazine “Digest of the Soviet Press about Jews”. (22, Valery Engel).
04.11.1987	Executive Committee of the International Council of the World Conference for Soviet Jewry meets in New York. (11, p. 94).
05.11.1987	Mikhail Gorbachev receives Yasser Arafat during the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. (11, p. 92).
07.11.1987	A large number of Jews throughout the Soviet Union commemorate the 46th anniversary of the Nazi massacre of 12,000 Minsk Jews at the Minsk monument to the victims. (11, p. 94).
07.11.1987	Almost  200 refuseniks hold a hunger strike in protest against the regulation which requires emigration applicants to produce financial waivers from relatives. (11, p. 94).
08.11.1987	“Moscow News” attacked Vlad and Tanya Dashevsky.
10.11.1987	Anya Kholmyansky completed a 24 day hunger strike.
15.11.1987	100 ‘secrecy’ refuseniks visit the premises of the CPSU Central Committee to complain about delays in obtaining a reply from the Supreme Soviet commission that is reviewing their cases. Three of the refuseniks were received by the deputy director of the All-Union OVIR Udovichenko who informs them that no additional legislation is intended to regulate the length of secrecy restriction and the question of financial waivers. (11, p. 95).
18.11.1987	Some 2,000 Latvians demonstrate in Riga on the 70th anniversary of Latvian independence. Some demonstrators are arrested. (11, p. 95).
20.11.1987	The “Jewish Women Against Refusal” sent a delegation to the memorial event at Rumbuli on the 46th anniversary of the mass murder of Jews.
22.11.1987	A demonstration outside the Soviet Foreign Ministry press center against anti-Semitism in the Soviet media is broken up by the KGB. Western newsmen and television crews are harassed and their equipment damaged. 20-30 would-be demonstrators are prevented from reaching the venue and their phones are disconnected. 15 others are picked up on their way by police and detained for several hours. (11, p. 95).
22.11.1987	On November 21st and 22nd a synagogue in Rostov-on-Don is vandalized on two consecutive nights. (11, p. 95).
23.11.1987	In a letter to the CPSU Central Committee 100 ‘security’ refuseniks  describe their futile attempts to hold a dialogue with the Supreme Soviet Presidium and the CPSU Central Committee. They declare their intention of beginning a hunger strike on December 6th which will last for the duration of the Reagan- Gorbachev summit. (11, p. 95).
23.11.1987	A symposium entitled “Exit Visa Refusals On Account of State Security – Judicial and Humanitarian Aspects” is organized by prominent long-term refuseniks in private apartments in Moscow on November 23rd-25th.  More than 150 refuseniks from the 5 Soviet cities took part in the symposium. The symposium was widely reported by Western correspondents. (see 12/10/1987), (11, p. 95).
24.11.1987	A six member delegation of Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada is received in Washington by Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin. Dubinin accepts the Union’s memorandum to Soviet authorities regarding freedom of emigration and religious worship. In December, the delegation will visit the Soviet Union. (11, p. 95).
24.11.1987	A group of Moscow, Leningrad and Minsk refuseniks who protest outside the All-Union OVIR in Moscow against the denial of emigration to a cancer sufferer and her family are detained and summarily tried. Several are given remand sentences of 10 to 15 days and 4 are fined. Western journalists and camera crews are assaulted and their equipment damaged by a group of bystanders.  On December 1st all those imprisoned are released.
24.11.1987	Yosef Begun with his wife, son Boris and his family receive permission to emigrate. They will arrive in Israel on January 20th, 1988. (11, p. 95).
25.11.1987	Those arrested at the demonstration on November 24th announce a hunger strike. (37, № 5, p. 1).
26.11.1987	Those arrested at the demonstration on November 24th announce a “dry” hunger strike. (37, № 5, p. 1).
27.11.1987	About 30 people went on hunger strike in solidarity with those arrested at the demonstration on November 24th and stated that it will continue until their release. The same evening, prosecutors of the Kalinin district visited the prisoners three times. (37, № 5, p. 1).
27.11.1987	Moscow Jewish Drama Theater Studio stages “An Evening of Jewish Song.” Songs are sung by Alexander Gorelik. (11, p. 95).
27.11.1987	An article by B. Lubin, “With a poster around the mother-in-law” which defamed “poor relatives”, was published in the newspaper “Soviet Russia”.  Vladimir Meshkov and a married couple, L. and M. Losevy, intend to sue the newspaper “Soviet Russia” for defamation according to article 7 of the RSFSR Civil Code. (37, № 5, p. 2).
28.11.1987	There was a new trial in the case of N. Fedorov, J. Chernoshvarts and B. Goldman. By decision of the court the sentence was reduced to 6 days. (37, № 5, p. 1).
29.11.1987	With a view to the forthcoming Reagan- Gorbachev summit meeting over 80 refuseniks sign an appeal to the world public. The appeal calls for the removal of artificial obstacles to emigration and declares refuseniks intention of holding hunger strikes and demonstrations during the meeting. (11, p. 95).
29.11.1987	A seminar of the “Jewish Women Against Refusal” dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the UN resolution on the formation of the State of Israel was held in Moscow. Elena Dubyansky read a congratulatory note of the women’s group to the government and people of Israel, and V. Geisel read the report, “History of Israeli political parties.” The seminar was attended by about 80 people. (37, № 5, p. 2).
29.11.1987	L. Travinsky was released. He reported that Kagan (from Minsk) is in the prison hospital. (37, № 5, p. 2).
30.11.1987	A meeting of the “Association of Israeli citizens in the USSR” with a correspondent of the newspaper “Jerusalem Post” David Landau in the apartment of J. Rakhlenko, Moscow. Various aspects of political life in Israel and the prospects for the resumption of diplomatic relations with the USSR were discussed at the meeting. (37, № 5, p. 3).
30.11.1987	75 women attend the second monthly seminar organized by “Jewish Women Against Refusal.” Vladimir Geizel, an activist from Moscow, lectures on The  Political Situation in Israel Today. (11, pp. 95-96).
30.11.1987	A Public Commission for International Cooperation in Humanitarian Problems and Human Rights is established in the USSR.  The Commission is attached to the Soviet Committee for European Security and Cooperation and will is chaired by Fyodor Burlatsky, a political commentator and philosopher. (11, p. 95).
30.11.1987	An article by K. Sorokin, “It was played as from a score” about the demonstration of Jews outside Moscow OVIR on November 24th is published in the newspaper Izvestia. (37, № 5, p. 3).
01.12.1987	J. Chernoshvarts, B. Goldman and N. Fedorov were released from prison, escorted to the airport and sent to Leningrad on December 2nd. The fate of Kagan is unknown. He was placed in a detention center “Sailor’s Silence,” and on the night of December 2 an ambulance was called for him. Detainees reported that they had been put in solitary cells, in which the temperature was around 10 degrees celsius. As a result, almost all those arrested caught a cold. (37, № 5, p. 2).
01.12.1987	In an interview with Thomas Brokaw, a correspondent of the U.S. national television company “NBC”, Mikhail Gorbachev expressed his negative attitude to the emigration of Jews, calling it a “brain drain” . He stated that the refuseniks could not leave the country because of their awareness of state and military secrets. (37, № 5, p. 3).
01.12.1987	910 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in November. (11, p. 96).
02.12.1987	At the initiative of Lithuanian Jewish cultural activists, a meeting is held at the Lithuanian Cultural Fund in Vilnius at which an association named Group for the Promotion of Jewish National Culture In Lithuania is formed. Emanuel Zingeris, a lecturer at Kaunas Evening University, is elected chairman. The association’s immediate objectives are: recreation of the state Museum of Jewish Culture, which was abolished in 1949; restoration of their historical names to streets in Vilnius associated with Jewish culture; recovery of Jewish cultural assets taken by the Nazis to Frankfort/Main; and erection of memorials on the sites of Jewish ghettoes and mass executions. (11, p. 96).
02.12.1987	Prime Minister of Australia Robert Hawke met with refuseniks in the Austrian Embassy. Hawke told them about his meetings with M. Gorbachev and E. Shevardnadze. Foreign correspondents, present at the meeting, interviewed refuseniks. (37, № 5, p. 3).
02.12.1987	A brain tumor was revealed for long-term refusenik Isolda Tufeld. Her  husband is disabled, and their only son lives in Israel. Isolda Tufeld urgently needs to leave the USSR for treatment. (37, № 5, p. 3).
03.12.1987	A delegation of the Israel-USSR Friendship Society headed by General Secretary Yoram Gozhansky,  Secretary of Israel CP Central Committee is received by George Markov, Chairman of the USSR Writers’ Union. (11, p. 93).
03.12.1987	73 families of long-term refuseniks in various cities of the Soviet Union were allowed to leave on the eve of a demonstration of refuseniks, scheduled for December 3. Among them: Pavel Abramovich, Alexander Ioffe, Solomon Alber, Yakov Rakhlenko, Mark Lvovsky, Yulia Ratner. Many consider this as a result of visits to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Central Committee, organized by a group “Jewish Women for Emigration and Survival in Refusal”. (37, № 5, p. 4).
04.12.1987	A press conference of an initiative group, planning to organize a series of demonstrations during the summit meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, was held in the Yulia Ratner’s apartment, Moscow. Demonstrations slogans are: “A world without missiles and refuseniks,” “Let us go to Israel, we do not want to die here”.  Speakers were: F. Kochubievsky (Novosibirsk), A. Feldman, N. Rosenstein, Y. Kosharovsky. (37, № 5, p. 4).
04.12.1987	The Soviet Jewish dissident Vladimir Gershuni, the grandson of Grigorii Gershuni (1870-1908), is released from a mental hospital in which he was confined since April 1983. (see July 22, 1982), (11, p. 96).
06.12.1987	A march and rally in solidarity with Soviet Jewry attended by over 250,000 participants was held in Washington on the eve of the summit between Reagan-Gorbachev.
06.12.1987	KGB broke up a demonstration of the thirteen families in Leningrad at the Palace: posters were torn, and participants, including the nine-month old daughter of Marina Furman, were put into buses waiting nearby. Boris and Slava Flasburg, Lev Furman, and Mark Olkhovich were sentenced to 10 days in jail, Marina Furman was fined 50 rubles. (37, № 5, p. 6).
06.12.1987	120 refuseniks protested against the immigration policy of the authorities on the Smolensk Square in Moscow. 25 people were detained en route or near the venue of the demonstration. In order to create additional obstacles the authorities occupied the Smolensk Square with an official demonstration for peace. Foreign reporters were prevented from filming the event, and the correspondent of the American cable television Peter Arnett was arrested and brought to the police precinct on charges of disorderly conduct (he was released after 4 hours after the intervention of the American consul). At a weekly TV program “Vremya” refuseniks were presented as opponents to the summit and peaceful coexistence. (37, № 5, pp. 4-5).
06.12.1987	A rally of eight thousand participants was held in support of Soviet Jews at the stadium in Tel Aviv with the participation of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and President Chaim Herzog. Yuli Kosharovsky addressed the audience in Hebrew from Moscow. He said:  “Nobody can stop us”. (aa).
07.12.1987	The third summit meeting of Reagan-Gorbachev in Washington, DC, was held at December 7-10. During the meeting an agreement to limit the number of intermediate and short range missiles was signed. (11, p. 93).
07.12.1987	Roald Zelichonok, Leningrad, was forbidden to travel to Moscow for a medical examination.
07.12.1987	A protest demonstration outside the building of TASS was held by Natasha Rosenstein in connection with her fourteenth year of refusal .
07.12.1987	Demonstration at the Nogin Square near the monument to the Heroes of Plevna was held. The place was cordoned off by police, the outputs of the metro station “Nogin Square” and exits to the park were closed. Forcing their way to the demonstration, nine participants were taken to 40th police station. Some demonstrators managed to get to corner of the Khmelnitsky street and Serov drive, where they unfurled a banner, immediately torn down by individuals in civilian clothes. A warning about the inadmissibility of violating of public order was issued to the nine detainees. (37, № 5, p. 5).
08.12.1987	The participants in a planned demonstration in the square in front of the Ministry of Interior, Moscow, were detained en route to the square by KGB men in plainclothes, forcibly put in two buses and delivered to police stations. They were registered of various kinds of violations of public order. Alexander Feldman and Anatoly Genis were charged with resisting police officers and taken to the People’s Court of the Kiev district, but people’s Judge Gubnova terminated the proceedings for the absence of criminal offence. (37, № 5, p. 5).
09.12.1987	Kira Volvovsky, daughter of well known refusenik and former Prisoner of Zion Leonid (Aryeh) Volvovsky flew to Israel with a U.S. visa.  Her departure was filmed by the Gorky TV under direction of the KGB.  (37, № 5, p. 6).
09.12.1987	47 refuseniks have come to the reception of the Party Central Committee and handed over a protest against the violation of constitutionally guaranteed right to demonstrate, as well as slander against the refuseniks launched in the media. Near the reception reinforced police patrols and plainclothes thugs  were on duty. A passage to the reception room was crowded with cars and buses. (37, № 5, p. 6).
10.12.1987	Leningrad  Jews receive permission to use premises of the Kaliningradskii district cultural center for recitals and videos of Jewish music. (11, p. 96).
10.12.1987	A Jewish Society “Nadezhda” (“Hope”) was formed in Minsk under the chairmanship of Mark Kagan. (d.o.r.), (11, p. 96).
10.12.1987	A press conference was held in the apartment of Igor Gurvich to summarize results of the demonstrations on December 6, 7 and 8. The long-term refusenik Yuli Kosharovsky made a statement for the press. (37, № 5, p. 6).
10.12.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Felix Kochubievsky, Novosibirsk, received permission to emigrate. (d.o.r.),  (11, p. 96).
13.12.1987	Severely ill refuseniks, Vladimir and Isolda Tufeld held a press conference at their apartment. Vladimir is an invalid and Isolda suffers from a brain tumor.  (37, № 5, p. 6).
24.12.1987	Professor Alexander Lerner receives permission to emigrate.
25.12.1987	Literary editor of the weekly “Znamya” (“Banner”), the Russian writer of Jewish origin Grigory Baklanov, has been appointed to the Public Commission for International Cooperation in Humanitarian and Human Rights issues. (see November 30, 1987), (11, p. 96).
28.12.1987	On December 28th-29th 20 refuseniks filed in the District Court of Moscow a suit against OVIR for violating their civil rights due to the inability of OVIR to inform them about causes for denying them exit visas. Court refused to accept the claim on the grounds that the matter does not fall within their jurisdiction. Refuseniks appealed to the Moscow City Court, but the latter upheld the district court devision (11, p. 96).
29.12.1987	Prisoner of Zion Roald Zelichonok, Leningrad, was refused an exit visa again.
30.12.1987	Former Prisoner of Zion Leonid (Aryeh) Volvovsky (Gorky) and Lev Shefer, a human rights activist from  Sverdlovsk, receive permission to emigrate.
01/01/1988	899 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in December 1987. The total number of Soviet Jewish emigrants in 1987 was 8,155. The corresponding figures for Soviet German emigration are 14,500 and Soviet Armenian emigration about 6000. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96).
01/01/1988	An unofficial Jewish historical society is formed in Moscow by Jewish academic historians. It is led by the refuseniks Valery Engels and Aleksandr Razgon. (d.o.r). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96-97
01.01.1988	A new USSR law on the Procedure of Appeal of the Courts Against Illegal Actions by Officials Violating Citizens Rights, approved by the Supreme Soviet on October 20th 1987, enters into force. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
04/01/1988	The USSR Supreme Soviet adopts a statute providing “legal guarantees against possible errors and malpractices in providing psychiatric assistance to the population”, (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
05/01/1988	Israel extends the visas of the Soviet consular delegation for one month. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 93).
05/01/1988	The Group to Promote Jewish National Culture in Lithuania (see December 2, 1987) and Lithuanian public figures discuss the fate of Jewish cultural monuments and cemeteries in Lithuania, and resolve to urge the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences to establish several positions for research on Jewish subjects. On February 13th, the Soviet press reports that a special group for the study and preservation of the cultural heritage of Lithuanian Jews has been set up at a meeting of the Lithuanian section of the National Cultural Fund. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
06/01/1988	A group of Riga Jews who petitioned Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987 for an official Jewish cultural center announce the formation of the “Magen” society. (“Protect” in Hebr..). The society, which evolved from the “Riga Judaica Readings”, an unofficial seminar held twice monthly since 1975, is to engage in promoting knowledge of the history of the Riga and other Jewish communities in Latvia, locating mass graves of Jewish victims of Nazism in Latvia and fighting anti-Semitism. It also intends to publish a periodical on Jewish culture. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
07/01/1988	On the 40th anniversary of the murder of Solomon Mikhoels (13 January 1948), the group “Jewish Women Against Refusal” devote a special seminar to him. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
10/01/1988	Several dozen Jews including writers, the ethnographer Igor Krupnik and the art expert Roman Spektor  gather at the grave of Solomon Mikhoels in Moscow to mark the 40th anniversary of his death. The meeting was opened by Yiddish poet Velvel Chernin, a member of the editorial staff of Sovetish Heymland; poems by Shlomo Teyf and Osip Mandelshtam are recited. El Maleh Rahamim is recited by Mikhail Gimeyn of the Moscow Dramatic Theater Studio. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
10/01/1988	Some 25 refusenik scientists appeal for assistance to American scientists who are attending a meeting organized in Moscow by the US National Academy of Sciences and the USSR Academy of Sciences. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
14/01/1988	Members of the “Moscow Legal Seminar on Problem of Emigration” appeal to Western lawyers for assistance. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
15/01/1988	A group of refuseniks from Moscow, Kishinev, Dushanbe, Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk demonstrate outside of Moscow city OVIR against the requirement that emigration applicants must submit financial waivers from relatives.  (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
18/01/1988	Long term refusenik- scientists appeal for help to the gathering of Nobel Prize Laureate scientists meeting in Paris. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, p.97).
19/01/1988	Political adviser to the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Nimrod Novik and deputy head of the Middle East department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Gennady Tarasov meet at the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki. Tarasov says an official Israeli delegation will soon be allowed to visit the Soviet Union. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 93).
20/01/1988	Joseph Begun arrived in Israel.
20/01/1988	150 refuseniks  from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Vilnius and Odessa submit a list of grievances to the Administrative Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU.  The list focuses on the failure of the special commission which is reviewing security-based refusals, and the requirements of a financial waiver from relatives who remain in the USSR and of an invitation from a first degree relative. A delegation of refuseniks is received by a group of officials headed by Deputy Chief of OVIR Udovichenko who assure them that their complaints will be carefully considered during the re-examination of emigration procedures now in progress. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
20/01/1988	An unofficial seminar on “The Political View in Jewish Thought” is held in Riga. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
22/01/ 1988	The CSCE Follow-up Meeting resumes in Vienna. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 93).
22/01/1988	In an appeal to the CSCE Follow-up conference in Vienna a group of prominent refuseniks sum up the restrictive effects of the new Soviet law on emigration. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, p.98).
24/01/1988	Veteran refusenik Professor Alexander Ioffe and his family arrive in Israel. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
24/01/1988	An unofficial museum of Soviet Jewish culture is opened in the home of Irene Rozenberg in Moscow. Over 60 people, including Western journalists, attended the opening. The organizers appealed to the city council of Moscow with a request for recognition and to provide facilities for the collection. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
26/01/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Alexander Paritsky of Kharkov is permitted to emigrate. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
28/01/1988	The long-term refusenik Professor Alexander Lerner and his family arrive in Israel. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, p.98).
28/01/1988	Some 150 refuseniks from throughout the USSR  demonstrate January 28 and 29 at various locations in Moscow. Present at the demonstrations are members of a delegation of the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights which is visiting Moscow for the first time. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, p.98).
31/01/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Alexander Kholmyansky arrives in Israel with his family. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
31/01/1988	Alexander Shaleyn, a film director from Kiev, delivers a lecture  at the monthly seminar of the “Jewish Women Against Refusal” on Babi Yar. (11. Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
31/01/1988	“The Executive Committee of the International Council of the World Conference on Soviet Jewry” meets in New York. It recommends convening the Fourth World Conference on Soviet Jewry in 1989. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
01/02/1988	727 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in January 1988. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
04/02/1988	60 leading refuseniks appeal individually to the CSCE Review meeting in Vienna. They refute  the Soviet claim that the demand for emigration is drying up and condemn the strict adherence by the authorities to the requirement of an invitation from a first degree relatives and the arbitrary use of the security restriction.  (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
11/02/1988	An article in the newspaper “Leningradskaya Pravda”, condemning the lecture on the history of Zionism” read by a guest from abroad. A. Goldberg, the owner of  the apartment where the lecture was read, began to receive in the mail a stream of anti-Semitic messages. (37, № 12, page 6).
12/02/1988	Claude Lanzman’s film “Shoah” (“Catastrophe”) is screened in two parts at the Soviet Film Center Dom Kino during the French Film Week. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
02/13/1988	From February 15th-27th hundreds of thousands demonstrate in Erevan demanding the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region to Armenia.
16/02/1988	Meeting of British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, with refuseniks in the British Embassy in Moscow. The meeting was attended by refuseniks – Yuli Kosharovsky Natalia Hasina, Tatiana  Zyman, Vladimir Tufeld, and democrats – Lev Timofeev , Sergey Grigoriants , Pastor Gleb Yakunin.  Sir Geoffrey went from table to table and asked questions about the possibility to hold an international conference on human rights in Moscow and about real signs of “Perestroika”.  Refuseniks questioned the correctness of the conference in Moscow, as long as many of the Soviet statements are not supported by real steps.  After the meeting there was an impromptu press conference outside the embassy. (37, № 9, pp. 16-17. Kosharovsky’s report on the meeting.)
16/02/1988	An “Evening of Jewish Song” entitled “I Love You So Much” took place in the State Theater of Variety in Moscow “Verayeti”.” Songs were  performed by Alexander  Gorelik. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
18/02/1988	Boris Yeltsin is expelled from the Politburo (Wikipedia).
20/02/1988	Extraordinary Session of the People’s Deputies NKAO (Karabakh) appealed to the Supreme Council of Armenia and Azerbaijan with a request to transfer Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. February 21 Politburo denied the request. February 22 began the first encounter with the use of firearms, February 26, Yerevan hosted the rally with a million participants. February 27-29 – the Armenian massacre in Sumgait – the first mass explosion of ethnic violence in recent Soviet history. Then massacres of Armenians and Azerbaijanis erupt again (November – December 1988) and begins exodus of Armenians from Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis from Armenia – hundreds. of  thousands  of people. (Wikipedia).
21/02/1988	70 leading refuseniks are invited to the American Embassy in Moscow to meet with U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
22/02/1988	100 refuseniks lobby the CPSU CC headquarters with a list of 300 long-term refusenik families who have been denied emigration. A deputation is received by the head of the Reception office.
23/02/1988	In the Jewish library in the apartment of George Falcon   was held a meeting dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Army. Colonel Yefim Hochberg spoke of the Jewish contribution to the creation of the Red Army, and their participation in the Second World War. He noted the great contribution of the Jewish military commanders Yakir, Gamarnik, Smushkevich killed during Stalin’s personality cult. The meeting was attended by 25 people. (37, № 9, February-March 1988, page 1).
24/02/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Alexei Magarik and his family arrive in Israel. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
25/02/1988	Near the building of the Lenin Library in Moscow a demonstration of refuseniks was held for emigration to Israel. More than 30 people held signs: “Down with refusal – slavery of the twentieth century”, “We demand freedom to travel”, “violation of human rights – a threat to world peace”, “We are not slaves.”  Demonstrators attracted a huge crowd of passers-by. From the crowd could be heard shouting,  “Why do you beat the Palestinians,” “you have to be shot.” The police did not intervene. The demonstration lasted for half an hour. From now on, such demonstrations are planned every Thursday at 6o’clock. (37, № 9, February-March 1988, page 1.)
02/27/1988	In the Hall of the House of Culture of Trade Unions of Kaunas, Lithuania,  Jewish amateur ensemble performs songs in Yiddish.  Jewish amateur ensemble was established in 1961. It consists of up to 120 people: a large orchestra, choir, dance group. In the early 70′s, most members of the ensemble made aliya to Israel. In 1977, the band was recreated by Yitzchak Ionesas. (37, № 9, page 2).
27/02/1988	The first meeting of the Jewish Cultural Fund, created by the Cultural Fund of Lithuania, took place on 5 January 1988. in Kaunas. The objectives of the Foundation include the restoration of the Jewish Museum, the organization of the Jewish Museum exhibition in Čiurlionis museum (to be held in May this year), and other practical steps to revive Jewish historical and cultural heritage. (37, № 9, page 2).
27/02/1988	February 27-29, the first mass explosion of ethnic violence in recent Soviet history – the Armenian massacre in Sumgait. Killed 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis. (Izvestiya, 03.03.1988).
? .03.1988	3-day hunger strike of women- refuseniks  in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilnius and other cities.
01.03.1988	Around 100 refuseniks gathered in the waiting room of the Central Committee of the CPSU for a response to the statement of 22 of February.  The head of the administrative Department of the Central Committee Vitaly Sidorov received a delegation which included: Gregory Rosenstein, Yuri Chernyak, Gennady Reznikov, Eugene Grechanovsky, Sergey Mkrtchyan, Bella Gulko, Tanya Rosenblit, Natalia Hasina, Alexander Feldman (all from Moscow) and Galina Babrina- Zelichenok from Leningrad. The hosts of the meeting recognized that the emigration is regulated by various secret instructions but now new legislation is expected in 3 months. Promises were made to issue refusals in writing, to accept appeals  and to consider old applications without the necessity to fill out the new forms. Vitaly Sidorov proposed a new meeting on April 10 and urged refuseniks to make suggestions regarding the new legislation. The meeting lasted two hours. (37. № 9, pp. 3-4.)
01/03/1988	From the 1st to the 5th of March purimshpils were performed in Moscow, Minsk, Leningrad, Riga, Vilnius and Riga by refuseniks. A purimshpil at  Marina Roshcha synagogue in Moscow by Gregory Rosenstein, a Hasidic refusenik is denounced by “Moskovskaya Pravda” as an ideological rather than a religious event. The first performance was attended by 300 spectators.  Purimshpil for children was performed in Moscow at the apartment of Igor Gurvich and a Purimshpil for adults – at the apartment of Alexander Panteleyev and elsewhere. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96., 37, № 9, page 5).
01/03/1988	737 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in February 1988. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96).
02/03/1988	More than 120 Jews in Minsk, Gomel, Dnepropetrovsk and Leningrad gathered at the monument in Minsk which commemorates the massacre of 10,000 Minsk Jews by Nazis in March 1942. The meeting was opened by Mark Kagan. After laying a wreath and flowers, he read telegrams from Kaunas, Tashkent, New York and other Soviet and foreign cities. Boris Libenson told a brief history of the Minsk ghetto. Representatives of the other cities reported on the genocide of Jews in Gomel and Dnepropetrovsk, where the Germans killed several thousand Jews, burying them alive. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, 96, 37, № 9, page 4).
03/03/1988	50 refuseniks gathered near the Lenin Library at six o’clock in the evening for the third demonstration in a row for the right to emigrate. Police and KGB numbering more than 200 people, arrested 20 demonstrators, put them in a bus and took them to the 5th police station.  After a 3-hour detention all of them were released. (37, № 9, pp. 4-5).
03/03/1988	Moscow formed an unofficial Public Council of Jewish Religious Affairs under the chairmanship of long-term refusenik Gregory Rosenstein, head of Chabad (Lubavitch) movement in the USSR. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96).
06/03/1988	March 6-8, about 130 refusenik-women in 7 cities hold a hunger strike, timed to coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8. In Moscow,  70 women were on hunger strike; in Leningrad-51, in Chernovtsi – 3, Vilnius – 3, in Tallinn – one in Kharkov – 1. In Moscow women gathered in five apartments: Lachman, Gorelikova -Hasina, Nadgornoy, Lurie and Chernyak. In Leningrad, the hunger strike was held at the apartments Helen Keiss and Galina Babrinoy-Zelichenok. Participants on hunger strike received telegrams of support from the U.S., France, Britain and other countries. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96).
07.03.1988	Women’s Conference on Jewish movement was held at the apartment of Inna Ioffe.  Conference participants were welcomed by members of Hadassah from United States. Victoria Gorelikova- Hasina lectured on the  group of “Jewish Women Against Refusal,” and Natalia Chernyak – about the group of “Jewish Women for Emigration and Survival in Refusal.” Evgenia Schwartzman told about the women’s movement for emigration in the seventies, accompanying the story by showing an interesting collection of slides.(37, № 9, page 5).
08/03/1988	Jewish Museum opened an exhibition of the artist Mordechai  Lipkin. The exhibition presents the graphic and pictorial works on Jewish topics, as well as a collection of pottery, painted in the national spirit. For the week, the exhibition was visited by more than 300 people. (37, № 9, page 6).
09/03/1988	A demonstration of the “poor relatives” in Leningrad. In the demonstration took part Joseph Litinsky with his wife Olga and daughter, Sergey Kochetov and Sergey Labuzov.  The demonstration lasted for 4 minutes. All participants were arrested and taken to court, where Olga Litinsky was fined 40 rubles, and the three men were sentenced to administrative detention for 10 days. All three were on hunger strike. (37, № 9, page 6).
09/03/1988	Newspaper “Evening Moscow” published an article by A. Troinin entitled “Something of decency” with the subtitle “Poor relatives and their wealthy patrons.”  (37, № 9, page 7).
10/03/1988	One-day hunger strike of solidarity with the family of long term refuseniks Kosharovskys has been undertaken by Bnei Akiva members in Los Angeles.
10/03/1988	One of the oldest refuseniks Yuli Kosharovsky and his wife Inna announced  a hunger strike to mark 17 years of their refusal.  (37, № 9, page 7).
10/03/1988	The authorities prevented the holding of demonstrations outside the building of the Lenin Library and arrested its members. Two people were fined, and 18 were summoned to the Kiev district People’s Court on 14 March. (37, № 9, page 7).
10/03/1988	Around 100 people staged a Chetvergovaya (held on Thursdays) protest demonstration near the Supreme Council. 25 demonstrators were detained and charged with disorderly conduct.
13/03/1988	“Soviet Russia” published an article “I can not compromise on principles” by Nina Andreeva directed against perestroika.
15/03/1988	With the permission of the authorities in Moscow  a meeting was held of persons who wanted to establish an officially recognized  Jewish Cultural Association. The initiative group includes both refuseniks and Jews who had not applied to emigrate. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96).
16.03.1988	The head of Moscow city OVIR, S. Alpatov says the limitations on visits to meet former Soviet citizens who now live in Israel and on temporary trips to Israel and from Israel to the USSR have been removed, and the character referances previously required have been abolished. (37, № 9, page 9).
18/03/1988	According to a new decree Soviet Jews can apply for emigration without invitations from relatives of the first degree.
20/03/1988	Jewish Cultural Association was officially registered in Estonia (see May 29, 1988), (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96).
23/03/1988	The newspaper “Literary Ukraine” published a letter protesting the city council’s plans to demolish the house where Sholom Aleichem lived and worked from 1897 to 1904. In July 1988, the Kiev Executive Committee is instructed by the Ukrainian Council of Ministers to amend the reconstruction plans so as to preserve the historic building. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, pp. 96-97).
25/03/1988	The Lvov city authorities approve a design by sculptors Lisa Shterntshteyn and Julia Schmukler and architect Vasily Plekhivsky for a monument to Jewish Holocaust victims in the city of Lvov. The project will be financed by Ukrainian Culture Fund.  (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
26.03.1988	It is announced that 9 senior Red Army officers who were victims of the Great Terror have been rehabilitated. Among those executed together with Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky were the Jews Yona Yakir, Robert Eideman, B. Feldman and Yan Gamarnik (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
27/03/1988	Jewish folk museum was closed for renovation due to a move to another room. (37, № 9, page 19).
29/03/1988	The Soviet Culture Fund decides to form a public council for the study and revival of the Soviet national minorities. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
01.04.1988	Rabbi Marc Schneier, Cantor Moshe Geffen and assistant cantor Joel Seltzer of the New York Park East synagogue conduct Passover services and lead the communal seder jointly with the Moscow Rabbi, Yuri Korzhenevich at the Moscow Choral Synagogue. Moscow Rabbi Adolf Shaevich and Cantor Vladimir Pliss, rabbi and cantor of the Moscow Choral Synagogue officiate at the Park East Synagogue in New York. Marc Schneier is the first Western rabbi to conduct an official religious ceremony in the Soviet Union during a major  Jewish holiday. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
01/04/1988	986 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in March 1988 (11, page 97).
02/04/1988	Among prominent Moscow and Leningrad refuseniks who attend the seder held at the residence of the American ambassador in Moscow are Yuli Kosharovsky, former Prisoners of Zion Vladimir Kislik, Roald Zelichenok and Evgeny Lein. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
04/04/1988	The primary party organization of the Lithuanian Writers Union adopts a resolution calling for recognition of the Lithuanian language as the state language and for the establishment of schools in the native languages ​​of national minorities in Lithuania and elsewhere in the Soviet Union. The resolution also supports plans to open a State Museum of Jewish Culture and to preserve the cultural heritage of all ethnic groups in Lithuania. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
07/04/1988	Former Prisoners of Zion Felix Kochubievsky and Leonid Volvovsky and their families arrive in Israel. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
07/04/1988	Yasser Arafat is received in Moscow by Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 94).
08/04/1988	Moscow City Council allocates a basement near the Polezhaevskaya metro station for a Jewish Museum. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
10/04/1988	At the regular monthly seminar of the “Second Generation” refusenik group, a lecture is presented on “The History of British Jews by a representative of the London based Spiro Institute for the Study of Jewish History and Culture. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
13/04/1988	Demonstration of refuseniks Vladimir Kislik, Alexander Schmukler, Inna Ioffe and others at the building of the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. (37, № 13).
13/04/1988	Over 300 Jews gather in the Jewish section of Moscow’s Vostryakovskovo cemetery to commemorate Soviet Jewish victims of the Holocaust. This is the first such a rally is held with official permission as well as covered in the media: April 15th, in the program “Good Evening Moscow” and in an article in the newspaper “Evening Moscow” – “Game over Jewish question” on April 19th. Reports marked “new thinking”, but noted that the meeting was “a blow to perestroika” and “an attempt at political blackmail of our state” during George Shultz’s visit to Moscow.” (37, № 12, pp. 12, 11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97)
15.04.1988	The sixth round of the CSCE Follow-up Meeting begins in Vienna. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 93).
17/04/1988	About 500 Jews gather with official permission of the authorities at the Preobrazhensky Cemetery in Leningrad to commemorate victims of the Holocaust. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
17/04/1988	A memorial evening devoted to the 45th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is held in the conference hall of the Soviet War Veterans Committee in Moscow. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
19/04/1988	Jewish delegations from Moscow and Vilnius attend the anniversary commemoration  in Warsaw. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
17/04/1988	Some 50 women attend an unofficial seminar in Moscow on the theme “Women in Israel.” (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97)
19/04/1988	About 25 refuseniks demonstrate outside OVIR offices  in Moscow. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 97).
20/04/1988	Some 80 tombstones are desecrated at the Jewish cemetery in Orsha, Byelorussian SSR.  (37, № 13, page 1; 11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
21/04/1988	A Jewish cemetery is desecrated  over Easter in Kaluga, 150 miles south of Moscow and fifty Jewish gravestones are vandalized in Malakhovka, a suburb of Moscow. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
21/04/1988	Some 100 Jews who gathered at the monument to the victims of the Nazi massacre of Minsk Jews to commemorate the Holocaust are dispersed by the police.  (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
21/04/1988	U.S. Secretary George Shultz, on an official visit to the USSR,  meets with a 25 strong delegation of refuseniks, dissidents and religious groups. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
21/04/1988	A mass demonstration of refuseniks and Jewish activists takes place outside the offices of the All-Union OVIR in Moscow. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
21/04/1988	The refusenik Mark Kagan is imprisoned for two weeks for hooliganism.  (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
24.04.1988	Some 250 Jews gather in the Ovrazhki woods near Moscow to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day. The long-term refusenik Yuli Kosharovsky announces the creation of an unofficial Soviet-Israeli Friendhip Society in Moscow. (d.o.r.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
28/04/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Alexander Paritsky’s family arrives in Israel. His daughter Dorina was permitted to emigrate before her parents and arrived in Israel in November 1987. (22, A. Paritsky).
30/04/1988	“Chetvergova demonstrators” said that during the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Moscow they intend to demonstrate daily.  (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
00/05/1988	The first issue of the journal “Problems of refusal ” is published. The magazine intends to analyze the phenomenon of refusal in general, and various flimsy reasons for refusal. (37, № 12, page 2).
01/05/1988	Soviet Jewry Zionist Forum, headed by Sharansky, founded in Israel.
01/05/1988	1,088 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in April. About 1,400 Soviet Jews visited Israel between January and April 1988. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
03/05/1988	The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution on the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union. The resolution was adopted on the basis of a report provided by parliamentarian Felix Hassler of Liechtenstein. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
05/05/1988	9 delegates from the Canadian United Jewish People’s Order, together with members of Kiev’s Jewish religious community groups of Russians and Ukrainians, hold a commemorative ceremony at the Babi Yar monument. Representatives of Kiev authorities participate. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
05/05/1988	Some 24 “state security” refuseniks appeal to President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.They announce their intention of embarking on a hunger strike on May 29th for the duration of the summit. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
08.05.1988	Around the House of Culture “Yauza”, Moscow, a day after the club’s board of directors has agreed to provide a room for the founding congress of the Jewish Cultural Association, pasted leaflets of anti-Semitic content.  (37, № 13, page 1).
08/05/1988	The World Jewish Congress(WJC) Executive meets in New York. The meeting is addressed by Yuri Dubinin, Soviet Ambassador to the United States. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, p.94).
09/05/1988	Near the Lenin Library 20 refuseniks, who participated in a demonstration, were arrested. They were fined 50 rubles each. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
11/05/1988	Meeting of Israeli Professor Biermann, who was one of the  passengers on the “Exodus”, with refuseniks The meeting took place at the apartment of Igor Mirovich, Moscow. (37, № 13).
12/05/1988	The outstanding Soviet mathematician and biologist Professor Israel Gelfand receives the Wolf Prize, awarded to him in 1978. The award ceremony was conducted in the Knesset by President Chaim Herzog. In 1978, Professor Gelfand was prevented from traveling to Israel to receive the award. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
12/05/1988	A delegation of “Jewish Women Against Refusal” holds  a memorial service at the site of mass executions of Jews in the Yanovsky labor camp in the city of Lvov. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
12.05.1988	12 to 15 of May a delegation of the World Jewish Congress, headed by President Edgar Bronfman visits Moscow. The delegation is also composed of Secretary General of WJC, Israel Singer, and its Executive Director Elan Steinberg. The delegation met with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Anatoly Dobrynin and other senior officials. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
12/05/1988	Moscow’s leading activists have submitted proposals to the Soviet authorities in connection with the current revision of the emigration law. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
12.05.1988	Some 150 Jews gathered in the Ovrazhki woods to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba Omer, and 43rd anniversary of the end of World War II. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 98).
15/05/1988	42 tombstones are destroyed in the Jewish cemetery in Vostryakovo in Moscow. Vandals are arrested. They were two drunk employees of  the Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute. (37, № 13).
15/05/1988	30 refuseniks demonstrated near Moscow OVIR for half an hour.
17/05/1988	Shimon Peres and Yuri Dubinin, Soviet Ambassador to the US, meet at the Washington residence of WJC President, Edgar Bronfman. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 95).
19/05/1988	In Leningrad the Jewish Historical seminar reopened. Its purpose – the continuation of research of the centers of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union, the collection of information on the Holocaust, and the development of modern historical methodology. (37, № 16, page 5).
19/05/1988	A demonstration of refuseniks near the Lenin Library. Fifteen people attended. Three minutes after the posters were deployed, the protesters were arrested and taken to the police station. At 9 pm, they were sentenced to fines – 50 rubles each. (37, № 13).
21/05/1988	The 45th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is commemorated in Vilnius by the Group to Promote  Jewish Culture of the Lithuanian SSR Cultural Fund.  A report is given by the group’s representatives who attended the commemoration in Warsaw on April 19th 1988. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
22/05/1988	Appeal of 45 refuseniks to the delegates of the 19th Party Conference with an analysis of the problems of national minorities.  Among the signatories: Kosharovsky, Kislik, Hasina, Schmukler, Dashevsky. (37, № 15, pp. 2-4).
22.05.1988	A refusenik seminar is held in Moscow on legal problems connected with emigration at the apartment of Vladimir Kislik. 14 papers and a summary of the seminar were presented and discussed. The participants appeal to the forthcoming June 5th-7th seminar in Moscow of the International Bar Association and the Association of Soviet Lawyers to discuss the problems of emigration.  (37, № 14, pp. 4, 11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
23/5/1988	Daily demonstrations of Mkrtchyan refusenik family  (Sergei, Catherine and Elizabeth) began in Moscow against being detained in the Soviet Union. (37, № 13).
24/05/1988	Vandals smashed the windows of Kaunas synagogue. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
24/05/1988	The first Jewish cooperative café “Yuzef’s” opens in Moscow. The 9 member cooperative employs 27 people, mostly Jewish war veterans and Holocaust survivors and is headed by Jozef Perezovsky. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
26/05/1988	Renowned Talmudic scholar and head of the Jerusalem based Israeli Institute for Talmudic Publications Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz gave a press conference upon his return from Moscow. He spoke about the negotiations which led to the Soviet Academy of Sciences to provide Western scientists opportunities to explore Judaica collections in Soviet libraries and archives and the opening of a Judaic studies center in Moscow. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
26/05/1988	In Moscow, near the Lenin Library, a demonstration of about 100 refuseniks took place. The protest lasted for 30 minutes. The police dispersed the crowd and thugs attacked      and tore posters. (37, № 14, pp. 8-9; 11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
26/05/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Kim Friedman is permitted to reunite with his wife in Israel after a separation of 12 years. He will arrive in Israel on August 28th, 1988. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
29/05/1988	“Jewish Women’s Against Refusal” held a three-day hunger strike from May 29th to June 2nd throughout the summit meeting in Moscow. The hunger strike was held under the slogan “A World Without Refuseniks.” (37, № 14).
29/05/1988	Moscow long-term refusenik Boris Lifshitz and his wife hold a protest hunger strike from May 29th to June 7th.(11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
29.05.1988	Over 150 Jews demonstrate in  Moscow’s Red Square on  May 29th – 31st.  There were no arrests. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
29/05/1988	Reagan gave a list of 14 names of refuseniks to Gorbachev
29/05/1988	May 29 – June 2 -the summit in Moscow between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of CPSU Mikhail Gorbachev. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 95).
29.05.1988	The Tallinn Jewish Cultural Society stages its first public event – a concert of Jewish songs in the Russian Theater of the Estonian capital. The society puts on a second concert on June 25th. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
30/05/1988	13 well known known refusenik families and a large group of Soviet dissidents are invited to a meeting with the U.S. President at the residence of the American ambassador in Moscow (Spaso House). The meeting is widely publicized in the Western media. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
31/05/1988	74 refusenik appealed  to Mikhail Gorbachev to end tyranny in emigration policy. Among the signatories to the appeal were Yuli Kosharovsky, Vladimir Kislik, Vlad Dashevsky etc.
01/06/1988	Demonstration of “poor relative” R. Vinokurova near Foreign Ministry press center with a sign, “My son is dying of muscular dystrophy, U.S. doctors promise to keep him alive. Release  10-year refuseniks ˗ Vinokourov family”. Beginning of July 5, R. Vinokourov demonstrate  daily. (37, № 16, page 10).
01/06/1988	Demonstration of 40 refuseniks and 20 children at OVIR on the international day of the child with the demand of  of permits to emigrate. (37, № 14, page 9).
01. 06.1988	Speech of Yuli Kosharovsky at the Spaso-House meeting with President Reagan with activists of Zionist, democratic and religious movements in the USSR (aa).
01/06/1988	1,059 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union in May 1988. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
02/06/1988	According to an agreement between the Russian Council for Religious Affairs and the American organization “Appeal of Conscience Foundation” 10,000 Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayer books in Russian and Hebrew were delivered to Moscow for the holidays  . (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
05/06/1988	At the June 5th to 7th meeting of the International Bar Association with the Association of Soviet Lawyers a number of lawyers from Israel were present. Under discussion were issues of emigration and human rights. (37, № 14, page 10).
05.06.1988	Supreme Council of Uzbekistan establishes a special commission to deal with the social, economic and cultural developments of the smaller ethnic groups in the republic, including Bukharan Jews. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
06/05/1988	The Council for Bukharan Jewish Literature Union is established in the Uzbekistan Writers Union. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 99).
08.06.1988	At the request of the foreign participants of the International Conference of Jurists which met in Moscow with representatives of the Ministry of Justice of the USSR, the “Poor Relatives” also attended the meeting. (37, № 16, page 11).
08/06/1988	Refusenik legal seminar participants issued a statement of unfulfilled promises of the Soviet authorities in the field of immigration. In a press-conference of refuseniks  Yuli Kosharovsky stated that the glasnost (openness) doesn’t occur for refuseniks.
08. 06.1988	June 8-9 during the third special session of the UN General Assembly on disarmament, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, meets Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in New York and Polish Foreign Minister Marian Ortechowski. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 95).
13/06/1988	A group of Moscow students create a branch of the Jerusalem based World Union of Jewish Students. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 100).
17/06/1988	Delegation of the Communist Party of Estonia on the 19-th Party Conference of the CPSU made a proposal to transfer additional powers to the republican authorities in all spheres of social, political and economic life (Wikipedia).
19/06/1988	The Israeli government decides to issue Israeli visas to Soviet Jews committed to settle in Israel. Direct flights to Israel via Bucharest are reported to have been suggested. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 100).
20/06/1988	Authorities closed ulpans in Baku.
20/06/1988	E. Voronov, a teacher of Hebrew was  called to the commission of the executive committee of Voroshilov district in Moscow, where he was informed that permission for Hebrew teaching which he was previously given has been canceled. (37, № 16, page 4).
20.06.1988	European parliamentarians, who were on a visit to Moscow, met with a group of refuseniks.
22.06.1988	Rumors  of upcoming pogroms are spread in Moscow.
23/06/1988	“Aliya 88″, a group of Leningrad refuseniks hold three day seminar a in the village Toskovo near Leningrad. Among the issues discussed are:  emigration, anti-semitism and Jewish culture. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 100).
23/06/1988	The 45th anniversary of the liquidation of the Lvov ghetto is commemorated for the first time at the local Military Officers House. The memorial evening is organized by the provincial Society for the Preservation of Cultural and Historical monuments with the participation of a Jewish initiative group and is   attended by General David Dragunsky, whose 55th Tank Guard Brigade participated in the liberation of Lvov. (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 100).
23/06/1988	A delegation from Uruguay.met with Jewish refuseniks in Moscow.
23/06/1988	Moscow City Council has approved the return of the Moscow Choral Synagogue extension consisting of a two-story building, requisitioned by the authorities in 1941. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 100).
23/06/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Osip Lokshin arrives in Israel, (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 100).
29/06/1988	Alexander Askoldov and Alexander Chervinsky arrive in Israel as members of the official Soviet delegation to participate in the Jerusalem Film Festival, where their films “Commissioner” and “The Theme” are to be shown.(11, Volume 18, № 2, 1988, page 96).
00/07/1988	Long-term refusenik Natan Schwartzman receives permission to emigrate with his family to Israel.
01/07/1988	In Moscow the anti-Zionist writer Evgeny Evseyev sets up a Committee of the Soviet Public Against the Restoration of Diplomatic Relations with Israel. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, p.93).
01/07/1988	Rabbi Simcha Kook, head of the Rehovot Rabbinical Court, visits the Moscow Jewish community. It was the first visit to the Soviet Union of a member of the Israeli rabbinate since 1967. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
01/07/1988	1,498 people, including 104 non-Jews, emigrated from the USSR on Israeli visas in June 1988. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 92).
03.07.1988	A large group of Riga Jews hold a commemorative service at the site where a packed synagogue was burned by the Nazis with the Jews who were in it. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93)
04/07/1988	Three drunken youths waged a fight with religious Jews near Moscow Choral Synagogue. Being on the spot one of the police officers instructed anti-Semitic bullies what they should say in their testimony to conceal the essence of anti-Semitic provocations. Lately anti-Semitic provocations near the central synagogue become frequent. Russian young people come to the synagogue, offend religious Jews and shout anti-Semitic slogans. (37, № 16, page 22).
06/07/1988	Yuli Kosharovsky receives a certificate for teaching Hebrew from Philadelphia.
06/07/1988	The Jewish Public Library hosted an evening dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Beilis trial. (37, № 16, page 4).
07.07.1988	The Kishinev Synagogue in Chapaev Street is daubed with anti-Semitic slogans. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
07/07/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Alexander Magidovich receives permission to emigrate. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
08/07/1988	The movement Tehiya (Revival) is formed in Vilnius at a commemorative meeting on the site of the former Jewish ghetto in Vilnius. 300 participants appeal for an erection of a monument in memory of the victims of the ghetto; for an inscription on the Paneriai monument to be amended so that it records that most victims were Jews; and for the restoration of the historical Jewish names on the buildings and streets of the Vilnius’s former Jewish quarter. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
10.07.1988	More than 70 people from Leningrad, Vilnius, Kiev, Baku, Derbent, Luberts, Tbilisi and Moscow meet in a Moscow apartment to inaugurate a Soviet-Israel Friendship Society. A report on behalf of the initiative group is presented by Yuli Kosharovsky. The Central Council of the society consists of 33 members from the 9 cities. The Presidium includes Koretsky, Kosharovsky, Lifshitz, Meshkov, Ostrovsky, Schmukler, Dashevsky, Frumkin, Markov, Shpeyzman.  (37, № 16, page 1 ; 11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
13/07/1988	A meeting of refuseniks with Richard Shifter, deputy of US Secretary of George Schultz on Human Rights.
18/07/1988	Alexander Bogdanov, who demonstrated in the center of Leningrad against the anti-Semitic organization Pamyat (“Memory”), is imprisoned for two weeks. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
20/07/1988	Long-term refusenik and informal head of the unofficial Chabad movement in the USSR, Gregory Rosenstein arrives with his family in Israel. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
21/07/1988	Permission for the Hebrew course in Baku to use a public hall is withdrawn by the authorities  and no alternative accommodation is made available. At present, classes are conducted in private homes. (see 4.11, 87), (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93)
21/07/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Alexander Paritsky arrives with his family in Israel, (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
21/07/1988	Refuseniks meet with Congressman Wolf.
25/07/1988	Jewish cafe “At Yuseph” was attacked by hooligans, and then was forced to close for repairs.
28/07/1988	A group of Leningrad Jews who are members of the “Aliya 88″ group write to Pravda, Izvestia, as well as the Leningrad Party Committee to protest against the activities of the organization Pamyat (“Memory”). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, p.93).
28/07/1988	The USSR Supreme Soviet issues two decrees: a Decree On Procedures for Organizing and Conducting Gatherings, Rallies, Street Marches and Demonstrations (effective as of August 15, 1988)” and a decree empowering the Ministry of the Interior to suppress demonstrations, enter homes without a warrant and intervene to halt strikes. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
28/07/1988	A 5-member Israeli consular delegation, headed by Russian born diplomat Meron Gordan, arrives in Moscow, formally for the purpose of acquainting themselves with the representation of Israel by the Netherlands Embassy. (d.o.r.). (see January 12, 1988). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 90).
29.07.1988	At the CPSU Central Committee plenum, which deals among other things with inter-ethnic tensions, Gorbachev proposed that laws against incitement of ethnic tensions be tightened and a law on the development and use of languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR be adopted. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 93).
29.07.1988	An agreement on access by Western researchers to Holocaust-related documents in Soviet hands is signed in Moscow by the Chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council’s International Relations Committee, Miles Lehman and Evgeny Kozhevnikov, First Deputy Director of the Central Archive Administration of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, pp. 93-94).
29/07/1988	Near the Moscow Choral Synagogue refuseniks meet with the Israeli consular delegation.
31/07/1988	The Co-operative “Knowledge” begins Yiddish language courses in Tashkent. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
01/08/1988	Refuseniks  meet with the Minister of Radio Industry to discuss secrecy limitations.
01.08.1988	In July 1,169 people, including 320 non-Jews, emigrated from the USSR on Israeli visas. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
04.08.1988	Elie Wiesel appeals to Mikhail Gorbachev to clear the names of 24 Soviet Jewish writers and other cultural figures executed on August 12th, 1952. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
05/08/1988	The Vienna CSCE Follow-up Meeting goes into summer recess. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 90).
07.08.1988	The meeting of Pamyat (“Memory”)  in Leningrad, the rise of anti-Semitism.
08/08/1988	At a closed session of the court 7 Moscow refusenik protesters under the July 28th decree on demonstrations, are sentenced but challenge the ruling on the basis that the decree is not yet in force. The Refuseniks are retried on August 11th on charges of “disobeying the police in the performance of their duties”. The administrative detention sentences for 5-15 days are upheld; fines of 100-150 rubles are reduced. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
09.08.1988	Tombstones are destroyed at Radozhkovichi Jewish cemetery near Minsk. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
09/08/1988	Yuri Semyonov, the leader of “Poor Relatives” is arrested in Moscow.
09.08.1988	Following a visit to the USSR in July by the President of the Israeli Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Dan Gillerman,  the USSR and Israel are reported to have agreed to open  joint chambers of commerce in Moscow and Tel Aviv. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 90)
10/08/1988	The Leningrad city authorities ban Pamyat (“Memory”)from holding open air meetings in Rumyantsev Park. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
10/08/1988	Alexander Bogdanov is re-arrested and sentenced in Leningrad to 15 days imprisonment for demonstrating  against the anti-Semitic organization  Pamyat (“Memory”). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94)
10/08/1988	Moscow Jewish cafe ‘Yuzef’s’ has been repaired and re-opens after damage caused by antisemitically motivated break-in in late July. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
16/08/1988	A delegation of the Israeli Democratic Front for Peace and Equality visits the Soviet Union from the 16th to 25th August this year. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 91).
16/08/1988	In Khabarovsk, the first Jewish cooperative restaurant Pribrezhny (“Coastal”) opens. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
18.08.1988	A regular Torah study group is established in Minsk.  (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
21.08.1988	Following  a 10 day trial, two employees of the Shakhty branch of the Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute are sentenced to 15 months and 11 days’ correctional work at the work place and two years and six months in general regime camp respectively for desecrating Jewish graves in the Vostryakovo cemetery in Moscow. (see 5/15/88), (D.O.R.). . (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
28/08/1988	Nimrod Novik, political adviser to the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and Gennady Tarasov, deputy head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry Middle East department, hold talks in Paris, (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 91).
01/09/1988	1,925 people, including 191 non-Jews, emigrated from the USSR on Israeli visas in August 1988. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94)
01/09/1988	A Kiev Jewish folklore ensemble “Nigunim” (Tunes) gave an officially approved concert of Yiddish and Hebrew songs to packed houses on two nights in August. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
01.09.1988	New Soviet regulations on customs tariffs become effective. Receiving religious literature and items for worship by mail from abroad is now permitted. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 94).
05/09/1988	Kishinev City Department of Public Education has announces the opening of free courses in Yiddish. 400 people enrol. An additional course is due to open in Tiraspol later this month. The courses are conducted by the author of educational teaching aids for Yiddish, Shimon Sandler. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 95).
11/09/1988	Moscow Hebrew teacher and a member of the central council ODIKSI Lelia Volkovyskii held in Kishinev intensive Hebrew course  for beginners from 11 August to 7 September. (37, № 20, page 7)
11/09/1988	The founding meeting of the Jewish Cultural Association  took place in Moscow.  80 representatives of public organizations from 9 cities in the USSR participated in the meeting. (37, № 20, page 9).
11.09.1988	The first public call for the independence of Estonia in a Song Festival with more than 300,000 participants (Wikipedia).
12/09/1988	Soviet-Israeli Friendship Society meets in the new 5749 year. Society activists managed to rent a room in a Moscow cafe where there were 55 people. Members of the consular delegation of Israel were invited and participated. (37, № 20, page 8).
15/09/1988	Moscow security refuseniks demonstrate outside the Ministry of Radio Industry. On September 23rd two refuseniks are sentenced to ten days administrative detention and two are fined 100 and 500 rubles, respectively. Those sentenced to prison begin a hunger strike, which lasts for the duration of their terms. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 95).
18/09/1988	In Moscow some 60 private Hebrew teachers from Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Rostov, Baku, Chernovtsy, Zaporozhye and Gorky proclaim the establishment of a national Hebrew Teachers Association entitled “Igud morim” (Hebrew for “teachers union”). Lev Gorodetsky is elected chairman of the association. The participants listened to 30 presentations on topics related to the teaching of Hebrew and Jewish culture. (37, № 20, page 4, 11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 95).
18.09.1988	At the apartment of Julian Hasin opened “The Jewish book lovers club .” The club is open as part of the ” Soviet-Israeli Friendship Society”.
21/09/1988	A bronze memorial plaque to Sholem Aleichem is placed outside  27 Saksagansky Street in Kiev where the writer lived and worked between 1903 and 1905. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 95)
18/09/1988	Opening of the library of “ODIKSI.” The library has over 500 volumes and is open on Wednesdays from 19:00 to 21:30. The opening of the library was well attended by guests from the U.S. and Israel.
23/09/1988	An exhibition of Lithuanian Jewish graphic art of the 17th- 20th centuries is opened in Vilnius. It will become part of the recreated Museum of Jewish Culture, which is housed in the building of a former Jewish theater. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 95)
25/09/1988	The rally in memory of the Vilnius ghetto organized by the Society of Revival of Jewish Identity “Tkuma”  in Vilnius. Chairman of the Society Gregory Alpernas led the rally. (37, № 20, 22).
25/09/1988	The 47th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre is officially commemorated at Moscow’s Vostryakovsky cemetery. Four members of the unofficial Soviet-Israel Friendship Society, which sought permission for a similar rally, are permitted to address the rally. The rally is officially allowed by City Council and was held on the initiative of several community organizations. At the rally were Alexander Ostrovsky, Valerii Sherbaum, Yuli Kosharovsky and many others. The meeting was opened by the the Supreme Soviet delegate Shapiro and Gen. David Dragunsky. The rally was attended by about 500 people including representatives of the Israeli diplomatic mission. (37, № 20, pp. 24, 11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 95).
28/09/1988	The group “Jewish Women Against Refusal” conduct a telephone bridge with Israel. Questions related to absorption  of new immigrants, the benefits for different categories of immigrants, housing conditions, and the various aspects of living in Israel. (37, № 21, 11).
29/09/1988	400 people participate in an unofficial memorial on the 47th anniversary of the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar in Kiev. Also taking part of the commemoration at Babi Yar are  activists from the group “Jewish Women Against Refusal” from Moscow and others. (37, № 21, page 2).
01.10.1988	A “Day of Jewish Culture” is held in Lvov. The celebration includes the opening by Yiddish writer Alexander Lizen of the exhibition “Jewish Themes in the Works of Lvov Artists”. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 95).
01.10.1988	2,373 people, including 362 non-Jews, emigrated from the USSR on Israeli visas in September. (11, vol 11, #1, page 95).
01/10/1988	At an extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Gromyko retires. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 92).
01/10/1988	Memorial evening marking the anniversary of the mass shootings of Jews at Babi Yar was disrupted by the authorities. Hundreds of Jews gathered in the evening at the House of Cinema in Moscow, faced with closed doors, even though the rental of the hall was agreed upon with the administration in advance. (37, № 21, page 2).
02/10/1988	ODIKSI organized a rally in the forest dedicated to the holiday of Sukkot. The organizer of the festival and the “architect” of the Sukkah was Alex Ostrovsky. (37, № 21, page 2).
03/10/1988	Alexander Vlasov, CPSU CC  Politburo candidate member and USSR Minister of the Internal Affairs becomes Prime Minister of the Russian Federation. On October 20th he is succeeded as USSR Interior Minister by Vadim Bakatin, CC member and Kemerovo Oblast Party Committee First Secretary since 1981. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 92).
03/10/1988	Jewish Cultural Association (JCA) board organized a gala evening dedicated to Simchat Torah. The evening was held in the Moscow cafe “Aist” (“Stork”). The evening was attended by activists of the JCA,  guests from Israel and representatives of American Jewish organizations. (37, № 20, 11).
04/10/1988	10 veteran refuseniks have breakfast with Kenneth Baker, British Secretary of State for Education, who was in Moscow. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
6/10/1988	Rabbi Tabachnik from Chicago spoke to students of  the Historical Society school in Moscow on “The link of times in Jewish history.” The lecture was attended by 35 people. (37, № 21, page 3).
08.10.1988	The film “Secrets of the third basket” is shown on national television. In this regard on October 13 members of the “Jewish Women Against Refusal” I. Ioffe, B. Gorelikova-Hasina, I. Kosharovskaya, G. Kremen and others sent a letter of protest to  the editors of “Izvestia” and a number of other institutions. (37, № 21, page 20).
11/10/1988	A Union of Friends of Jewish Culture is established in Minsk within the framework of the city branch of the Soviet Culture Fund. A 17 member board is elected. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
11.10.1988	ODIKSI music library is opened. Yuli Kosharovsky and Alex Ostrovsky lectured in the opening. Visitors from Britain and Israel attended the event. (37, № 21, page 3).
12.10.1988	Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, a Talmudic scholar from Jerusalem, Professor Rabbi Yakov Rabkin of the University of Montreal, Ulf Haxen, a Judaica expert from the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen, and Paul Cohen from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal arrive in Moscow to finalize agreement on the foundation of a Judaic Studies Center.  The Center will be affiliated with the Academy of World Civilizations, which is due to open in Moscow in February 1989 under the World Laboratory international scientific exchange program.  The agreement is signed by Steinsaltz, Rabkin, Evgeny Velikhov, Vice President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and Academician Viktor Gelovini.  During their stay the group visits libraries and scientific and scholarly institutes in Moscow and Leningrad.  Steinsaltz lectures on “The History of Science and Religion” at the Moscow Institute of Natural Sciences and Technology.(the former “Emes” building) and Rabkin addresses the Institute for the History of Science and Religion in Leningrad. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
13/10/1988	Ilya Ginzburg, previously allowed to teach Hebrew, was summoned to rayspolkom (district executive body), where permission was revoked. The reason – the proof of his knowledge of the language has not been confirmed by official Soviet authorities. This is not the first case of cancellation of previously issued permits for the teaching of Hebrew. (37, № 21, page 4)
13/10/1988	A Club of Jewish Bibliophiles is established in Moscow under the chairmanship of Yulian Khassin.  They are to meet in Khasin’s home every third Sunday. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
13/10/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Boris Chernobyl receives permission to emigrate to Israel. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
14.10.1988	A press conference is held at Vladimir Kislik’s apartment. Kosharovsky noted that Soviet legislation on immigration has not yet been brought into compliance with the Final Act. (37, № 21, page 5).
16.10.1988	Isi Leibler, President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, visits Moscow. On October 20th Leibler and Mikhail Gluz, Director of the Jewish Musical Chamber Theater, sign an agreement on facilities for the Solomon Mikhoels Cultural Center, which is being established on the Theater’s premises in Moscow. Agreement is also reached with Konstantin Kharchev, Chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, on permission for two Soviet Jews to be trained in Australia in ritual circumcision and kosher slaughter and for a rabbi and cantor from Australia to visit the Moscow Synagogue to hold study groups and train Jews in prayer liturgy. The issue of Jewish emigration was raised in talks with representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and OVIR. During the visit, Mrs. Naomi Leibler speaks on religious issues at the regular seminar of the “Jewish Women Against Refusal” group. The Leiblers visit lasted until October 25th. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
16.10.1988	Meeting of refuseniks with the President of Executive Council of Jews in Australia Izi Leibler, who arrived in the Soviet Union on an official visit at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR. (37, № 21).
20/10/1988	A one-way direct dialing by telephone from Israel to Moscow, Leningrad, Tbilisi, Tashkent, and Kishinev is esteblished. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
28/10/1988	An unofficial cultural center is established at the Moscow Jewish Theater ‘Shalom’. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
30/10/1988	A commemorative meeting is held at the Ninth Fort  in  Kaunas.(previously known as Kovno) where 12,000 Jews were massacred by the Nazis. In the evening an inaugural meeting of the Kaunas branch of the Cultural Association of the Jews of Lithuania is held in the Trade Unions’ Palace of Culture. An 18 member board is formed under the chairmanship of Vladimir Jelinas. (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
31/10/1988	Former Prisoner of Zion Evgeny Koifman arrives in Israel. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 1, 1989, page 96).
? .11.1988	A new head of the Israeli consular delegation, Aryeh Levin arrives in Moscow. (22, Mushinsky).
01.11.1988	A World Jewish Congress and Jewish Agency  delegation led by WJC President Edgar Bronfman visits Moscow November 1st – 4th.  Cultural, religious and educational facilities for Soviet Jews and emigration are discussed with Konstantin Kharchev, Chairman of the USSR Council for Religious Affairs, and other government officials. The delegation meets refuseniks, members of the unofficial Jewish organizations and religious activists. On November 2nd Bronfman is received by Minister of Foreign Affairs Shevardnadze. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, pp. 93-94).
01/11/1988	2,587 people, including 519 non-Jews, emigrated from the USSR on Israeli visas in October 1988 (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 93).
06/11/1988	The Jewish theater “Shalom” is officially opened. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
08/11/1988	A Jewish Society on History and Ethnography is established in Leningrad.  It emerged from an unofficial seminar on Jewish history.  (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
09.11.1988	A rally takes place on Simchat Torah in front of the Soviet consular mission in San Francisco.
13/11/1988	Richard Shifter, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, met with group of refuseniks in the U.S. Embassy.
20/11/1988	About 40 members of the “Poor Relatives” group have gathered in the waiting room of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet and tried in vain to get a meeting with its employees. They sent an appeal previously to the Chairman of the Presidium but received no reply. (37, № 21, page 8).
20.11.1988	Joint meeting of the “Jewish Women Against Refusal” and “Jewish Bibliophiles Club”. Vladimir Kislik expressed the idea of ​​the rejection of the framework of family reunification and the transition to repatriation.
22/11/1988	More than 500 people attend an unofficial Kristallnacht commemoration in Leningrad. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
22.11.1988	“Effect”, the first professional Hebrew teachers cooperative in the USSR is approved by the Moscow authorities. It was founded by Andrew Narusov (a non- refusenik). (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
25/11/1988	Lullaby, a film about the Holocaust, by Soviet Jewish emigrant, Ephraim Sevela, is screened in Moscow’s House of Writers before a capacity audience.  Sevela attends the screening.  (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
26.11.1988	Chaverim (Hebrew, “Friends”), an amateur folklore ensemble, is founded by the Lvov-based Sholom Aleichem Society of Friends of Jewish Culture. (d.o.r.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
26/11/1988	French President Francois Mitterrand, on a  visit to the Soviet Union, meets refuseniks Vladimir Kislik and Judith Lurie and several Soviet dissidents at the French Ambassador’s residence in Moscow. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
27/11/1988	Avraham Tamir, Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, examined the working procedures and conditions of the Israeli consular team in Moscow on November 27-30. (see July 28, 1988). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 92).
29/11/1988	The Soviet Union ceases jamming broadcasts of Kol Yisrael, Deutsche Welle,  Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, 94).
30.11.1988	The Presidium of the World Conference on Soviet Jewry meets in Jerusalem. 46 Soviet Jewish activists sent a statement to the conference. For the first time Soviet Jewish leaders could convey by phone to the Presidium their thoughts on problems of long-term Refuseniks, emigration, and the development of religious and cultural facilities. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
30/11/1988	Moscow refuseniks form a “Public Committee for Improved Visa Office Performance”. The committee collects information at OVIR offices and provides advice on legal rights. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
01/12/1988	Hebrew classes in Baku are allocated new premises. (d.o.r.) (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
01/12/1988	A folk-song group, performing songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, is formed in Baku. The group gives regular performances in a local club, (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, pp. 94-95).
01/12/1988	Yiddish-language studies are introduced in a Vilnius secondary school as an optional part of the curriculum. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95)
01/12/1988	2,874 people, including 546 non-Jews, emigrated  from the USSR on Israeli visas in November.
01/12/1988	Two Leningrad Jews establish the cooperative Razvitie (Development) for teaching modern Hebrew. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
01/12/1988	The Soviet authorities lift “secrecy” classification of a large group of long-term refuseniks including Yuli Kosharovsky, Vladimir Kislik and Roald Zelichenok. Kosharovsky and Zelichenok and their families arrive in Israel in March and January 1989 respectively. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 94).
02/12/1988	Yevgeny Yevtushenko arrives in Israel for a two week series of poetry recitals. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
03/12/1988	Israel extradites to the Soviet Union five Soviet citizens who hijacked a Soviet transport plane from Ordzhonikidze (North Ossetia) to  Ben-Gurion Airport the previous day. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 92).
03/12/1988	Four master cantors from the USA and Canada conduct Shabbat services in Moscow Choral Synagogue. They also give concerts in Moscow and Leningrad. The mission is sponsored by the American Society for the Advancement of Cantorial Art and Gila and Haim Wiener Foundation for Advancement of the Cantorial Arts. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
04.12.1988	A Jewish Cultural Society attached to the local branch of the Ukrainian Cultural Fund is established in Kiev by a group led by Ilya Levitas. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
06/12/1988	Boris Shilkrot of Kibbutz Negba lectured in ODIKSI library on the kibbutz movement in Israel. Shilkrod left in 1972 and teaches at the kibbutz.
07/12/1988	Mikhail Gorbachev addresses the United Nations, and meets President Reagan and President-elect George W. Bush. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 92).
08/12/1988	A refusenik seminar in Moscow on “Frontiers of Science” is attended by several Western scientists from December 8th to 10th.  Two Jewish scientists from Britain Dr. Simon Baumberg of the Department of Genetics of Leeds University and Dr. Daniel Dubin of the Mathematics Department of the Open University  are refused visas by the Soviet authorities. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95)
10/12/1988	The Mikhoels Cultural Center starts operating. Mikhail Chlenov lectures to a packed hall on “Jewish Contributions to World Culture.”
12/12/1988	The annual award of the British All-Party Parliamentary Committee for Soviet Jewry is presented in the House of Commons. The joint winners are refuseniks Inna Uspenskaya and Roald Zelichenok, a former Prisoner of Zion, and The Times (London) columnist Bernard Levin. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
12/12/1988	A B’nai B’rith international delegation headed by Seymour Reich visits Moscow and Leningrad. The delegation discusses pressing Jewish issues and the establishment of a B’nai Brith office in Moscow with high ranking officials of the Ministries of Culture and Foreign Affairs, the Council for Religious Affairs and Procurator General. The first B’nai Brith chapter in the USSR is founded at a meeting hosted by the Jewish Cultural Association which was formed in Moscow in May 1988. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
14/12/1988	Long-term security refusenik and former Prisoner of Zion Evgeny Lein from Leningrad receives permission to emigrate to Israel. Lein and his wife arrive in Israel on January 22nd 1989. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
18/12/1988	Lithuanian Jews commemorate the 45th anniversary of the mass escape from the Ninth Fort in Kaunas. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
19/12/1988	A branch of the Jewish Cultural Association of Lithuania is established in Klaipeda. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
22.12.1988	The Estonian Society for Jewish Culture publishes the first issue of Russian-language information bulletin “Ha-shahar”. (Hebrew, “Dawn”). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
24/12/1988	Jewish theater Shalom presents “The Train to Happiness” in behalf of the Soviet Armenia disaster fund. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
28/12/1988	An agreement is signed by the Joint Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in the Soviet Union, chaired by Canadian businessman Albert Rajchman, and the Soviet Committee to Support the Preservation of Jewish Historical Monuments and Documents headed by the Chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, Konstantin Kharchev. The agreement provides for access to, preservation and maintance of Jewish cemeteries, historical and religious texts, and other historic landmarks on Soviet territory and separate Jewish burial grounds. (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 95).
30/12/1988	The former dissident and political prisoner, Yuli Daniel died in Moscow at age 63. Daniel was the son of Yiddish writer Mark Daniel (Meyerowitz, 1900-1940). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 96).
31.12.1988	Representatives of religious Soviet Jews from several Soviet cities met in Moscow with a representative of the Agudat Yisrael movement from New York to discuss religious education in the USSR. In February 1989, Agudat Israel announces the establishment of offices in the Soviet Union. (D.O.R.). (11, Volume 19, № 2, 1989, page 96).