Page 243 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

Natan Sharansky being received on the day of his Aliya to Israel by Prime Minister Shimon Peres
times, tortured and warned – and despite this, he would not cease his actions. In 1977, the Russians arrested him and charged him with "treason against the Soviet Union, espionage for the United States and sedition." In 1978 he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment. He served his sentence in four prisons and during his imprisonment he spent 405 days in solitary confinement and conducted a hunger strike for 130 days. Many organizations in the world – Zionist and non-Zionist – fought ceaselessly for his release.
Sharansky was released from prison in February 1986 after nine years of imprisonment, following a spy exchange deal between the Soviet Union and the United States. He was the first Prisoner of Zion to be released from prison by American pressure. On the day he crossed the "iron curtain" he made Aliya and settled with his family in Jerusalem. Yet even after his release, Natan Sharansky and his wife – with the aid of the Government of Israel, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency and additional entities – continued to fight for the Soviet Jews. Thus, among other things, they were partners in organizing a huge demonstration of about a quarter of million people in Washington DC for the Soviet Jews. This demonstration was considered the final battle that helped turn the tide in the fight against the Soviet inflexibility.
In Israel, Natan Sharansky deepened his Zionist activity. In 1988, he established, along with others, the "Zionist Forum," the umbrella organization of the Soviet Union Olim that assisted in the absorption of Olim in Israel; in the Nineties, he was among the founders of "Yisrael BaAliyah," which
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