Born in Benderi, Bessarabia in 1948, he applied for an exit visa to Israel in 1971 but the visa was denied. After his second application he was expelled from the university. He sent the letters of protest to the Soviet authorities and officially renounced his Soviet citizenship. At this point, in order to exist, he had to sell his domestic possessions. Arrested in 1975, he was charged with “systematic occupation in illegal business” and sentenced to 6 years in the Gulag. Serving his sentence in the camps of Bessarabia and Orsk, he was released in 1979 and left for Israel in the same year.
