Born in 1936 in the Ukraine, he became privy to the wave of anti-Semitism flooding the Soviet countryside in the 70’s which forced him in 1973 to join the underground Zionist movement in the Soviet Union, which was especially active in the Odessa. He organized an ulpan to study Hebrew, taught in it, distributed Zionist materials and participated in many demonstrations and hunger strikes. In 1975 he was arrested, charged with the Zionist activity and sentenced to 2 years in the Gulag. Released in 1977, he left for Israel in 1981.
