Born in 1947 in Riga, into an observant Jewish family, he entered Riga Polytechnic Institute in 1965 and in 1968, together with his family, applied for an exit visa to Israel, but was refused. He left the Institute in 1969 as it was considered that higher education could be an obstacle to obtaining an exit visa. He had participated in an illegal Zionist movement in Riga from 1963 and in 1966 created the Youth Zionist Organization, also taking part in the creation of the UCC (All-Union Coordinating Committee) and from 1969 became a co-editor of “Iton” (samizdat UCC bulletin). Arrested on June 15th, 1970, in Leningrad, together with the other participants in the “aircraft hijacking” plot, he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in the high security camps of the Gulag. On Dec 30, 1970 the Supreme Court of RSFSR reduced his term to 12 years in a high security camp. Yosef Mendelevich served his time in the 17th zone in Mordovia and in the 36th zone in the Ural Mountain camps. While there, he illegally created an organization (kibbutz) where he taught Hebrew and Torah. Tried again in 1977 for the conducting of religious practices, he received an additional sentence of 3 years imprisonment in the infamous Vladimir Central prison. In 1981 he held a 56-day hunger-strike to protest the confiscation of those of his personal books which had been published in Israel. This led to the return of some of them. In 1981, after the meeting of Edgar Bronfman (President of the World Jewish Congress) with the ambassador of the USSR to the USA (Dobrynin), and by decree of the USSR Yosef was deprived of his Soviet citizenship on February 18th, and was sent directly from prison to the Sheremetyevo airport, from where he took off via Vienna for Israel. He served as a reservist in the Israel Defence Forces from 1983 till 1990, in Hebron among other places. He received his second degree in Jewish History from the College of Turo and from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel he received “Semicha” which is considered amongst the most prestigious of contemporary ordinations. He was also awarded an honorary PhD degree. He now teaches Talmud and Jewish Philosophy at the Machon Meir Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. He is a father of 7 children and lives in Jerusalem.
From the book: “Anti-Jewish processes in the Soviet Union (1969−1071)”. The editor and author of the commentary—A. Rozhansky. Vol 2. with corrections and additions made by Y. Mendelevich.
