Born on January 30, 1930 in Leningrad, he was involved as a young man in an active Zionist movement in his hometown, agitating for emigration of Jews to Israel and the legalization of the Hebrew language and Jewish culture in the Soviet Union. Arrested in 1958, he was charged with subversive Zionist activity and was sentenced to 4.5 years in the Gulag. Released in 1963, he went to Israel in 1972.
