14

Friday, January 18, 1985

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

With her husband languishing
in a Siberian prison,
Avital Shcharansky struggles
valiantly to win his freedom.

Avital Shcharansky has lived for the last eight years in Jerusalem, where she was photographed by Richard Nowitz.

BY HELEN DAVIS

A vital Shcharansky seems like a woman
idtwho has everything. She is young,
beautiful and famous. When she speaks of
the man she loves, her face glows as she
gropes shyly for words to describe him.
But Avital, 33, is not to be envied. Not
yet. Perhaps not ever. Her husband,
Anatoly Shcharansky, is a prisoner in a
bleak Siberian j ail serving a 13-year
sentence for treason and anti-Soviet
slander and agitation. Even when he has
completed his prison term, in July 1991,
there is no guarantee that he will be al-
lowed to leave the Soviet Union and join
her in Israel.
Life for Avital Shcharansky — an in-
tensely private woman who would never
have sought the limelight under any other
circumstances — has become a ceaseless
struggle to win her husband's release. She
is a woman obsessed with the search for
the right combination of events that will
produce the key to his cell and grant them
the priceless gift of a normal life.
This slight, introverted woman meets
routinely with kings and queens, presi-
dents, prime ministers and chancellors,
members of parliament, senators, coiigfe§§-
men, Jewish activists, human rights ad-
vocates, friends of Israel, critics of Israel,
scientists, artists, conservatives, socialists
and communists. All are enlisted in her
campaign. They write articles and letters,
sign petitions, march in demonstrations
and appeal to the Soviet authorities.
They do so out of conviction: Anatoly
Shcharansky is an international symbol of
the struggle for human rights. But they do
so also because it is Avital who asks for
their help. Throughout the West, doors to
the most important offices are open to her.
And while the world's leaders express their
outrage at what is clearly a gross miscar-
riage of justice, what has captured the im-
, agination of millions is a rare love story.
Avital is aware of all this, but she is a
reluctant star. Her relationship with the
media is ambivalent and awkard. Despite
the years of media exposure, she has ac-
quired no clever public relations gloss or
knack for handling journalists. She is pas-
sionate and articulate when she talks
about the plight of her husband, but shy
and different when the questions focus on
herself and her relationship with him.
At the same time, she is keenly aware
of the need for media coverage. She knows
that if Anatoly is forgotten by the media,
he will be forgotten by the West. If that
happens, he might as well be a dead man.
Avital's ambivalence was most strik-

Helen Davis is a writer living in Israel.

