Natan Sharansky | |
|---|---|
נתן שרנסקי | |
 Sharansky in 2019 | |
| Ministerial roles | |
| 1996–1999 | Minister of Industry and Trade |
| 1999–2000 | Minister of Internal Affairs |
| 2001–2003 | Deputy Prime Minister |
| 2001–2003 | Minister of Housing & Construction |
| 2003–2005 | Minister of Jerusalem Affairs |
| Faction represented in theKnesset | |
| 1996–2003 | Yisrael BaAliyah |
| 2006 | Likud |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky (1948-01-20)20 January 1948 (age 77) Stalino,Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Citizenship | Israeli |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (BMath) |
Natan Sharansky[a][b] (Hebrew:נתן שרנסקי; born 20 January 1948) is an Israeli politician,professional chess player and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive for theJewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018,[1] and currently serves as Chairman for theInstitute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), an American non-partisan organization. A formerSoviet dissident, he spent nine years imprisoned as arefusenik during the 1970s and 1980s.
Sharansky was born into aJewish family on(1948-01-20)20 January 1948 in the city ofStalino,Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (now Donetsk, Ukraine) in theSoviet Union.
His father, Boris Shcharansky, a journalist from aZionist background who worked for an industrial journal,[2] died in 1980, before Natan was freed.
His mother,Ida Milgrom, visited him in prison and stubbornly waged a nine-year battle for her son's release from Soviet prison and labor camps along with his wife.[3] She was permitted to follow her son to Israel six months after he left the Soviet Union.
He attended physics and mathematics high school No.17 inDonetsk. As a child, he was achessprodigy. He performed insimultaneous andblindfold exhibitions, usually against adults. At the age of 15, he won the championship in his native Donetsk.[4] Sharansky graduated with a degree inapplied mathematics fromMoscow Institute of Physics and Technology. When incarcerated insolitary confinement, he claims to have maintained his sanity by playing chess against himself in his mind. Sharansky beat the world chess championGarry Kasparov in asimultaneous exhibition in Israel in 1996.[4][5]
After Sharansky graduated from university, he began working for a secret state research laboratory. Sharansky lived nearSokolniki Park, on Kolodezniy Pereulok in Moscow. In his spare time, Sharansky would coach young chess players at the famous chess club in the park.[6]
He took his current Hebrew name in 1986 when he was freed from Soviet incarceration as part of a prisoner exchange and received an Israeli passport with his new name.[7][8]
Natan Sharansky is married toAvital Sharansky and has two daughters, Rachel and Hannah.[8][9] In the Soviet Union, his application to marry Avital was denied by the authorities. They were married in a friend's apartment, in a ceremony not recognized by the government, as theUSSR only recognizedcivil marriage and not religious marriage.[10]
Sharansky was denied an exit visa to Israel in 1973. The reason given for denial of the visa was that he was given access, at some point in his career, to information vital to Soviet national security and could not now be allowed to leave.[11] After becoming arefusenik, Sharansky became a human rights activist, working as a translator fordissident andnuclear physicistAndrei Sakharov, and spokesman for theMoscow Helsinki Group and a leader for the rights of refuseniks.[12]On 15 March 1977 Sharansky was arrested by theKGB, then headed byYuri Andropov, on multiple charges, includinghigh treason and spying for several Americans. The accusation stated that he passed to the West lists of over 1,300refuseniks, many of whom were denied exit visas because of their knowledge of state secrets, which resulted in a publication by Robert C. Toth, "Russ Indirectly Reveal 'State Secrets': Clues in Denials of Jewish Visas".[13][14] High treason carried thedeath penalty. The following year, in 1978, he was sentenced to 13 years offorced labor.
Sharansky spent time in Moscow'sLefortovo Prison, followed byVladimir andChistopol prisons, where for part of the time he was placed in solitary confinement. His health deteriorated, to the point of endangering his life. Later he was detained in Perm 35, a post-Stalin-Gulag-type so-called "strict regimen colony" inPerm Oblast.[15]
During his imprisonment, he embarked on hunger strikes to protest confiscation of his mail, and he was force-fed at least 35 times, which he describes as "a sort of torture". Sharansky later opposed force-feeding of Palestinian detainees.[16][17]
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As a result of an international campaign led by his wife, Avital Sharansky (including assistance fromEast German lawyerWolfgang Vogel, New York CongressmanBenjamin Gilman, and RabbiRonald Greenwald), Sharansky was released on 11 February 1986 as part of a larger exchange of detainees. He was the firstpolitical prisoner released byMikhail Gorbachev.[18]
Sharansky and three low-level Western spies (Czech citizenJaroslav Javorský and West German citizensWolf-Georg Frohn, andDietrich Nistroy) were exchanged for Czech spiesKarl Koecher andHana Koecher held in the United States, Soviet spyYevgeni Zemlyakov, Polish spiesMarian Zacharski andJerzy Kaczmarek [pl], andEast German spyDetlef Scharfenorth (the latter four held in West Germany).[19] The men were released in two stages, with Sharansky freed first then whisked away, accompanied by the United States Ambassador to West Germany,Richard R. Burt.[20] The exchange took place on theGlienicke Bridge between West Berlin and East Germany, which was used before for this purpose.[21][22]
_-_P.M._Peres_Welcomes_Sharansky.jpg)
Sharansky immediately emigrated to Israel, adopting theHebrew nameNatan and eventually simplifying his surname to Sharansky.
Due to his age and poor health, he was exempted from the standard compulsory three years' IDF service, but had to undergo three weeks of military training and do a stint in theCivil Guard.[23]
In 1988, he wroteFear No Evil, a memoir of his time as a prisoner. He founded theZionist Forum, an organization of Soviet immigrant Jewish activists dedicated to helping new Israelis and educating the public about integration issues, known in Israel asklita (lit. "absorption"). Sharansky also served as a contributing editor toThe Jerusalem Report and as a board member ofPeace Watch [ja].[24]
In 1995, Sharansky andYoel Edelstein founded theYisrael BaAliyah party (a play on words, since "aliya" means both Jewish emigration to Israel and "rise", thus the party name means "(People of) Israel immigrating (to the State of Israel)", as well as "Israel on the rise"), promoting the absorption of the Soviet Jews into Israeli society. The party won sevenKnesset seats in 1996.[29] It won 6 seats in the1999 Israeli legislative election, gaining two ministerial posts, but left the government on 11 July 2000 in response to suggestions that Prime MinisterEhud Barak's negotiations with the Palestinians would result in a division ofJerusalem. AfterAriel Sharon won aspecial election for Prime Minister in 2001, the party joined his new government and was again given two ministerial posts.[30]
In theJanuary 2003 elections, the party was reduced to just two seats. Sharansky resigned from the Knesset and was replaced by Edelstein. However, he remained party chairman and decided to merge it into Likud (which had won the election with 38 seats). The merger went through on 10 March 2003,[31] and Sharansky was appointed Minister of Jerusalem Affairs.
From March 2003 – May 2005, he was Israel'sMinister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem's social andJewish diaspora affairs. Under this position, Sharansky chaired a secret committee that approved the confiscation ofEast Jerusalem property ofWest Bank Palestinians. This decision was reversed after an outcry from the Israeli left and the international community.[32]
Previously he served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, Minister of Housing and Construction since March 2001,Interior Minister of Israel (July 1999 – resigned in July 2000),Minister of Industry and Trade (1996–1999).[33]
He resigned from the cabinet in April 2005 to protest plans towithdrawIsraeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank.[34]
He was re-elected to the Knesset in March 2006 as a member of the Likud Party. On 20 November 2006, he resigned from theKnesset to head a think tank at theShalem Center.[35]
In 2019 Natan Sharansky became the Chairman of theInstitute for the study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).[36]
Since 2007, Sharansky has been chairman of the board ofBeit Hatefutsot, the Jewish diaspora museum.[37]
In September 2009 Sharansky secured $6 million from theGenesis Philanthropy Group for educational activities in the former Soviet Union.[38]
In June 2009, Sharansky was elected to the chair of the executive of theJewish Agency for Israel by the Jewish Agency Board of Governors,[39] and was re-elected in 2013.[40] He was replaced on 1 August 2018 byIsaac Herzog.[41]
He is a founding member ofOne Jerusalem.[citation needed]
Sharanksy is co-Founder and chairman of the Genesis Prize Advisory Board.[42]
In 1997, Sharansky was the focus of a 2.5-hour-long episode ofChaim SheKa'ele ("What A Life"), the Israeli version ofThis Is Your Life. The episode focused mainly on his experiences as a Soviet dissident, and featured many of his family and acquaintances.[43] In 2005, Sharansky participated inThey Chose Freedom, a four-part television documentary on the history of theSoviet dissident movement, and in 2008 he was featured inLaura Bialis' documentaryRefusenik. In 2014, he took part inNatella Boltyanskaya's documentaryParallels, Events, People. He was number eleven on the list ofTime magazine's 100 most influential people of 2005 in the "Scientists and thinkers" category.[44] He won the 2018 Israel Prize for his lifetime achievements and special contributions to the State of Israel in the fields of Immigration and Absorption.[45] He was awarded the 2020Genesis Prize for his "lifelong struggle for human rights."[46] He donated the $1 million prize money to organizations combating thecoronavirus.[47] In 2024, he received theBonei Zion Prize in the "Special Recognition" category.
Sharansky is the author of three books. The first is the autobiographicalFear No Evil, which dealt with his trial and imprisonment. The book was awarded the 1989National Jewish Book Award for Biography.[48]
His second book,The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror was co-written withRon Dermer.George W. Bush offered praise for the book:
If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy, read Natan Sharansky's book,The Case for Democracy. ... For government, particularly – for opinion makers, I would put it on your recommended reading list. It's short and it's good. This guy is a heroic figure, as you know. It's a great book.[49][50]
His bookDefending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy, is a defense of the value of national and religious identity in building democracy.[51]
Still another bookNever Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People tells about his political activity and how his personal experience influenced it.[52]
Sharansky has argued that there can never be peace between Israel and the Palestinians until there is "the building of real democratic institutions in the fledgling Palestinian society, no matter how tempting a 'solution' without them may be."[53] In aHaaretz interview, he said:
Jews came here 3,000 years ago and this is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Jews are the only people in history who kept their loyalty to their identity and their land throughout the 2,000 years of exile, and no doubt that they have the right to have their place among nations—not only historically but also geographically. As to the Palestinians, who are the descendants of those Arabs who migrated in the last 200 years, they have the right, if they want, to have their own state ... but not at the expense of the state of Israel.[7]
In the wake of theArab uprisings of 2011, he toldMoment Magazine, "To sign an agreement you must have a partner who is dependent on the well-being of his people, which is what democracy means."[54]
In February 2022, Sharansky called on the Israeli government to take “a clear moral stand” against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision toinvade Ukraine.[55] He called theRussian invasion of Ukraine the greatest threat to the free world since World War II and said that Israel must stand firmly with the Ukrainian people.[56]
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