Anatoly Altman, a former prisoner of Zion who tried to hijack a plane to escape the former Soviet Union, has died.
Born in what today is Ukraine, Altman was a member of “Operation Wedding,” an attempt by several Jews who were arrested in 1970 at a St. Petersburg airport, where they had gathered to take the plane and fly it to Israel.
He died Thursday in Israel, in Haifa. Altman was 77.
As a defendant in the 1970 Soviet trial for “treason against the homeland” Anatoly declared: “Today is a very difficult day, but I’m happy, too. Because today I started my way home (to Israel) … And I’m sure, maybe it may take years in prison, but I’m sure I’ll get home to Israel, and from today until that time in the future, I say ‘Shalom to Eretz Yisrael.’”
Altman was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in the gulag. In 1979, he was released and immigrated directly to Israel, or made aliyah.
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“May his memory be for a blessing, and may his family and friends be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem,” the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry wrote in a statement about his passing.
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