Shcharansky Urges Freedom for All Jews

A jubilant group of about 1,000 people packed a stretch of Wilshire Boulevard near Fairfax Avenue on Sunday to cheer former Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky.

Peering into a sea of miniature Israeli and American flags, the 38-year-old human rights activist urged the crowd in front of the Jewish Community Building not to forget about the estimated 400,000 refuseniks still fighting for release from the Soviet Union.

“We want all our people out,” said Shcharansky, who now prefers the Hebrew name Natan and the spelling Sharansky. “Not somewhere in the distant future, but tomorrow.”

Sharansky kept his remarks brief, relying mostly on ironic anecdotes about his nine years in custody. He elicited chuckles when he explained that his captors occasionally showed him videotapes of public demonstrations. He said they chided him that the people rallying in his support were “only students and housewives.”

“Finally, the students and housewives won,” Sharansky said with a smirk, “and the KGB failed.”

He also praised his wife, Avital, whose appeals greatly impressed U.S. leaders and reinforced efforts to free her husband, who was released last year in an East-West prisoner exchange.

Sharansky was arrested in 1977 by Soviet police and accused of spying for the CIA. The next year, he was convicted and sentenced by a Moscow court to 13 years in prison and labor camps.

Although Sharansky said he had given up hope for his release, he added that a bond with Jewish people all over the world gave him the faith to persevere.

“I never had any doubt that my people . . . were with me,” he said.

Later, in San Francisco, Sharansky spoke to a rally near the Soviet Consulate in the city’s Pacific Heights district. Police estimated the crowd at 1,000.

Sharansky took the microphone after half an hour of singing and chanting, and criticized the new Soviet policy of glasnost, or openness, initiated by General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev. He said the policy does not represent a significant change in the treatment of imprisoned Jews or dissidents.

“We hear many times throughout the world and here in the United States of America that now is the time to stop irritating Mr. Gorbachev,” he said, noting that only 800 Russian Jews were permitted to emigrate to Israel last year, one of the lowest totals in two decades.

“They want to exchange with us this glasnost and exchange smiles, but it is not enough. . . . Let us say it now: We want freedom for all 400,000 Jews and all political prisoners.”

Sunday’s rally was held in front of a residence three doors from the consulate. Large crowds that were expected to fill the block in front of the consulate did not materialize.

Jesse Katz reported from Los Angeles; Mark A. Stein from San Francisco