Refusenik authorities to significantly increase the emigration quota. In the years 1960 through 1970, only about 3,000 Soviet Jews had (legally) emigrated from the USSR; after the trial, in the period from 1971 to 1980 347,100 people received a visa to leave the USSR, 245,951 of them were Jews. Refuseniks included Jews who desired to emigrate on religious grounds, Jews seeking to immigrate to Israel for Zionist aspirations, and relatively secular Jews desiring to escape continuous state-sponsored antisemitism. A leading proponent and spokesman for the refusenik rights during the mid-1970s was Natan Sharansky. Sharansky's involvement with the Moscow Helsinki Group helped
Natan Shalem Natan Shalem Natan Shalem (October 10, 1897 - 1959) was an Israeli geographer, geologist and researcher. Shalem was born in Thessaloniki to a traditional Jewish family. Growing up Shalem studied in various Jewish educational institutes. In 1914 Shalem immigrated to Ottoman Palestine. During the First World War Shalem began to teach in the moshava Sejera. In 1919 Shalem went to study geology in Florence where he obtained his doctorate in 1924. After getting his doctorate Shalem returned to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem, where he worked as a teacher for geography, chemistry and physics at the Gymnasia Rehavia. Within this