Avital Sharansky Avital Sharansky Avital Sharansky (born Natalia Stieglitz (, ) in Ukraine, 1950; married name also Shcharansky) is a former activist and public figure in the Soviet Jewry Movement who fought for the release of her husband, Natan Sharansky, from Soviet imprisonment. Avital and Nathan Sharansky met in October 1973. Shortly after meeting, Nathan Sharansky's exit visa was denied, and he became an active refusenik. Avital applied for a visa to Israel, and the couple began to discuss marriage. They married in 1974, one day and a half before Avital's exit visa expired. The day after their wedding, Avital left for
Temple Emanuel (Kensington, Maryland) In March 1977, the Soviet Union arrested Natan Sharansky for being a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency. The Soviet Union accused Sharansky of giving the Central Intelligence Agency lists of over 1,300 refuseniks, many of whom were denied exit visas because of their knowledge of state secrets. Representatives of Temple Emanuel met with the head of the Department of State's Human Rights Office to urged the Department of State to pressure the Soviet Union to release Sharansky. Sharansky was imprisoned until February 1986, when he and three other accused spies were released to West Germany in exchange for five