Boris Kochubiyevsky, one of the first Prisoners of Zion in the Soviet Union, has passed away

Boris Kochubiyevsky (Baruch Ashi), one of the first Prisoners of Zion in the Soviet Union, has passed away. He was arrested for his struggle for the immigration of Jews to Israel and for commemorating the victims of Babi Yar, served three years in a forced labor camp, and immigrated to Israel in 1972.

Boris Kochubiyevsky (Baruch Ashi), one of the first Prisoners of Zion in the Soviet Union after the Six-Day War, has passed away. Kochubiyevsky, a radio engineer from Kyiv, was arrested for his struggle for the immigration of Jews to Israel and for commemorating the victims of the Babi Yar massacre, in which his father was murdered. He was sentenced to three years in a Soviet forced labor camp. In 1968, at an official memorial ceremony at Babi Yar, he went up to the stage and called out that the victims were Jews. Afterwards, he drafted an open letter to Brezhnev demanding to immigrate to Israel. He was fired from his job, forcibly hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital, and put on trial. Even in prison, he continued to struggle. In 1972, upon completing his sentence, he immigrated to Israel and was received with excitement. He worked at Tadiran, raised three children, and lived in Jerusalem. His funeral will be held today at the Yarkon Cemetery.