Public lifeאביטל שרנסקי

Avital Sharansky

Avital Sharansky is an activist of the Soviet Jewry movement who campaigned for the release of her husband, Natan Sharansky, from Soviet imprisonment.

born 1950Campaign to free Natan SharanskyThe Soviet Jewry movementBook on the couple's struggle

Occupation: human rights defender, Judaic scholar

Avital Sharansky was born in 1950 in Soviet Union

Avital Sharansky was born Natalia Stieglitz in Kyiv, in the Soviet Union, in 1950. Her parents were Svetlana and Semyon. She learned at 14 that she was Jewish, and her older brother is Colonel Michael Stieglitz of the IDF.

She met Natan Sharansky in October 1973, and soon after his exit visa was denied. They married in July 1974, a day and a half before her own exit visa expired. The next day she left for Israel, while he stayed in the Soviet Union.

In Israel she took the name Avital and began working for her husband's release. In 1975 she made her first trip to the United States and Canada and met members of Congress. After he was jailed in 1977 and sentenced in 1978 to 13 years of forced labor, she met government leaders in many countries.

In 1979 she published a book about the couple's struggle. Natan Sharansky was released on February 11, 1986, and she then stepped away from public life. The couple has 2 daughters and lives in Jerusalem.