Naum Meiman

Naum Meiman was born in 1912 in Bazar

Meiman was born on 12 May 1912 in Bazar, Ukraine. His family was in the timber trade.

He graduated from Kazan State University as an external student in 1932. In 1937 he completed his doctorate under Nikolai Chebotaryov and received the degree Doktor nauk. He became a full professor at Kazan in 1939.

He worked for 2 years at the University of Kharkiv, where he met Lev Landau and worked with him for many years. After the Second World War he headed the mathematics lab at the Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow, and later worked at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics. His work contributed to Soviet nuclear weapons, and he received a Stalin Prize in 1953.

From 1968 he signed letters protesting political trials. In 1971 he retired and applied to emigrate to Israel, but was refused on grounds of knowing state secrets. He joined the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1977, later became its deputy chairman, and was watched by the KGB.

His wife Inna Meiman-Kitrossky, who had cancer, was allowed to leave for treatment and died in 1987, and he was not allowed to attend her funeral. In 1988 he emigrated to Israel and became a professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University. He died in Tel Aviv on 31 March 2001.