Sylva Zalmanson

Sylva Zalmanson was born in 1944 in Siberia

Zalmanson was born in Siberia on 25 October 1944 to a Jewish family from Riga. The family returned to Riga in 1945. She learned about Judaism from her parents at home.

As a student at Riga Polytechnic University, she took part in Zionist activity that was illegal under Soviet law, including spreading Hebrew study books. She graduated in 1968 and worked as an engineer. Her requests for an exit visa to Israel were denied.

With her husband Eduard Kuznetsov, she joined a 16-member group that planned to take a plane out of the Soviet Union. The group was arrested on 15 June 1970 before boarding. At the trial she was the only woman and received 10 years in prison.

She was released on 22 August 1974 in a prisoner exchange and moved to Israel. There she worked as an engineer in the aircraft industry and campaigned for the release of the other prisoners, including a 16-day hunger strike in New York in 1976.

Her husband was freed in 1979. Their daughter Anat was born in 1980, and the couple divorced in 1981. That year she was placed 11th on the Tehiya party list for the Knesset.