On December 19, 2020, Israel’s Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, the second person in the State of Israel on Saturday evening to be vaccinated against the deadly COVID-19 virus, informed those gathered that the procedure fell on a “personally significant day” for him.
On December 19, 1984, Yuli Yoel Edelstein – a refusenik born in the former Soviet Union – was convicted on trumped-up charges of drug possession after having applied to emigrate to Israel.
Edelstein was sentenced to three years in a Soviet forced labor camp, and was sent to the Siberian penal colonies to perform hard labor, first in Buryatia and then in Novosibirsk. Edelstein broke several bones after falling from a construction tower.
The Soviet authorities were planning to transfer him back to Buryatia, but Edelstein’s wife Tanya threatened to go on hunger strike if he was returned there and so miraculously, he was not transferred.
He was freed on the eve of Israeli Independence Day, the next to last of the refuseniks to be released.
He finally managed to leave the Soviet Union in 1987 following his release, and emigrated to Israel with his family, settling in Gush Etzion, and served in the IDF as do nearly all other new immigrants, attaining the rank of corporal.