East-West This Year in Jerusalem

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How good it is and how pleasant

for brothers to live together!

. . . It is like the dew of Hermon falling

upon the hills of Zion.

There the Lord bestows his blessing,

life for evermore.

--From Psalm 133, Shcharansky's

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The psalmbook kept him company. During the nine years he spent in Soviet prisons and work camps, most of his other possessions were taken from him. But he clung to a miniature copy of the Book of Psalms that his wife Avital had sent from Israel. In fact, he once spent 130 days in solitary confinement because he refused to allow the authorities to confiscate the book. Early last week his Soviet guards tried again to seize it. In desperate fury, the prisoner defied his captors by throwing himself into the snow. "I said I would not leave without the Psalms that had helped me so much," he later explained. "I lay down in the snow and said, 'Not another step.' " The guards scrutinized the book carefully, then handed it back. The elaborately negotiated release of Anatoli Shcharansky, one of the Soviet Union's most famous political prisoners and a symbol of the plight of Soviet Jews and human rights dissidents alike, proceeded as planned.

"Words are too poor to express this moment," the Prime Minister of Israel, Shimon Peres, declared the next night as Shcharansky arrived in Tel Aviv from Frankfurt aboard an Israeli executive jet. "Welcome, and may you be happy among us." Standing beside his darkly beautiful wife, with whom he had been reunited only a few hours earlier after an absence of twelve years, Shcharansky, 38, told the crowd of well-wishers in halting Hebrew, "There are moments in our life that are difficult to describe. This is the happiest day in our lives." His eyes glistening in the glare of TV lights, he continued, "Twelve years ago I said to Avital on our parting, 'I'll see you soon in Jerusalem.' But my way here became as long and as hard as the Galuth (the biblical exile of the Jews from Israel) because in these years the Pharaohs of our time decided to announce a new conspiracy of Jews, from Russia and other countries, against the regime. I know how strong was the hatred of the KGB, and how strong their determination not to allow this day to come. The very fact that it did come is a strong indication of the justness of our cause."

Waiting along with Peres to welcome Shcharansky at Ben Gurion Airport were a number of Cabinet ministers and politicians, together with the country's two Chief Rabbis. As the plane came to a halt and the door opened, a tall man carrying a shopping bag stepped inside. It was Mikhail Stiglitz, Avital's brother, who is an Israeli army officer. The pilot had radioed ahead that Shcharansky, who was released from the labor camp in a threadbare suit of clothes, badly needed a pair of pants and a belt to hold them up. While the crowd waited, Shcharansky changed into a pair of gray trousers brought by his brother-in-law, then stepped out onto the tarmac.