Life Under Communist Rule
After World War II, Rabbi Zilber was imprisoned in a gulag for a technical accidental crime (a fellow Jew left some illegal papers by him, and a search revealed them. He did not want to tell to police whom it is so he got imprisoned himself. ironically, the owner himself regretted Rabbi Zilber being imprisoned for him and went to the police to admit his responsibility. As typical to Russia at the time, they happily admitted him to prison as well, leaving Rabbi Zilber there as well). He was forced to do heavy menial labor, but with great self-sacrifice managed never to violate the Shabbat and other Torah commandments. In fact, he taught Torah to other Jewish prisoners. Rabbi Zilber received amnesty after Stalin's death in 1953, and returned to Kazan. While not openly violating state rules, in 1960 the KGB started harassing him, making a cover story about the sorry children of a religiously fanatic father who makes them suffer for Jewish laws etc. A large gathering was announced in the school where he taught and in the school where his wife taught. He was barred from his teaching job, and the KGB also attempted to take his children away from him, and promising his wife an apartment and a quiet life if she would agree to a divorce. When he received an invitation for an interview in the KGB, Yitzchok Zilber fled from Kazan, and after a long journey stayed in Tashkent and was able to move his family there a short time later. The family tried to emigrate to Israel, but was refused for years, until they finally received permission and emigrated in 1972.
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