Ephraim (Alexander) Kholmyansky is an Israeli engineer and author, former Soviet Prisoner of Zion, former activist in the Jewish national revival movement in Russia, and a teacher of Hebrew.

Early Years     Ephraim (Alexander) Kholmyansky was born in 1950 in Moscow to a Jewish family. He graduated from the prestigious Moscow high school #2. He acquired a M.Sc. in computer sciences and worked for seven years as a computer hardware and CAD specialist in the Moscow computer peripherals R&D center.

Hebrew Teacher in Moscow     In the 1970s, Kholmyansky became interested in Jewish national revival and, above all, in learning Hebrew. In the late 1970s he became a prominent unofficial Hebrew teacher in Moscow.  Although banned, Hebrew education was somewhat tolerated by the authorities in Moscow and Leningrad, but not in the tens of peripheral cities across the giant country, where the vast majority of Soviet Jews resided.

Underground Project     Against all odds, Kholmyansky decided to take on the task of bringing Jewish national revival to these peripheral cities. The teaching of Hebrew was to serve as spearhead of this mission. Since the KGB did not tolerate such activity, the project had to be an underground one.

Kholmyansky initiated the project in December 1979. Acting as a project leader until his arrest in July 1984, he managed to create a clandestine network of Hebrew teachers, Zionist groups, and religious groups in 20 different cities across the USSR.

The KGB began close surveillance of Kholmyansky and began intimidating him to put an end to this unprecedented project. Despite the harassment and the danger, Kholmyansky continued the project.

Hunger Strike     The KGB arrested him in Estonia in 1984 and he was brought to the Tallinn prison.  While he was in preliminary detention, the KGB conducted a house search of his Moscow apartment, where they planted a shotgun and subsequently accused him of illegal possession of firearms