Persecuted by the KGB, a Jewish master soared to new heights in the West

Persecuted by the KGB, a Jewish master soared to new heights in the West

The Russian Jewish dancer Valery Panov, who died June 3 at age 87, proved that the torment of Soviet-era antisemitism endured long after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Born in Vitebsk, Belarus, celebrated as the hometown of the painter Marc Chagall, Panov was the son of Matvei Shulman, an industrial supervisor, who assimilated to the Communist ethos of his time. In a memoir, Panov wrote that his father “had developed into a genuine antisem…