Alexander Lerner

Alexander Yakovlevich Lerner (7 September 1913, Vinnytsia – 6 April 2004, Rehovot), Scientist and Soviet refusenik.

Alexander Lerner was born to a Jewish family in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time of his birth.

Lerner graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the Moscow Institute of Energetics in 1938, and received a Ph.D. from the same institution in 1940.

During World War II, Lerner served as the chief engineer of the Central Autonomous Laboratory at the Soviet Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy in Moscow.

Lerner become a member of the Soviet scientific and technological elite. He was a leading practitioner of cybernetics, a term coined after World War II by Norbert Wiener at M.I.T. It is an branch of science that deals with human control systems like the brain and nervous systems where they interconnect with complex electronic systems. Also, his mathematical equations were used in forecasting supply and demand for vital materials like steel, or allocating scarce resources.

Lerner was the first prominent Soviet scientist to seek to emigrate to Israel. His request was denied, and resulted in the sudden loss of his positions and privileges.

In 1977, a letter was published in the Soviet newspaper Izvestiya calling Lerner "the leader of an espionage nest." His closest associates in the refusenik movement — Natan Sharansky, Vladimir Slepak and Ida Nudel — were arrested. He was finally granted an exit permit and emigrated to Israel on Jan. 27, 1988, together with his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

Lerner accepted an appointment in the mathematics department at the Weizmann Institute of Science where he pursued a number of projects, including the development of an artificial heart and the construction of a mathematical model to predict the behavior of developed societies.

Lerner died in 2004 in Rehovot at the age of 90.