(JNS.org) Russian-Jewish teacher and painter Ilya Farber was released from Russian prison on Friday, Jan. 10. Farber was jailed on bribery charges in 2011 after receiving a seven-year prison sentence. Local residents, Jewish groups, and the Kremlin’s human rights council protested the decision, suggesting that antisemitism played a role in Farber’s conviction after a prosecutor said during his trial, “Can a person with the last name Farber truly help a village for free?” “The release of Ilya Farber was a long time coming. Unfortunately, both of his trials were marred by hints of overt antisemitism,” Mark B. Levin, executive director of the National Council for Soviet Jewry, told JNS.org in December after a regional court reduced Farber’s sentence.