Kholmyansky became interested in Jewish revival and, above all, in learning Hebrew. Gradually, he became a prominent Hebrew teacher in the late 1970s and 1980s in the USSR, heading a clandestine network of Hebrew teachers in different cities across the USSR. At the peak of its activities, the network was active in 20 cities of USSR, with contacts in a further 30 cities. The KGB began close surveillance of Kholmyansky and arrested him in Tallinn, capital of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic on 29 August 1984.
