Soviet Jewry movement

Last updated

The Soviet Jewry movement was an international human rights campaign that advocated for the right of Jews in the Soviet Union to emigrate. The movement's participants were most active in the United States and in the Soviet Union. Those who were denied permission to emigrate were often referred to by the term Refusenik.

Contents

Major activities

The majority of activities in the West were aimed at raising awareness about the lack of freedom to emigrate from the Soviet Union.

American Jewish organizations

In the United States, a number of Jewish organizations became involved in the struggle for Soviet Jewish emigration. Jewish establishment organizations such as the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress coordinated their efforts in the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry (AJCSJ), later renamed to the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ). New grassroots organizations also played an important role. Examples are the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism and Jacob Birnbaum's Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. [1] Most organization kept their activities within the realm of public outreach, diplomacy and peaceful protest. An exception was the Jewish Defense League led by Meir Kahane whose members occasionally turned to violent protest. [2] The main slogan of the movement was: Let my people go. [3]

Activities, particularly demonstrations, continued year after year. [4]

Jackson–Vanik Amendment

In the early 1970s, the issue of Soviet Jewish emigration became entangled with the U.S.'s Cold War agenda. In 1972, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) introduced the Jackson–Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. The amendment linked U.S. trade relations with non-market economies such as the Soviet Union to these countries' restrictions on the freedom of emigration and other human rights. Countries that restricted the freedom of emigration were unable to achieve Most Favored Nation status. The amendment passed in 1974. [5] The basis, as worded in the actual legislation, was "To assure the continued dedication of the United States to fundamental human rights." [6] By giving the Soviet Union an economic incentive to allow free emigration, it led, particularly after the Yom Kippur War, to a gradual increase in permission to leave the USSR. [7]

Raising awareness

Much of the awareness raising that American organizations participated in centered on individuals. A prominent example is the publicization of the plight of Soviet activist Natan Sharansky. His wife Avital had an about-to-expire permit to leave the Soviet Union, which she used. Both Avital and Sharansky's mother, Ida Milgrom, used publicity in cooperation with international organizations to advocate for Sharansky's right to leave: Avital from around the free world, Milgrom from within the USSR. [8] [9] Another individual whose wish to emigrate was highly publicized was Ida Nudel.

History

The West did not become involved in the movement until the mid-1960s. One of the earliest organized efforts was the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism, a grassroots organization that brought attention to the plight of Soviet Jews from 1963 until 1983. It began as a study group led by three of the founding members of Beth Israel – The West Temple in 1963: Louis Rosenblum, Herbert Caron, and Abe Silverstein. [10] Though the council included prominent rabbis, pastors, priests, and city officials, many initial council members were fellow congregants. As the first such group in the world, this organization spawned other local councils and a national organization. Between 1964–69, the Cleveland council developed educational tools, such as organizational handbooks for other communities, the newsletter Spotlight, and media presentations. They also devised protest strategies that became integral to the movement to free Soviet Jewry. One of the council's most successful activities was the People-to-People program of the late 1960s, which represented 50,000 members.

Although not officially sponsored by Beth Israel – The West Temple, the temple provided office space to the council from 1964–78, and the council periodically reported to the congregation's Social Action Committee. Although the Cleveland council was still active in 1985, by the late 1970s the Jewish Community Federation had taken over the major local organizing effort for Soviet Jewry. By 1993, the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism no longer needed to exist, as it had accomplished its mission, and the Soviet Union had also ceased to exist.

Later, Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, was founded by Jacob Birnbaum at Yeshiva University in 1964, and grew to include students from the New York metropolitan area and beyond. In 1969, the Jewish Defense League began a series of protests and vigils while employing militant activism in order to publicize the persecution of Soviet Jewry. [11] The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews was formed in 1970 as an umbrella organization of all local grassroot groups working to win the right to emigrate for oppressed Jewish citizens of the Soviet Union.

The movement was represented in Israel by Nativ, a clandestine agency that sought to publicize the cause of Soviet Jewry and encourage their emigration to Israel.

Tensions between wings of movement

Throughout the most intense period of the movement to free Jews from the USSR – 1964–1991 – tensions existed between the Jewish Establishment groups, represented by the umbrella organization the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry and its successor the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and the grassroots groups. Differences revolved around policy and action. Generally, establishment organizations supported a more moderate approach whereas grassroots organizations preferred a more vocal approach. Behind the scenes, the clandestine Israeli Soviet Jewry office, Nativ (known as the Lishka), supported the ACSJ and NCSJ, it had helped create. Such conflicts between Establishment and nascent, independent groups – such as between the NAACP and SNCC in the civil rights movement – are not new. [12] [13]

Once Jews began to be allowed to emigrate, tensions also arose between Israel and the American side of the movement over the drop-out phenomenon. Drop-outs were Jews who left the Soviet Union on an exit visa to Israel but changed their destination (primarily to the United States) once they reached the half-way station in Vienna. Israel, which needed Soviet Jews to offset demographic trends in the country to maintain a Jewish majority, wanted to stop people from dropping out. American Jewish organizations, however, supported these emigrants' freedom to choose their destination. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Jackson–Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 is a 1974 provision in United States federal law intended to affect U.S. trade relations with countries with non-market economies that restrict freedom of Jewish emigration and other human rights. The amendment is contained in the Trade Act of 1974 which passed both houses of the United States Congress unanimously, and was signed by President Gerald Ford into law, with the adopted amendment, on January 3, 1975. Over time, a number of countries were granted conditional normal trade relations subject to annual review, and a number of countries were liberated from the amendment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Refusenik</span> Soviet citizens denied permission to emigrate

Refusenik was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, Soviet Jews—who were denied permission to emigrate, primarily to Israel, by the authorities of the Soviet Union and other countries of the Soviet Bloc. The term refusenik is derived from the "refusal" handed down to a prospective emigrant from the Soviet authorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natan Sharansky</span> Israeli politician and refusenik (born 1948)

Natan Sharansky is an Israeli politician, human rights activist, and author. He served as Chairman of the Executive for the Jewish Agency from June 2009 to August 2018, and currently serves as Chairman for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), an American non-partisan organization. A former Soviet dissident, he spent nine years imprisoned as a refusenik during the 1970s and 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yosef Mendelevitch</span>

Yosef Mendelevitch is a refusenik from the former Soviet Union, also known as a "Prisoner of Zion" and now a politically unaffiliated rabbi living in Jerusalem who gained fame for his adherence to Judaism and public attempts to emigrate to Israel at a time when it was against the law in the USSR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair</span> 1970 aircraft hijacking attempt

The Dymshits–Kuznetsov aircraft hijacking affair, also known as The First Leningrad Trial or Operation Wedding, was an attempt to take an empty civilian aircraft on 15 June 1970 by a group of 16 Soviet refuseniks in order to escape to the West. Even though the attempt was unsuccessful, it was a notable event in the course of the Cold War because it drew international attention to human rights violations in the Soviet Union and resulted in the temporary loosening of emigration restrictions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nativ (Liaison Bureau)</span> Israeli governmental liaison organization

Nativ, or officially Lishkat Hakesher or The Liaison Bureau, is an Israeli governmental liaison organization that maintained contact with Jews living in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War and encouraged aliyah, immigration to Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nehemiah Levanon</span> Israeli diplomat

Nehemiah Levanon was an Israeli intelligence agent, diplomat, head of the aliyah program Nativ, and a founder of kibbutz Kfar Blum. Originally a native of Latvia, he immigrated to the Mandatory Palestine in 1938. After Israel's independence in 1948, Levanon served in a variety of roles to encourage the well-being and emigration of Soviet Jewry. Due to the covert nature of his work, Levanon's decades of service were largely unknown until after his retirement, during the last days of the Soviet Union.

Jacob (Yaakov) Birnbaum was the German-born founder of Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and other human rights organizations. Because the SSSJ, at the time of its founding, in 1964, was the first initiative to address the plight of Soviet Jewry, he is regarded as the father of the Movement to Free Soviet Jewry. His father was Solomon Birnbaum and grandfather Nathan Birnbaum.

The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the U.S. movement for rights of the Jews in the Soviet Union. The organisation held demonstrations, at various important locations.

The National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSEJ), formerly the National Council for Soviet Jewry (NCSJ), is an organization in the United States which advocates for the freedoms and rights of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, and Eurasia. Emerging from the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, now with a paid staff, it played an important role in the Soviet Jewry movement, including such landmark legislation as Jackson–Vanik amendment. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it is now an umbrella organization of about 50 national organizations and 300+ local federations, community councils and committees.

Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews was the title of a national march and political rally that was held on December 6, 1987 in Washington, D.C. An estimated 200,000 participants gathered on the National Mall, calling for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to extend his policy of Glasnost to Soviet Jews by putting an end to their forced assimilation and allowing their emigration from the Soviet Union. The rally was organized by a broad-based coalition of Jewish organizations. At the time, it was reported to be the "largest Jewish rally ever held in Washington."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pamela Cohen</span>

Pamela Braun Cohen is an activist in the American Soviet Jewry movement. She began her activist work in the Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and served as the national president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ) from 1986-1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avital Sharansky</span> Soviet-Israeli human rights activist (born 1950)

Avital Sharansky is a former activist and public figure in the Soviet Jewry Movement who fought for the release of her husband, Natan Sharansky, from Soviet imprisonment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews</span>

The Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews (BACSJ) was founded in 1967 by Harold B. Light, Edward Tamler, Sidney Kluger, and Rabbi Moris Hershman as a grassroots human rights organization with a mission to advocate for Soviet Jewry's freedom of religion and the right to emigrate to Israel. BACSJ was one of the largest and most active local grassroots organizations in the American Soviet Jewry movement. BACSJ was a member of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), an umbrella institution for approximately 50 organizations working on behalf of Jews in the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union BACSJ was renamed Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal and shifted its focus to monitoring the human rights conditions in countries throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia and assisting former Soviet Jewish communities in need.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry</span> American non-governmental organisation supporting Soviet Jewish rights

The Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry (GNYCSJ) was founded in 1971, as a non-governmental grassroots organization that worked to secure human rights for Jews in the Soviet Union. It served as an umbrella agency for a number of regional organizations of the Soviet Jewry movement. In the 1980 GNYCSJ was renamed Coalition To Free Soviet Jews.

Louis Rosenblum was a pioneer in the movement for freedom of emigration for the Jews in the Soviet Union, was a founder of the first organization to advocate for the freedom of Soviet Jews, the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism, founding president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, and a research scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Lewis Research Center.

Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism was founded in 1963 as a grassroots human rights campaign to alleviate the growing oppression of the Jewish community inside the Soviet Union and the other Soviet bloc countries. The Cleveland Council was the first organization of the American Soviet Jewry Movement, a human rights campaign of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

Albert S. Axelrad is an American Reform rabbi, author, educator, and community leader. He fostered the American Jewish counterculture of the 1960s-1980s. He also served as Jewish chaplain at Brandeis University and Executive Director of its B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation from 1965 to 1999.

Soviet Jews in America or American Soviet Jews are Jews from former Soviet Republics that have emigrated to the United States. The group consists of people that are Jewish by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality, that have been influenced by their collective experiences in the Soviet Union. In the 60s, there were around 2.3 million Jews in the USSR, as ethnicity was recorded in the census. Jews from the Soviet Union consisted mostly of the Ashkenazi sect, and emigrated in waves starting in the 1960s, with over 200,000 leaving in the 1970s. As of 2005, over 500,000 Jews had left Soviet Republics for the United States. American Soviet Jews are often covered by the blanket term, "Russian-speaking Jews", and are a self-selecting group, due to the barriers that people leaving the USSR had to face. Often-times, Soviet immigrants struggle with the abundance of choices that they can make in America, but after learning the language, have been shown to be as well-adjusted as other immigrant groups.

Roselyn "Lynn" Brod Singer was an American activist for the rights of Soviet Jewry 'refuseniks'. As the leader of the Long Island Committee for Soviet Jewry and a member of the board of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, she brought the issue of Jews trapped in the Soviet Union to international attention through a series of political actions, including sit-ins at the United Nations and the Soviet compound in Glen Cove, as well as protests and marches.

References

  1. ↑ Orbach, William W. (1979). The American movement to aid Soviet Jews. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN   0-87023-267-3. OCLC   4495649.
  2. ↑ Beckerman, Gal. (2011) [2010]. When they come for us, we'll be gone : the epic struggle to save Soviet Jewry (1st Mariner books ed. 2011 ed.). Boston: Mariner Books. ISBN   978-0-618-57309-7. OCLC   694829899.
  3. ↑ The New York Times wrote in their obituary about Jacob Birnbaum: "Mr. Birnbaum insisted that every rally include posters declaring 'Let my people go,' the line from Exodus 9:1 that became the clarion call of the movement."
  4. ↑ "4,000 assail Soviet on plight of Jews". The New York Times . September 21, 1970.
  5. ↑ Keys, Barbara J. (17 February 2014). Reclaiming American virtue : the human rights revolution of the 1970s. Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN   978-0-674-72603-1. OCLC   871257472.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ↑ 19 U.S.C. 2432(a), Sec. 402 "Freedom of Emigration in East-West Trade"
  7. ↑ Paul Stern (1979). "3". Water's Edge: Domestic Politics and the Making of American Foreign Policy. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN   978-0313205200.
  8. ↑ Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (May 3, 2002). "Ida Milgrom, 94, Dies; Helped Free a Son Held by Soviets". The New York Times .
  9. ↑ Dennis McLellan (May 4, 2002). "Ida Milgrom, 94; Sought Dissident Son's Freedom". The Los Angeles Times .
  10. ↑ "Our History". Beth Israel – The West Temple. The Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism. Cleveland, Ohio. Archived from the original on 2015-09-23. Retrieved 2015-09-22.
  11. ↑ Feingold, Henry L. (2007). "Silent No More" Saving the Jews of Russia, The American Jewish Effort, 1967–1989. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. ISBN   978-0-8156-3101-9.
  12. ↑ Beckerman, Gal. When They Come For Us We'll Be Gone. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010.
  13. ↑ Weiss, Avi. Open Up The Iron Door. Toby Press, 2015.
  14. ↑ Lazin, Frederick A. (2005). The struggle for Soviet Jewry in American politics : Israel versus the American Jewish establishment. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books. ISBN   0-7391-0842-5. OCLC   56876939.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.