Soviet Jewry movement

The Soviet Jewry movement was an international human rights campaign that advocated for the right of Jews in the Soviet Union to emigrate.

The earliest organized effort was the 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. 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, founded by Jacob Birnbaum at Yeshiva University in 1964. 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. The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews was formed in 1970 as an umbrella organization of all 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 timeline 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 Conference on Soviet Jewry and its successor the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Differences revolved around policy and action. Behind the scenes, the clandestine Israeli Soviet Jewry office, Nativ (known as the Lishka), supported the ACSJ and NCSJ, which 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.

See also

• Aliyah from the Soviet Union in the 1970s
• Jewish Defense League
• Nativ
• NCSJ
• Refusenik (Soviet Union)
• Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry
• Union of Councils for Soviet Jews
• World Jewish Congress

Bibliography

• Altshuler, Stuart. From Exodus to Freedom: A History of the Soviet Jewry Movement. Rowman & Littlefield, 2005
• Freedman, Robert Owen. Soviet Jewry in the 1980s: The Politics of Anti-Semitism and Emigration and the Dynamics of Resettlement. Duke University Press, 1989
• Kahane, Meir. The Story of the Jewish Defense League. Chilton Book Company, 1975
• Schroeter, Leonard. The Last Exodus. University of Washington Press, 1979
• A Second Exodus: The American movement to Free Soviet Jews. Eds. Murray Friedman and Albert D. Chernin. University Press of New England, 1999