Sanford A. Gradinger (1936-2017) Papers

The Papers of Sanford A. Gradinger (1936-2017) represent one collection housed within the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM). These papers reflect the effort, beginning in the 1960s through the late 1980s, of thousands of American Jews of all denominations and political orientations to stop the persecution and discrimination of Jews in the Soviet Union. The American Soviet Jewry Movement (ASJM) is considered to be the most influential Movements of the American Jewish community in the 20th century. The beginnings of the organized American Soviet Jewry Movement became a model for efforts to aid Soviet Jews in other countries, among them Great Britain, Canada, and France. The movement can be traced to the early 1960s, when the first organizations were created to address the specific problem of the persecution and isolation of Soviet Jews by the government of the Soviet Union.

Sanford A. Gradinger, a Rochester, NY businessman became involved with the movement in 1977 when he learned about the plight of a recent Soviet émigré, who was teaching physics at the University of Rochester. Edward Lozansky was struggling to reunite with his wife and daughter, left behind in the USSR, who were denied exit visas by the Soviet authorities. Gradinger joined in with the group of other Rochesterians to help the Lozansky family and other Refuseniks. In 1978 Sanford Gradinger co-founded the Andrei Sakharov International Committee to focus international attention on the prominent human rights activist Andrei Sakharov (repressed by the Soviet government), help reunite separated Soviet Jewish families and demand the release of Soviet Jewish Refuseniks like Rimma Bravve and Ida Nudel.