David H. Hill (1921-2019 ), Papers

The Papers of Rabbi David H. Hill 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.

One of the pioneers of the American Soviet Jewry Movement, New York City based Rabbi and manufacturer of kosher meat products David Hill came to the USA from Latvia in 1930. Influenced by his family’s fortunate escape from the Holocaust, he became aware and concerned with the situation of the Soviet Jews in the late 1950’s. As the national president of National Council of Young Israel he made attempts to place the issue of Soviet Jewry on the agenda of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations as early as 1961. During that period the National Council of Young Israel began financially supporting Jewish life in the USSR by mailing the Soviet Jewish communities packages of goods with high value on the local black market, such as fur and leather garments. During the early 1960s, Rabbi Hill worked hard to explore new ways to help Soviet Jews and raised the issue in meetings with such notable religious and political figures as John F. Kennedy, Golda Meir, Ben Gurion and Menachem Mendel Schneerson.

In 1971 Rabbi Hill became an officer of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, representing the National Council of Young Israel. Starting in the mid-1970s, he helmed Operation Lifeline, an independently funded outreach program created by NCSJ Commission on Education and Culture. The purpose of the program was to help Soviet Jews learn and practice Jewish religion and culture. For that purpose the program shipped and distribute kosher food and Jewish religious and cultural literature in the Soviet Union. It enlisted and subsidized qualified people to travel and teach Hebrew, religion and culture in Soviet Jewish communities. The program briefed and supplied American Jews traveling to the USSR to meet Soviet Jews, collect information on their situation and offer Soviet Jews material and spiritual aid. Among the many successful special projects of the program was supplying kosher food and Haggadot for annual Passover Seders held in the United States Embassy in Moscow and the special delivery of 10,000 pounds of matzo to Ukraine to fulfill a shortage during Passover of 1991. Rabbi David Hill with Operation Lifeline continued supporting Jewish Life in the Former Soviet Union after the collapse of the USSR.