Murray Levine Papers

The Papers of Rabbi Murray Levine 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 Movement 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.

Rabbi Murray Levine is a scholar of Judaica and a widely-published author. He holds a Doctor of Hebrew Letters degree, a Doctor of Divinity degree, and an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He has been a frequent contributor to several publications, including, Conservative Judaism, The Jewish Spectator, The Reconstructionist and The American Rabbi. As rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom in Framingham, MA, Murray Levine has reached out to the community's young people, senior adults and recent immigrants and provided his services to the homeless shelters, nursing homes and hospitals of his district. An active member of Framingham's Interfaith Council, he promoted mutual understanding among the community's many cultures and religions. Rabbi Murray Levine retired after thirty-nine years of distinguished service.