Si Frumkin (1930-2009) Papers

The Papers of Si Frumkin 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 20^th 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.

A Holocaust survivor, Si Frumkin was one of the leading figures in the American Soviet Jewry Movement. He was the founder of the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews, the founder of the Association of Soviet Jewish Emigres and served on the Board of Directors of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. During more than two decades of innovative activism, Mr. Frumkin organized pickets and demonstrations at cultural and athletic events, including rallies of tens of thousands of participants, direct phone calls to Soviet Jews, mailings of post cards to the USSR and the massive distribution of Prisoner of Conscience medallions. Mr. Frumkin visited the Soviet Union to provide direct aid to the Refuseniks and returned with unique and valuable information on the situation of Soviet Jewry that was widely publicized by the American mass media. Fluent in Russian, he kept in close contact with Jewish activists in the USSR. Mr. Frumkin lectured extensively, wrote numerous magazine and newspaper articles, and appeared in a number of television and radio programs, speaking on the subject of Soviet Jews.