Constance S. Kreshtool Papers

The Papers of Constance S. Kreshtool 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.

The papers of Constance S. Kreshtool reflect her work on behalf of Jews in the Soviet Union. Active in the Temple Beth Emeth of Wilmington, DE and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, Mrs. Kreshtool was involved in interfaith programs such as the Delaware Interreligious Committee on Social Justice and participated in the Delaware Committee on Soviet Jewry. In 1978, Constance S. Kreshtool and her husband, Dr. Barnard Kreshtool, took a trip to the Soviet Union and made contact with Refuseniks in Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad. Mrs. Kreshtool corresponded with the families her husband and she had met on that trip throughout the 1980s, and made efforts to help them emigrate from the Soviet Union and resettle in the United States. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Mrs. Kreshtool maintained her connections with the Russian Jewish community through her congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington, DE, which supported a progressive congregation in Russia.