Correspondence

The General Jewish Council was an umbrella organization founded by the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, and Jewish Labor Committee in order to coordinate their rights defense activities.

The bulk of the records in this collection date between from 1938-1944, the active years of the Council. Materials consist primarily of correspondence, minutes, memoranda, and reports.

Contains manuscript and published material from Zionist, rabbinic, and other national Jewish organizations; and from various local Jewish community organizations relating to fund-raising drives, protest demonstrations, and other activities on behalf of Israel. Also contains copies of letters and telegrams sent by various individuals to American government officials and to Arab leaders; published statements of President Lyndon B. Johnson and various U.S. Congressmen; reactions of private American citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish; personal letters written from Israel during the crisis; several scholarly studies and clippings from various Yiddish, Anglo-Jewish, and Israeli newspapers pertaining to the conflict; and an extensive collection of material from Dr. Nelson Glueck regarding his experiences during and after the war.

The collection documents the activities of a human rights non-government organization on behalf of Soviet Jewry and Jews in the Former Soviet Union. Organized by Harold Light in San Francisco in 1967, the group worked to bring the Soviet Jewry issue to national and international attention. The collection contains correspondence, minutes, case files, publications, newspaper clippings, card files of Refuseniks, subject files, audio/visual materials, and information on other Soviet Jewry and interreligious organizations. Also included are materials relating to Soviet Jewish emigration, Cold War relations, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and human rights conditions in Russia and the former Soviet republics.