Correspondence

Papers of Morey Schapira reflect the work of the prominent activist of the American Soviet Jewry movement in the years 1965-1993. The collection includes details on Mr. Schapira’s leadership role with organizations Action for Soviet Jewry, the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry, the New England Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. The collection contains files on many other groups, individuals and topics.

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.

The collection contains personal papers of the American Soviet Jewry movement activist Robert Mednick. Serving as a worldwide managing partner in a prominent Chicago-based holding company Arthur Andersen LLP, Mednick used his professional connections in big business and in the United States and European governments to obtain exit visas for over twenty Soviet Jewish Refusenik families. The collection consists primarily of Mednick's correspondence with the Refuseniks, other Soviet Jewry movement activists, American and foreign government officials, and international business leaders, including American corporate moguls and philanthropists Armand Hammer and Guilford Glazer, and British historian Sir Martin Gilbert. Also included are reports on Mednick's trip to the Soviet Union, presentations on Soviet Jewry and his Congressional Testimony on Soviet interference with mail.