Jews, Soviet

This collection consists of buttons, a keychain, and a sticker advocating support for Holocaust survivors, human rights issues, Israel, and Soviet Jews. Organizations represented include Boston Mobilization for Soviet Jewry, Coalition to Free Soviet Jews, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Jewish Students Network, National Conference on Soviet Jewry, Student Zionist Council, and Young Judaea.

The collection contains papers of the American Soviet Jewry movement activist Estelle Newman. The materials focus on the trip to the USSR taken by Newman, her husband, and their teenage daughter in 1983, during which they met with and delivered material aid to many Soviet Jewish Refusenik families in Moscow, Leningrad, Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Siberia. The collection features hundreds of photographs taken during the trip including pictures of Refuseniks in their homes, scenes of Jewish life in the communities visited, and street scenes in the Soviet Republics. A detailed trip report and news clippings related to the Refuseniks visited by the Newmans are also included.

This record group includes documents created and maintained by the Office of the President, the Office of the Executive Director and the Chair of the Division Coordinators/Directors Committee. Prominent is the Henrietta Szold series, containing correspondence by and to Szold as well as printed materials written by and about her. The files in this record group were created by a national president or executive director, or for their use, or maintained in their office during their years in office. Included are correspondence, minutes, memos, publications, reports and subject files on topics with which these individuals were involved.

The papers of Frank Brodsky reflect his work as co-chairman of the Soviet Jewry Council of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia. The collection includes two reports by Mr. Brodsky on trips to the U.S.S.R. that he and several other members of the Philadelphia Jewish community took in 1985 and 1987, in order to deliver material aid and moral support to the Soviet Jewish Refuseniks. Also included are two calendar books with forewords by Mr. Brodsky, featuring photographs, profiles, contact information of, and updates on, Soviet Jewish Refuseniks. The books also contain photos and articles on the Soviet Jewry movement rallies, lectures and other related events in Greater Philadelphia.

The papers of the Soviet Jewry activist, Rabbi Fred Greene, contain materials pertaining to the Soviet Jewry movement produced by local Long Island, NY, organizations, such as the Long Island Federation of Temple Youth and the Coalition to Free Soviet Jews, as well as national organizations such as the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and Hadassah. Included are newsletters, pamphlets, fliers, buttons and a haggadah. Also included are news clippings pertaining to Soviet Jewish emigration from the U.S.S.R.

Hadassah Functions and Operations Records represent the bulk of aid and services provided to Hadassah's membership, from the 1920s to 2011. Materials found in the record group include correspondence, clippings, press releases, manuals and kits for chapters and members to implement programming and chapter structure, fundraising campaigns, scripts, study guides, programming for local and national meetings, biographical files, and training documentation. Departments documented in the record group include Public Affairs, Education, Women's Health, American Affairs, Zionist and International Affairs, Speakers Bureau, Fundraising, Program, Organization, Outreach and Tourism Departments. Materials related to the general administration of Hadassah are also in the record group; these materials include research and development of projects, archives department correspondence and other materials, Hadassah House administration, and strategic planning. The record group also documents Hadassah's efforts to expand membership outside of the United States, by the development of Hadassah International.

Papers of the Soviet Jewry movement activist Grayce Perlbinder of Great Neck, NY reflect her activities as one of the leaders of the Long Island Committee for Soviet Jewry during the 1970s and early 1980s. The materials include speeches, notes, reports, a play script, information on trips to the USSR, correspondence, bulletins, memos, proposals, news clippings, newsletters and photographs.

This collection documents the activities of a human rights grassroots organization on behalf of Jews in the Soviet Union. The collection features annual reports, calendars, general correspondence, announcement pamphlets, meeting fliers, banners used at rallies, miscellaneous speakers and conferences information, membership documents, and materials about engineering, legal, medical, youth, and women’s coalitions.

This collection contains the personal papers of Soviet Jewry Movement activists Harold and Judith S. Einhorn. Residents of Laverock, PA, husband and wife Harold and Judith S. Einhorn were among the pioneers of the grassroots Soviet Jewry movement. Harold Einhorn chaired the Temple Beth Tikvah Community Relations Committee and Judith S. Einhorn chaired the Soviet Jewry Committee at Congregation Adath Jeshurun.

Harry Lerner, a children’s books publisher, who, with his wife Sharon Lerner, was an activist of the American Soviet Jewry movement in the Minneapolis area. The materials include newsletters, articles, memos, haggadahs, profiles and lists of Soviet Jewish Prisoners of Conscience and Refuseniks.

This collection contains the institutional records of the Houston Action for Soviet Jewry, mainly news clippings, correspondence, files about refuseniks, and various materials and programs for events which Houston Action for Soviet Jewry sponsored or was involved with. There are also some materials from other organizations set up to aid Soviet Jewry, including the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews, the Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. Many of these materials concern the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as in the 1990s, soon after the end of the Soviet Union.

This collection contains general correspondence concerning aid to Russia, a 1927 Association Almanac, and a souvenir program from the 8th Annual Bazaar in California (1933, Hebrew). Also included in the collection is the following publication: Yearbook (Hebrew, 1932-1933, 1936).

The Institute of Jewish Affairs was a scientific and research organization attached to the World Jewish Congress. The collection consists of brochures, reports, surveys and other research publications. The materials address the plans, goals and activities of the organization as well as containing studies of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, Jewish life in the postwar era in various countries and political events influencing Jewry and anti-Semitism. The collection also includes analyses of international legislation on questions which were influencing the Jewish situation within the spheres of human rights, minorities and migration at the time.

The collection documents the trip to the Soviet Union that Dr. Irwin H. Krasna, a pediatric surgeon, and his twin brother, Dr. Alvin I. Krasna, a Professor of Biochemistry at Columbia University, took in September-October 1971, traveling under the auspices of Arye Kroll, a prominent Israeli Zionist and representative of Lishkat Hakesher (commonly known as Nativ), the Israeli liaison Bureau that carried out clandestine activities to establish contact with Jews in Eastern Europe during the Cold War to encourage them to immigrate to Israel. Materials include a manuscript, an audiocassette and photographs.

The collection contains papers of Jack Forgash, an activist in the American Soviet Jewry movement. Forgash held leadership positions in the Brooklyn Coalition for Soviet Jewry and the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry during the 1970s, and co-chaired the Jackson for President Committee during the presidential campaign of Senator Henry M. Jackson in 1976. The materials include correspondence, memoranda, photographs, brochures and news clippings.

The collection documents the activism of Dr. Jack Minker, a leading authority in artificial intelligence, on behalf of foreign scientists whose human rights and scientific freedom were violated. The bulk of the collection focuses on Soviet Jewish Refuseniks, such as cyberneticist Alexander Lerner, mathematicians Victor Brailovsky and Anatoly Sharansky, and a dissident human rights activist, nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov. The documents include manuscripts, correspondence, memos, notes, publications, news clippings, and photographs.

The collection contains papers of Jerry Goodman, the founding director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, the largest and most influential organization created by the American Jews to coordinate efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews, which survives today as NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia. The bulk of the collection covers the activities from the early 1970s through late 1980s. The collection includes some minutes of meetings, memoranda, correspondence, newsletters and publications of the NCSJ and its precursor, the American Jewish Committee on Soviet Jewry (AJCSJ, 1964-1971). Among other materials are some posters and considerable number of photographs on Refuseniks and of the ASJM events in New York and the US, audio recordings on compact cassettes and reel-to-reels re-mastered into CD format, and VHS tapes. The collection also contains non-paper objects like pins, pendants, bracelets devoted to prisoners of conscience in the USSR, as well as a t-shirt, a scarf and a shopping bag.

The Jewish Chronicle is a weekly newspaper covering local, national and global news for the Jewish community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and its vicinity. The collection contains information and photographs used by The Jewish Chronicle for coverage of the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union during the decades of 1960s and 1970s. The bulk of the materials originated from the Soviet Jewry movement organizations and other Jewish institutions in the United States and includes publications, press releases, correspondence and photographs related to Soviet Jews.

The Jewish Family Service of Greater New Orleans (JFSGNO) was a social service agency created in 1948 to establish and preserve the self-sufficiency of Jewish families. The collection focuses on the JFSGNO’s work to resettle Jews from the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s, often in cooperation with similar agencies, such as Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), United Service for New American, and United Jewish Fund. Also included are lists of the Displaced Persons who arrived from Eastern and Western Europe by ships to the port of New Orleans in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and materials on resettling of refugees from Southeast Asia in the 1970s-1980s. The documents include ship manifests, memos, agendas, correspondence, clippings, policy statements and procedures, statistics, congressional reports, programs and budgets.

This collection contains correspondence, brochures, memorandum, pamphlets, fliers, invitations, reports, programs and press releases. The documents in this collection describe issues concerning the Holocaust, Jewish resistance, European labor concerns, the Jewish Labor Movement in America and anti-communism and Soviet Jewry. Included are invitations, programs and general information concerning miscellaneous concerts, conventions, symposia, and summer fellowships. A brochure regarding the Jewish Labor Committee's Child Adoption Program and materials relating to the Women's Division and Workmen's Circle also are found in the collection. In addition the collection contains publications issued by other organizations, including: American Federation of Labor, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Friends of Democracy, National Community Relations Advisory Council, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and the United States Displaced Persons Commission.

Contains material collected by the Jewish Media Service (JMS) on Jewish films, film company catalogs, resources and information from and about various media centers. The majority of the Jewish Media Service records date from when the JMS operated independently from 1975 to 1987. Types of material found in the collection include articles, brochures, catalogs, correspondence, examination study guides, filmographies, film stills, newsletters, pamphlets, photographs, posters, publications, scripts, and slides.

Contains newsletters and related documents composed by San Francisco area organizations pertaining to Soviet Jewry. The newsletters are composed by American Jewish activists on behalf of Soviet Jewish refuseniks and refugees. The documents provide insight into the daily lives of Soviet Jewry and the American Jewish fight for Soviet freedom during the 1970s and 1980s. The newsletters document different organizations and attempts to aid Soviet Jewry, their status and their plight. Organizational newsletters included are from such organizations as: The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry and Northern California Lawyers' Committee for Soviet Jews. Highlights of the collection include UN Human Rights documents, the Pesach Project (1978-1979) and Twinning programs for Bar/Bat Mitzvah.

The collection contains papers of Joel Sandberg and Adele Sandberg, among the co-founders of the South Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry. It covers the period from the mid-1970's to the early 1990's and documents the Sandbergs' activities as leaders of the South Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry, as well as their individual efforts in the American Soviet Jewry movement. The documents include correspondence, memos, minutes, news clippings and photos.

The papers of Reverend John Frederick Steinbruck, an ordained Lutheran minister and humanitarian activist, reflect his involvement in the American Soviet Jewry movement. The materials include news clippings, correspondence, photographs, pamphlets and a brief manuscript of memoirs.

The collection consists of the constitution and list of members (1912, 1927, 1931-1933), invitations to meetings (1900-1939, 1942-1943, 1961), and an extract of an address by Dr. H. Sliosberg on "The Present Situation of the Jews in Russia" (1925).

The collection contains the papers of Judith A. Manelis, the Executive Director of the Communications Department of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York. The papers pertain to the UJA-Federation Campaign for Soviet Jewish Emigres. The materials include ads, mailings, news releases, position papers, stationery, a button, and a poster.

This collection consists of a published copy of Cheney's Master's thesis, Narratives of Courage: Oral Histories of Jewish Émigrés from the Former Soviet Union, which she submitted to the Public History program of California State University, Sacramento in 2002. As part of her research, Cheney conducted oral history interviews with five Russian Jewish immigrants and one non-Jewish spouse of a Jewish immigrant. The collection includes audiotapes of these interviews, biographical worksheets, release forms, and transcripts. These materials offer a kind of coda to the long epic of the Soviet Jewish struggle to emigrate, as the speakers look back and relate, in English, their struggles in the USSR and subsequent life in the U.S.

Kathleen M. Hyman of La Grange Park, IL is a former Soviet Jewry movement activist, who was involved with Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, grass-roots non-profit organization that has advocated for Jews in the U.S.S.R. In 1976 Mrs. Hyman traveled to U.S.S.R., where she established contacts with prominent Soviet Jewish Refuseniks. She has been involved with the West Suburban Synagogue in Oak Park and their adopted village Penza in the Former Soviet Union and has been a liaison between her synagogue, Congregation Beth Shalom, Naperville, IL and the remnants of the Jewish community in Jekabpils, Latvia. The collection contains Mrs. Hyman’s correspondence with Refuseniks, memos, notes, and clippings related to the Soviet Jewry movement.

Collection contains materials generated while Label Katz served in leadership positions with B’nai B’rith from the 1950s through the 1960s; best represented is his tenure as president of B’nai B’rith International between 1959 and 1965, during which Katz concentrated on challenges faced by Soviet Jews, and on the improvement of Jewish education. Materials consist of correspondence, speeches, clippings, photographs, minutes and reports.

The collection contains papers of Laurel Gould and her lawyer husband Alan J. Gould, activists of the American Soviet Jewry Movement involved with the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews in Washington D. C. area and in the San Fracisco Bay area, Northern California Lawyers Committee for Soviet Jews and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. The bulk of the collection covers the decade of 1970 through 1980. The materials include correspondence, memoranda, individual files on Soviet Jewish Refuseniks, documentation of special projects, events and visits to USSR, publications, legal materials pertinent to the Soviet Jewry, photographs, slides and audio recordings of conversations and interviews with the Soviet Jews.