Jews, Soviet

The majority of this collection contains documents related to the time prior to the merger of the Mizrachi Organization of America and Hapoel Hamizrachi of America (which eventually formed the Religious Zionists of America). Also included are items concerning their sub-entities and affiliates as well as information regarding Mizrachi’s Youth and Education Department, National Education Committee, and Education and Expansion Fund. Types of materials encompass souvenir journals, publications (Yiddish and English), youth leader’s guides, cultural guides, manuals, newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, activity and annual reports, plays, press releases, convention and event invitations, a musical score, and a children’s Hebrew primer. Of interest is the issue of New Horizons, published by the National Committee for Unity of Religious Zionism that describes the merger. Also of appeal is a 1952 souvenir program for the Hapoel Hamizrachi of Boston that honors and includes an address by Jerusalem Mayor S.Z. Shragai.

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.

This collection documents the life and activities of dancer and activist Ronya Schwaab. The collection contains material related to her activities advocating for Soviet Jews, lecturing on various topics, her trips abroad, and writing reviews for numerous books. It also includes correspondence with family, friends, and various officials in both the public and non-profit spheres of politics and business. The collection contains numerous photographs and certificates that further document her activities and accomplishments.

This collection contains the papers of Ruth Abusch-Magder, mostly documenting her Jewish feminist and activist work as a high school and college student from 1984-1992.

The papers of Ruth Geller Gold consist predominantly of correspondence with a family of Soviet Jewish Refuseniks located in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, the Poltinnikovs. The case of the Poltinnikovs was referred to by the American Soviet Jewry movement organizations as one of the most tragic stories in the annals of the emigration movement. Two members of the family were driven to suicide after eight years of systematic persecution by the KGB as a punishment for stating their intent to leave for Israel.

Papers of Sanford A. Gradinger cover the period from mid-1980’s to mid-1990’s and document the activities of the Rochester, NY businessman on behalf of Soviet Jews, his involvement with the Andrei Sakharov International Committee and his travels to Washington D. C., Soviet Union and Former Soviet Union. Materials include photographs, videocassette, CDrs, correspondence, clippings, ephemera and travel memorabilia..

Collection contains the correspondence, flyers, reports, research, and other documents relating to the life and efforts of Saralea Zohar Aaron on behalf of the freedom for Soviet Jewry and Ethiopian Jewry movements.

Aaron participated in the activities of the New England chapter of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in the early 1970's; as a nurse, she wrote several reports describing harsh medical conditions of imprisoned Soviet Jews; she wrote letters on behalf of these movements, mostly to congressmen; and was a member of the Boston Committee to Save Ethiopian Jewry, a grassroots group which advocated for their rescue, for which she was the recording secretary during 1979-1980.

The Seattle Action for Soviet Jewry records documenting the activities of a human rights non-governmental organization on behalf of Soviet Jewry. The records date from 1972-1997 with the bulk in the late 1970s through 1980s. The collection includes administrative files, documents pertaining to various local and national institutions, programs and activities related to the Soviet Jewry movement, reports of trips to visit Jews in the U.S.S.R., information on U.S.-U.S.S.R. trade relations, Soviet laws and Soviet Antisemitism, information on Seattle’s sister city Tashkent. Besides the series with the general materials the collection features a series with files concerning Soviet Jewish Prisoners of Conscience, and Refuseniks and an audio-visual series with photographs of Soviet Jews and local and national coverage of the events related to Soviet Jewry.

Collection is composed of addresses, speeches, testimony, correspondence, press releases, and Congressional Record excerpts.

The papers of Seymour Halpern reflect a wide range of issues including problems posed by Palestininan refugees, defeating Arab boycotts, cutting off foreign aid to the United Arab Republic and President Abdel Nasser of Egypt, denouncing U.S. arm shipments to Arab states, protesting Egyptian intervention in Yemen, responding to France's withdraw from NATO, celebrating Israel's anniversaries, supporting Hadassah, eulogizing J.F. Kennedy, assisting Jews in the Soviet Union, ratifying the Genocide Convention, working towards domestic immigration reform, urging the dispatch of an international peace-keeping force in South Vietnam, and establishing a U.S. Committee on Human Rights. Of particular interest is 1963 correspondence between Halpern and Richard M. Nixon regarding Nixon's visit to the United Arab Republic.

Papers of Rabbi Shaul Osadchey cover the period from the late 1960’s to the early 1990’s and reflect the activities of Houston Action for Soviet Jewry, co-founded by Rabbi Osadchey. The collection also contains print and near print materials from various American and European Soviet Jewry Movement organizations, and background information on the situation of Jews in the Soviet Union during that period. The documents include correspondence, memos, minutes, publications, news clippings, pins, stickers and a kippah.

The Si Frumkin Papers include Mr. Frumkin’s articles on the subject of the Holocaust, Israel, the Soviet Union and Soviet Jews from the mid- and the late 1980’s, and a video interview with him and video recordings of several television programs related to the topic of the Soviet Jewry. The documents include articles, news clippings and video recordings.

The Springfield Jewish Federation is a charitable organization supporting educational and social service programs for both the local and world-wide Jewish community. The Federation was founded on May 6, 1941, to aid in the resettlement of Jews fleeing the war in Europe. Assisting Jews in need has remained an important part of Federation activities. The organization took an active part in the American Soviet Jewry movement by coordinating fund raising, community-wide programming, social services and educational activities to help Jews emigrate from the U.S.S.R. and to resettle them in Springfield, IL. The Federation arranged housing, health care, coordinated schools and jobs placement and provided a general orientation to American life for the newly arrived Soviet Jewish immigrants.

Collection encompasses an extensive variety of organizations, subjects, and formats and is most useful for genealogists and researchers interested in general information. Researchers looking for a particular publication will also find this collection helpful.

The collection contains the records of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), an umbrella institution for approximately 50 grassroots organizations active in the movement to free Soviet Jews. The records documenting the UCSJ's operations, programs, and campaigns relate primarily to the 1980's, when the rescue movement reached its pinnacle of success and international attention, and to the 1990's, reflecting UCSJ's work on behalf of human rights after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The records include materials of UCSJ individual councils; materials by the Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center, an affiliate of UCSJ; and a large volume of case files of Prisoners of Conscience, Refuseniks, and Soviet Jews who were allowed to emigrate to the West.

United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York is the organization that resulted from the mergers of various New York federations with the New York office of UJA. UJA-Federation and its predecessor organizations have been a central force for communal planning and philanthropy in the New York Jewish community since 1917, and in overseas Jewish communities since 1939. The largest section of this collection covers the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and its predecessor organizations in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. Important subject areas include Federation’s work with their affiliated agencies including detailed budget files through most of the 20th century; UJA’s programs in Israel and campaigns in New York during the 1960s and 1970s; an overview of the UJA-Federation Joint Campaign 1974-1986; and the day to day work of the successfully merged organizations 1986-2000.

The collection reflects the involvement in the American Soviet Jewry movement of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), the primary organization of synagogues practicing Conservative Judaism in North America. The materials include pamphlets, newsletters, reports, play scripts, poetry, correspondence and photographs.

The papers of Dr. Victor Borden, a Gynecologist/Obstetrician from New Jersey, reflect his activism in the American Soviet Jewry movement. The collection focuses on a physician humanitarian mission to the Soviet Union led by Dr. Borden in 1987. The mission consisted of seven Jewish doctors from New Jersey and Tennessee, traveling under the guise of tourists. The doctors provided medical consultations and evaluations to over 150 members of the Soviet Jewish Refusenik community. The materials include a trip report by Dr. Borden, a trip report by Alan G. Graber (another member of the mission), and news clippings related to the mission.

The collection contains records of the Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry, a grassroots volunteer membership organization that was founded in 1968 and existed until 2001. The organization was renamed the Greater Washington Committee for Post-Soviet Jewry after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Committee worked to raise awareness of the plight of Soviet Jewry in the United States and supported Jewish communities on the U.S.S.R. territories, during the rule of the Soviet regime and after its collapse. The records cover the period from the mid-1960s through 2001, and the bulk of the collection is dated 1970s-1980s. The documents include correspondence, memoranda, publications, news clippings, photographs, slides, ephemera, audio and video recordings and 3-D objects. Originally the collection was titled Papers of Carolyn W. Sanger, *P-870 by the name of the Committee's last president.

William Korey Papers document life and works of a prominent human rights expert who played a leadership role in the American Soviet Jewry movement. Dr. Korey served as a regional director of Anti-Defamation League and later as a founding director of B'nai Brith International's U.N. office which worked on the problem of discrimination faced by the Jews in the Soviet Union. Dr. Korey was deeply involved in the processes pivotal to the success of the Sovet Jewry movement, such as the defense of the Helsinki Accords and the adoption of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Parallel to his work on behalf of Soviet Jewry Dr. Korey participated in the efforts to realize the U.S. ratification of the genocide treaty that eventually came to fruition in 1988. William Korey authored hundreds of articles and essays and a number of books on the subjects related to the Jews in the Soviet Union. He taught at the Long Island University, City College of New York, Columbia University, Brooklyn College and several other major universities. The William Korey papers include materials from the late 1940s through 2010, and the bulk of the collection is dated 1970s-1990s. The documents include manuscripts, correspondence, notes, publications, news clippings, photographs and a data CD.

This collection is comprised of a constitution, directories of affiliated organizations, fliers for international conferences, proceedings, an annual American manual, and memorandum concerning Soviet refugees. included is the following publication: News and Views (1960-1970).