Archival Collections at the AJHS
In 2006 the American Jewish Historical Society received a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities* to process and make available six collection relating to the "Movement." The collections include large holdings of audio material, which has been reformatted. The project is scheduled for completion by mid-2008. Collections are made accessible to researchers as soon as the archival work is complete. For further information contact archivist Tanya Elder, or call 212-294-6160.
For information about photographs please call 212-294-6167.
Now accessible:
Action for Soviet Jewry. Records, undated, 1943, 1964-1994, I-487
The collection contains the records of the ASJ, an organization active in the Boston area, which survives today as Action for Post-Soviet Jewry, as well as those of two other organizations closely related to ASJ: the New England Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and the Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center. The bulk of the collection is from the decade starting in the late 1970s through the late 1980s. The collection includes large databases on Refuseniks, prisoners of conscience and Jewish émigrés. Along with the database spreadsheet forms there are a large number of individual files. Among these files are materials related to Soviet Jewish refugees in Italy from the time of the Ladispoli crisis of the late 1980s. The collection also includes a substantial number of reports from visits to the USSR by ASJ activists and other travelers cooperating with the Soviet Jewry Movement as well as a considerable number of photographs, posters and publication. Click here for the finding aid.
Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry, I-410
The collection contains the records of the UCSJ, an umbrella organization for approximately 50 grassroots organizations. The bulk of the collection dates after 1980, and focuses primarily after 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The collection includes extensive material relating to the Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center, an affiliate of UCSJ, as well as material on its Yad L'Yad program, individual files on Refuseniks, individual post-Soviet Jewish case files, and immigration and human rights background information. The collection also includes the following publications: Alert (1977-1980), Alert Magazine (1980-1982), Monitor (1992-1996), Quarterly Report (1983-1987), and several individual miscellaneous publications. Click here for the Finding Aid.
Joel Ackerman Papers, P-787
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. Click here for the Finding Aid.
Julia Mates Cheney Papers, P-806
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, that 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. Click here for the Finding Aid.
Audio Collections
Audio collections are accessible on CD at the Center for Jewish History Reading Room.
For the Audio Collections database, click here (pdf, Click here to download Adobe Reader.)
The Audio Collections include the following: “Russia Reports”, a weekly radio program produced in the early 1970s for broadcast on the New York City radio station WEVD (then owned by the Jewish newspaper The Forward). The 14-minute-long programs usually featured an interview with a politician, foreign policy expert, recently-returned visitor to Soviet Jews, or a recent émigré. There were 179 numbered programs, though fewer recordings – approximately 130 – as some programs were apparently rebroadcast. There are no transcripts of these tapes. Various civil rights and cultural leaders were among the early supporters of the movement, and the NCSJ Records also contain sound recordings of interviews with and speeches by Martin Luther King (1966), Bayard Rustin, Tom Stoppard, Harrison Salisbury, and other prominent individuals. The third major category of recordings consists of audiocassette tapes made in secret in the USSR. These include conversations with Anatoly (now Natan) Sharansky, Ida Nudel, Andrei Sakharov and other, less-famous refuseniks. One cassette contains a recording of a speech by Andrei Sakharov accepting in absentia an award from the Anti-Defamation League; another is chillingly labeled: "Alla Smelianski's plea, Jan 29, '79. Mark to commit suicide March 29." Also among the cassettes are several recordings of several telephone conversations arranged under the auspices of NCSJ’s “Call a Russian” program in the early 1970s, in which individuals in the United States made phone contact with Soviet Jews to discuss their particular circumstances, share information on the emigration process, and offer encouragement. PDF guide to audio collection.
A sample from the Audio Collections, National Conference on Soviet Jewry, listen below:
The address of Anatoly (Natan) Sharansky to the Second International Congress on the Soviet Jewry recorded in February of 1976. Sharansky, one of the prominent activists of the Soviet Jewry Movement, who spent 10 years in Soviet prisons, was released as a result of the American Soviet Jewry Movement campaign.. He later immigrated to Israel and took an active part in political life there becoming a government minister in several Israeli cabinets. In this 1976 address Sharansky expresses gratitude on his and other refuseniks’ behalf, for the support of their cause as he expresses hope for its success. Sharansky names refuseniks that received long prison sentences, describes a new anti-Jewish campaign started by the Soviet authorities, and states that the fight of the Soviet Jews will continue.(1 MB QuickTime)
Accessible Summer 2008:
Jerry Goodman Papers
National Conference on Soviet Jewry
Medical Mobilization for Soviet Jewry
New additions to the collections:
In January 2007, approximately 650 linear feet of documents, photographs, posters and film representing the work of individuals and organizatons active on behalf of Soviet Jewry, were transferred from the University of Colorado at Boulder to AJHS in New York. The collection, which include the following are currently being organized and will be made accessible to researchers as the archival process is completed.
Union of Councils for Soviet Jews
Bay Area Council on Soviet Jews
Bay Area Council on Soviet Jews
Seattle Action for Soviet Jews
Houston Action for Soviet Jews
Chicago Action for Soviety Jews
Colorado Committee of Concern for Soviet Jews
National Conference on Soviet Jewry
Forman, Lillian (BACSJ)
Polunsky, Ann
Schapira, Morey
Sitowitz, Myrtle
Turkin, Deborah
Waksberg, David
Weinberg, Sylvia
Wilkenfeld, Dolores
Related Collections at AJHS
Jewish Student Press Service Records, n.d. 1970-1987, I-249
Includes correspondence, minutes, reports, publications. Click here for the guide.
Jewish Student Organizations, n.d., 1906-1995, I-61
Includes periodicals relating to many Jewish student organizations from the 60s-80s
For example, Soviet Jewry Action Newsletter, 1969-79, Soviet Jewry Update, 1977,
SOS Soviet Jewry, 1966-1974. Click here for the guide.
North American Jewish Student Appeal, 1964-1996 Bulk 1971-1996
I-338 and I-338 A.
Records of student run program promoting Jewish identity among college aged
and records of fundraising arm.
Includes 4 posters: 4 posters in Box 111 Folder 5 :
"Arabs Conquer Israel" Poster circa 1971-1974
"Freedom Ride for Alexei Magarik: The Youngest Prisoner of Zion" Poster [1986]
"In America, You Have to Kill Someone to Get 12 Years in Prison. In Russia, You May Just Have to Teach Hebrew" Poster 1983
"Kruschev, 1903-1971: From Pogroms to Prison Camps" Poster circa 1971.
Click here for the finding aid.
National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council Records
(formerly NCRAC, after 1997 JCRC), n.d., 1940-1994, I-172
Includes material on varied activities relating to discrimination, immigration, Israel, and Soviet Jewry. Box 75, Soviet Jewry 1965-1975. Click here for the guide.
UJA Oral History Collection, 1981-2000, I-433. For access to the collection or any other questions about ASJM resources at the AJHS, please contact archivist Tanya Elder.
ASJM Related Collectons at Other Institutions
University of Denver
Beck Archives
Committee of Concerned Citizens for Soviet Jews in Denver, 1968-1991
Wheaton College Library
Charles Colson Papers. Click here for the finding aid.
Yeshiva University Archives
Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry
Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington
Soviet Jewry Movement Collection
Photographs of protest marches by Ida Jervis, photographer for Washington Jewish Week.
Cleveland Jewish History
The Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism Records, 1960-1983
Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism Photographs, 1965-1977
Louis Rosenblum Papers, 1964-2004
Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism Audio Tapes
