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The Soviet Jewry movement was an international human rights campaign that advocated for the right of Jews in the Soviet Union to emigrate. The movement's participants were most active in the United States and in the Soviet Union. Those who were denied permission to emigrate were often referred to by the term Refusenik.
Jerry Goodman was a leading activist in the Soviet Jewry Movement and the founding executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, a national agency established to coordinate the efforts of the American Jewish communities on behalf of Jews in the Soviet Union. He co-established the organization in 1971 and directed it until 1988. [1]
The Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism, founded in 1963, was the first North American grassroots organization to advocate for Soviet Jews. [6] In 1964 the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry was founded at Columbia University. By 1970 six independent Soviet Jewry advocacy organizations joined to found the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. [7]
This brought hundreds of thousands of Jews out to join him in the great struggle for Soviet Jewry, which made modern Exodus real." [3] The movement started by Birnbaum eventually led to liberalization of Soviet emigration policies, resulting in the eventual emigration of over 1.5 million Soviet Jews. [3]
The first synagogue in Texas, Congregation Beth Israel of Houston, was founded in Houston in 1859 as an Orthodox congregation. However, by 1874 the congregation voted to change their affiliation to the fledgling Reform movement. The ensuing years were accompanied by the spread of Judaism throughout Texas.
The Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry (GNYCSJ) was founded in 1971, as a non-governmental grassroots organization that worked to secure human rights for Jews in the Soviet Union. It served as an umbrella agency for a number of regional organizations of the Soviet Jewry movement. In the 1980 GNYCSJ was renamed Coalition To Free Soviet ...
The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the U.S. movement for rights of the Jews in the Soviet Union. [1] The organisation held [ 2 ] [ 3 ] demonstrations, at various important locations.
Initially, most went to Israel, but after 1976, the majority began immigrating to the United States, which had a policy of treating Soviet Jews as refugees under the Jackson-Vanik amendment. In total, some 291,000 Soviet Jews were granted exit visas between 1970 and 1988, of whom 165,000 immigrated to Israel and 126,000 to the United States. [3]