UPDATE: Click here for text, co-sponsors of Senate resolution

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NEWS RELEASE October 30, 2007

CONTACT:

Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications  Tami Holzman: (202) 265-3000

2007 MARKS IMPORTANT MILESTONES 
IN FREEDOM STRUGGLE FOR SOVIET JEWRY

Congressional Resolution Honors the Movement’s Dual Anniversaries

WASHINGTON—Last week, a delegation of American Jewish leaders traveled to Russia and Ukraine to launch this year’s joint celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Jewry movement and the 20th anniversary of Freedom Sunday, the march of 250,000 American Jews in Washington on behalf of Soviet Jewry.

In recognition of the dual anniversaries, Congress today passed a resolution acknowledging the movement’s many accomplishments, as well as the challenges it still faces in ensuring the safety and welfare of those 1.5 million Jews who live in the former Soviet Union (FSU) amidst a rising tide of anti-Semitism. The resolution, which passed unanimously, was introduced by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) last week, coinciding with NCSJ’s leadership mission to the FSU. More than half of the mission’s delegates reside, like Representative Waxman, in the Los Angeles area.

“The Jewish community learned, through the rapid growth in the size, scope and effectiveness of the movement, about our ability as a people to affect positive political change,” said Mark Levin, Executive Director of NCSJ. “To see these anniversaries honored by Congress as being seminal in America’s history is a source of great pride for us, as well as an inspiration to rededicate ourselves to the work that remains for us to do together.”

The NCSJ mission, whose ten-day agenda included meetings with the Ukrainian foreign minister, the American and Israeli ambassadors, other high ranking government officials and Jewish community leaders in Moscow, Kyiv and St. Petersburg, illustrated both the movement’s dramatic gains over the past 40 years and the significant work that remains to protect these advances, ensuring that the world’s third largest Jewish population can continue to take root as it has since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In the lead up to Freedom Sunday’s 20th anniversary in December, NCSJ will also host several events, which highlight the evolution of the movement. On December 11th, the organization’s leadership will convene a day-long symposium, entitled “From Oppression and Isolation, to Freedom and Rebirth: The Past, Present and Future of the Soviet Jewry Movement.” The day’s events will conclude with a reception at the Russell Senate Office Building to celebrate the opening of the photo exhibit “Speak Truth to Power: The Freedom Struggle of Soviet Jewry,” which is excerpted from an exhibit being featured this year at Beth Hatefutsoth, the Museum of the Diaspora in Tel Aviv.

NCSJ is also creating a series of Chanukah candle boxes to commemorate Freedom Sunday, which will be sent out to homes across America, with an added blessing recognizing the brave struggle of those Soviet Jews who emigrated and those who remain. 

The 40th anniversary of the Soviet Jewry movement, which stands as a successful example of the struggle against tyranny for religious freedom, will be marked by celebrations the world over. Galvanized in large part by Israel’s victory in 1967, many Soviet Jews who were prohibited from openly identifying or practicing as Jews began to consider emigration a viable alternative. 1967 began a 25 year period during which half of all Soviet Jews would struggle for and ultimately win the right to make aliyah or to emigrate elsewhere. Until the late 1980s, the Soviet government resisted large-scale Jewish migration, imprisoned many leaders and activists within the Jewish movement on trumped up charges of hooliganism and sedition, for the simple acts of teaching or learning Hebrew, writing about their plight or just applying for an exit visa. This community of people who had applied for exit visas, were rejected, and then became suspended in limbo, became known as refuseniks. 

The refuseniks became the new focus of the international Soviet-Jewish protest movement. Raising the stakes for the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who sought closer ties to the United States, 250,000 American Jews marched on the National Mall on the eve of the Premier’s first visit to Washington. Singing and shouting: “Let my people go!” the demonstrators put the plight of the Soviet Jews front and center on the American agenda. As one of the largest marches on Washington in American history, the rally signaled a critical turning point in the struggle that led to the liberation of 1.5 million Soviet Jews. 

“As successful as the campaign for Soviet Jewry was, it did not eradicate the anti-Semitism so pervasive to this day in much of the former Soviet Union,” said Levin. “The advocacy movement on behalf of the Jews in the former Soviet Union remains steadfast and deeply concerned because of the constant turbulence in that region of the world.”

Progress towards rule of law and democracy is finding root in some areas, but in other regions there seems to be a backward movement taking place. For example, in some republics, hardliners reminiscent of the communist era are being voted back into office, and constitutions are being rewritten to give the presidents more authority. As democracy-building and free market economies try to take shape in this environment of confusion and uncertainty, the future stability and security of the Jewish population remains in great question.

“The mission last week was both heartening and humbling,” said Ed Robin, NCSJ’s board President. “On the one hand, it was tremendously gratifying to visit Jewish community centers, synagogues and Jewish day schools that are springing up to fill a burgeoning need in the FSU. Despite the obvious signs of progress, however, one could hardly ignore the pervasive anti-Semitic graffiti outside their gates.”

In July 2007, NCSJ issued a report in response to the Russian Parliament passage of anti-extremism legislation aimed at curbing nationalist and radical groups. The measure broadened the definition of “extremism” to include crimes driven by racial, national, or religious motives.

NCSJ called on the Russian government to take further steps to fight anti-Semitism and xenophobia, firmly oppose bigotry, and implement aggressive measures that address the core of the problem. The report called reactive legislation in response to domestic and international outcry insufficient, and urged the Russian government to commit to proactively preventing extremism and eliminating hatred and intolerance from Russian society.

The problem is by no means confined to Russia. In Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – the former Soviet Baltic states now independent nations – Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials have been vandalized. 

In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko recently called the city of Bobruisk “a Jewish city, and the Jews are not concerned for the place they live in. They have turned Bobruisk into a pig sty. Look at Israel – I have been there.” Five days after he spoke those words, 15 headstones in Bobruisk’s Jewish cemetery were desecrated. 

In recent weeks in Ukraine, Jews have been beaten in public, a Chabad house was set ablaze and mass rallies with anti-Semitic overtones have been held in connection with the government’s honoring of a World War II-era Ukrainian nationalist who fought alongside the Nazis. In Odessa, Ukraine’s Black Sea port, the glass front door of the Café Hillel was smashed the night before its opening as a gathering place for young Jews. 

During the recent leadership mission, NCSJ met in Kyiv with top Ukrainian officials and urged them to confront the troubling number and severity of anti-Semitic attacks in Ukraine over the past few months. The following week, President Victor Yushchenko met with leaders of the Ukrainian Jewish community, who called the meeting an important step toward addressing the ongoing anti-Semitism in Ukrainian society and the security needs of its Jewish citizens.

“While we mark these anniversaries with great pride, it is incumbent upon American Jews to continue their support of the world’s third-largest Jewish community,” said Robin. “We must remain vigilant in pursuing a just and secure life free of anti-Semitism for all Jews who remain in the former Soviet Union.”

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More information at www.SovietJewry.org

Text of resolution
Floor debate of resolution
Extended remarks honoring anniversaries
   Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
   Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY)
   Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL)

Senate resolution

JTA: House marks Soviet Jewry activism
JTA: House resolution marks Soviet Jewry struggle


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