About NCSJ

• NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia
  2020 K Street, NW, Suite 7800, Washington, D.C. 20006
  Phone: (202) 898-2500       Fax: (202) 898-0822                      
  Email:  ncsj@ncsj.org         Web site: www.ncsj.org 
  

• NCSJ Professional Staff
  
  NCSJ Executive Committee
  

• a voluntary, not-for-profit agency created in 1971 as the National Conference on Soviet Jewry
  
  
• the mandated central coordinating agency of the organized Jewish community for policy and activities on behalf of the estimated 1.5 million Jews in the former Soviet Union
  
  
• comprising nearly 50 national organizations and over 300 local federations, community councils and committees 
  
  
• Through this extensive network, NCSJ mobilizes the resources, energies and talents of millions of U.S. citizens, and also represents the American Jewish community in dealings with similar national groups abroad, and at international forums.

         

The mission of NCSJ is to safeguard the individual and communal political rights of Jews living in the former Soviet Union and to secure their religious and political freedoms. NCSJ actively monitors compliance by the governments of the former Soviet Union in the areas of free emigration and religious and cultural rights, and also monitors closely developments related to anti-Semitism in the Soviet successor states. NCSJ also works closely and cooperatively with all branches of government, particularly the White House, Department of State, Congress and the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) in order to further our goals. For years, Operation Lifeline, which was quietly operated by NCSJ, has provided a continuing flow of materials, kosher food, and religious and cultural objects to Soviet Jews.



NCSJ's headquarters in Washington, DC, is staffed by specialists in international relations, policy research, communications, and community organization. Public involvement is furthered through the holding of annual leadership assemblies, which bring our constituents together with experts in government and the academic community for the evaluation of up-to-date information and formulation of appropriate strategy, and through public manifestations, regional conferences, national seminars and special events.

In order to effectively fulfill its mandate, NCSJ seeks the widest participation possible in our activities by private citizens and public officials, whose concerns on behalf of Jews in the successor states have been and are heard by the U.S. Government and by officials of the former Soviet states. The broad-based Executive Committee and Board of Governors ensure that American Jewry is represented in NCSJ's work. NCSJ maintains broad contacts with Jewish organizations and activists in the FSU region in order to keep abreast of developments affecting the Jewish population and to help coordinate American support in appropriate ways for the rebuilding of Jewish communal life.



As NCSJ carries out its mandate on behalf of the Jewish community in the former Soviet Union - the world's third-largest - we are very much aware that the nature of our advocacy in this period of rapid and dramatic change throughout the former Soviet Union will impact not only the future of Jews in the region, but that of world Jewry, well into the 21st century.