Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews

The American Soviet Jewry Movement was initiated in the early 1960s, when the first public protests were made by American Jews against the suppression of Jewish religion and Jewish national culture in the Soviet Union. Though random and spontaneous initially, those actions started to attract attention of the mainstream Jewish community and incited creation of the organizations dedicated to the support of Soviet Jews. American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry (AJCSJ) and Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) pioneered the movement in 1964. AJCSJ was largerly considered as a think tank rather than a defense organization. Its methods emphasized leveraging with the Soviet authorities via the official channels. It proved dysfunctional due to the inner conflicts in tactics and strategy, and failure to secure support of the broader American Jewish community. AJCSJ was restructured and renamed the National Conference on Soviet Jewry in 1971. SSSJ was conceptually limited to working with college students and youth volunteers. A need was felt for a more strategically versatile and more community-oriented organization.

The widely publicized Leningrad Trial incident, in which 34 men and women were accused of hijacking a plane at the Leningrad airport in order to emigrate, prompted many American Jews to protest against the injustices of the Soviet regime, and gave rise to a multitude of grassroots Soviet Jewry Movement organizations.

A network of the Soviet Jewry Movement organizations was created in 1970 by, most notably, Louis Rosenblum of the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism, Si Frumkin of the Union of Council for Soviet Jews, Zev Yaroslavsky of the California Students for Soviet Jews and the Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews.

The Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews (BACSJ) was founded in 1967 by four activists, Harold (Hal) B. Light, Edward Tamler, Sidney Kluger, and Rabbi Moris Hershman. Under the direction of Hal Light, the BACSJ became one of the leading organizations in the Soviet Jewry rescue movement nationwide. Born in Philadelphia in 1916, Light was educated as a mechanical engineer and moved to San Francisco in 1941 where he became a successful businessman and real estate investor. In 1965, after selling his businesses at the age of 49, he devoted his attention to the Civil Rights movement, becoming chairman of the Parents Mississippi Association of Northern California and coordinating aid for Civil Rights workers. In 1966, however, Light's interests turned toward the plight of Soviet Jewry after he heard a speech at Temple Sherith Israel in San Francisco. Following this speech, Light began the first efforts to organize a grass roots political movement on behalf of co-religionists in the Soviet Union.

The BACSJ and the Soviet Jewry movement received considerable impetus following the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli War. The Israeli victory produced a movement among Soviet Jews to demand freedom of religion and the right to emigrate to Israel. To raise public awareness, Light wrote articles for newspapers, gave addresses and lectures, and appeared on numerous radio and television programs. While Light's initial efforts met with disbelief from audiences, they later gained a following and increasing publicity. In 1969, Light began writing and sending Passover cards to Soviet Jews under the pseudonym, Gerson Lazar. The purpose was to establish contact, offer spiritual and financial assistance, and determine the problems of Soviet Jewry. His aggressive tactics, however, earned the enmity of some major Jewish groups, which advocated quiet diplomacy. While these organizations gave the BACSJ tacit moral support, they refused to lend it financial assistance. As a result, for the first two years Light funded the organization with $40,000 out of his own savings.

Following 1967, other Soviet Jewry councils were established across the country as the movement gained increasing momentum. In 1970, several councils, including the BACSJ, formed the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews to bring the various autonomous groups under one umbrella organization. As the councils and other Jewish and interreligious groups lobbied Congress and the White House to link Detente with the rights of Soviet Jews to emigrate, the cause soon became a prominent issue in American-Soviet relations. With Soviet Jewry now an international issue and despite the opposition of several major local Jewish organizations, the BACSJ continued to campaign aggressively and publicly on behalf of Soviet Jewry. The organization used public sporting events, visits by Soviet dignitaries, Soviet ballet performances, and other political and cultural events to stage vigils and protests. They carried out similar activities at the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco.

The efforts of the BACSJ and other groups proved to be a major impetus behind passage of the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which linked the granting of Most Favored Nation trading status to the Soviet Union with the easing of emigration policies. Additionally, the BACSJ helped to marshal support among many in Congress to press the cases of dozens of individual Refuseniks. The Soviets, however, attacked the Jackson-Vanik Amendment as an unreasonable interference in their internal domestic affairs and subsequently dramatically limited Jewish emigration. Nevertheless in 1975 the Soviet Jewry movement was bolstered following the signing of the Helsinki Accords, which sought to lower international tensions by finalizing post World War II borders in Europe in return for human rights guarantees. The Accords also established the right of freedom of movement and emigration. Although the Accords were not legally binding and focused primarily on security and cooperation between East and West, the agreements proved pivotal in fueling the human rights movement that would later sweep the Soviet Union.

Despite the signing of the Accords, the Soviets continued their oppression of Soviet Jews and the imprisonment of dissidents in labor camps and psychiatric hospitals. The number of Jewish émigrés permitted to leave the Soviet Union paralleled the changing climate of Cold War relations with the United States. In 1979, emigration climbed to 51,320 but then plummeted to only 896 in 1984 as international tensions mounted. During this period, the BACSJ continued their domestic political activities on behalf of Soviet Jewry. In addition, BACSJ members visited the Soviet Union to investigate human rights conditions of Jews and to offer a wide range of support, including financial assistance, medical supplies, and equipment. They provided Soviet Jewry with cameras and film to document their plight, supplies for teaching Hebrew and Judaism, materials for demonstrations, as well as typewriters, and later, computers and printers, to list and keep track of thousands of Refuseniks, and to produce press releases for the Western Press.

With Gorbachev's ascendancy to power and the subsequent unraveling of the Soviet empire, conditions for Soviet Jews improved considerably. After 1988, the Soviets allowed the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Jews, and officially permitted the free expression and practice of religion. In the early 1990s, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was accompanied by a resurgence of Antisemitism, resurfacing of nationalist sentiments, and worsening economic conditions. Amidst this climate, the BACSJ helped the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews to establish offices in the former republics to support the human rights of Jews and other religious and national minorities. These offices also act to monitor the move toward democratic pluralism in Russia and the former Soviet Republics.