Union of Councils 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, those actions started to attract attention of the mainstream Jewish community and led to creation of the first organizations devoted specifically to the support of the Soviet Jews, namely the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry (AJCSJ) and Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) in 1964. The former, due to the conflicts in tactics and strategy proved to be dysfunctional and failed to effectively pursue the goals set at its creation. It placed emphasis on the work using the official channels, but lost dynamism and was considered by many as rather a think tank than a defense organization (It was replaced by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry in 1971). The latter organization, SSSJ, limited itself to work mostly within the college students' ranks and among youth volunteers. Thus a need was felt in a more broadly determined 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 injustice of the Soviet regime, and multiplied grass roots organizations.

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