Marilyn Labendz Papers

The Papers of Marilyn Labendz represent one collection housed within the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM). These papers reflect the effort, beginning in the 1960s through the late 1980s, of thousands of American Jews of all denominations and political orientations to stop the persecution and discrimination of Jews in the Soviet Union. The American Soviet Jewry Movement (ASJM) is considered to be the most influential Movement of the American Jewish community in the 20th century. The beginnings of the organized American Soviet Jewry Movement became a model for efforts to aid Soviet Jews in other countries, among them Great Britain, Canada, and France. The movement can be traced to the early 1960s, when the first organizations were created to address the specific problem of the persecution and isolation of Soviet Jews by the government of the Soviet Union.

Marilyn Labendz was active in the MetroWest Conference on Soviet Jewry during the 1980s. In mid 1980s she traveled to the Soviet Union and to meet and help Refuseniks in Moscow, Leningrad and Vilnius. Labendz chaired the Women's Interfaith Plea for Soviet Jewry. She also served as chairwoman for the Summit II March on Washington for the MetroWest area. She authored a manual for adopting Refuseniks that was distributed to synagogues and was an active speaker on the issues of Soviet Jewry.