Billie Kozolchyk Papers

The papers of Billie Kozolchyk is 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.

The papers of Billie Kozolchyk document the Soviet Jewry movement in the Tucson, AZ area. Mrs. Kozolchyk helped organize Freedom Run for Soviet Jewry, a yearly event that occurred from the late 1970s until the early 1990s and aimed to raise awareness of the plight of Soviet Jewry in the Tucson area. The documents include a collection of clippings from The Arizona Post that cover the Soviet Jewry movement in the Tucson area during the period of 1977 to 1991. The articles cover the Freedom Run for Soviet Jewry and similar projects and events, Tucson Jewish community aid to the Soviet Jewish immigrant families resettling in the Tucson area, updates on the Refuseniks remaining in the U.S.S.R. Many of the articles mention the activism of Billie Kozolchyk and some are authored by her. The collection also contains excerpts from the diaries of Roz Kaufman, the chairperson of the Tucson-based Chairwoman of Women's Plea for Soviet Jewry, focused on the Soviet Jewry movement. Also included are three t-shirts commemorating the Freedom Run for Soviet Jewry of the years 1985, 1989 and 1990.