Guide to the Records of the Houston Action for Soviet Jewry
1966-1997
(bulk 1984-1993)

I-500

Processed by Rachel S. Harrison as part of the Leon Levy Archival Processing Initiative, made possible by the Leon Levy Foundation.

American Jewish Historical Society

Center for Jewish History

15 West 16^th Street

New York, N.Y. 10011

Phone: (212) 294-6160

Fax: (212) 294-6161

Email: reference@ajhs.org

URL: http://www.ajhs.org

© 2010, American Jewish Historical Society, Boston, MA and New York, NY. All Rights Reserved.

Machine-readable finding aid was created by Rachel S. Harrison as MS Word and Excel 2000 documents in July 2010. Electronic finding aid was converted to EAD 2002 by Rachel S. Harrison in July 2010. Description is in English.

Biographical and Historical Note

The Records of the Houston Action for Soviet Jewry (HASJ) is one of the collections within the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM) at the American Jewish Historical Society. 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 one of the most influential movements 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 Houston Action for Soviet Jewry was founded by Rabbi Shaul Osadchey and several of the congregants from Congregation Brith Shalom in Bellaire, Houston, TX circa 1983. The aim of HASJ was to support Jews living in the Soviet Union and to aid their efforts to either express their religious rights within the Soviet Union or to be allowed to emigrate. In the beginning, their efforts focused almost entirely on aiding Jews within the USSR, but they soon began to work on emigration and resettlement efforts as well. HASJ was affiliated with the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews and, as such, shared some information and resources with Soviet Jewish aid organizations in other areas, including Chicago, the Bay Area, CA and Colorado. These included biographical profiles of refuseniks, those who had applied to emigrate but were not allowed to, as well as biographical profiles of prisoners of conscience, those who had been imprisoned for dissident beliefs. These organizations also shared publicity and programming materials for their events and projects.

Among the HASJ’s main programs were the Adopt-a-Family program, which connected families in the U.S. with refusenik families in the USSR and the Bar / Bat Mitzvah Twinning Program, in which members of various Houston synagogues preparing for their bar or bat mitzvah would be assigned a Soviet “twin” to symbolically share the experience with, as children in the Soviet Union were not able to participate in these religious ceremonies. HASJ also participated in sending books, religious materials, food, and medicine to the Soviet Union, worked to raise awareness of the situations of various refuseniks and prisoners of conscience among the greater Houston and Texas community, took part in several protests and rallies, including a March on Washington ahead of a 1987 summit meeting between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and maintained a connection with the Jewish community of Baku, Azerbaijan, a sister city of Houston, including aiding that community in educational and social action programs. The HASJ helped several Jews emigrate to Houston and other cities in the United States.

After the fall of communism, the HASJ continued to support the Jews who remained in the former Soviet Union, providing those who chose to stay with Jewish religious and educational materials and community resources while continuing to help those who wanted to emigrate. They also helped Jews secure food and medicine, which were sometimes difficult to obtain in the instability that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Scope and Content Note

This collection consists of materials related to the running of the organization, such as committee and board meeting agendas and minutes, correspondence, materials related to various projects and programs run by the Houston Action for Soviet Jewry, including the Soviet Bar / Bat Mitzvah twinning program and Adopt-a-Soviet Family, the sister-city program with Baku, Azerbaijan, some membership materials, index card catalogs, pins, bumper stickers, a large plastic banner, photographs, audio and video cassettes, photographic slides, newspaper clippings, public relations and publicity materials, form letters, newsletters, programs, invitations and event announcements, and letters to existing and potential contributors and members.

Much of the collection is made up of biographical information about refuseniks and prisoners of conscience. Many of these refusenik files were created by other Soviet Jewry agencies, including the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews, Seattle Action for Soviet Jews, Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, Colorado Committee of Concern for Soviet Jews and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Many of these organizations were known by multiple names over several years, such as the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry, which was also known as the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. The materials in this collection date from 1966-1997, with the bulk dating from 1984-1993. The majority of the collection is in English, with some documents in Russian, German, French, and Hebrew. The collection consists of 30 manuscript boxes, 2 SB1 card file boxes, 3 SB2 card file boxes, and a mailing tube, comprising 18.5 linear feet.

Arrangement

When the collection arrived at the American Jewish Historical Society Archives, some of the materials were arranged in folders labeled by the main topic or individual represented in the folder, although the folders themselves were not generally arranged in any order. A great deal of the material was grouped together, either with rubber bands, binder clips, or between file dividers, but was not in folders and a majority of the folders were not labeled. Labeled folders have retained their titles and unlabeled folders were given titles in accordance with existing titles. All folders that contain biographical information about refuseniks have been labeled ‘refusenik biographies,’ although some of the materials inside these folders are labeled with other titles, such as ‘refusenik files’ or ‘refusenik profiles.’ The only exceptions to this are the refusenik profile exhibit displays. The collection is arranged alphabetically and, within this order, chronologically by earliest dated document. Clippings have been arranged chronologically, other than the materials from two bound press books, which have been left in their original order. The collection has been organized into five series, some of which have been further divided into subseries.

• Series I: Organizational Files, 1966, 1980-1997
• Series II: Refusenik Files, 1981-1995, undated
  • Subseries 1: Refusenik Biographies, 1981-1995
  • Subseries 2: Refusenik Profiles, undated
• Series III: Clippings, 1984-1996
• Series IV: Exhibits and Events, 1982-1989
• Series V: Audiovisual and Memorabilia, 1971, 1984-1994, undated
  • Subseries 1: Photographs, 1992, undated
  • Subseries 2: Audio Materials, 1971, 1985-1991, undated
  • Subseries 3: Videocassettes, 1986-1994, undated
  • Subseries 4: Slides, 1984, undated
  • Subseries 5: Memorabilia, undated

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

The collection is open to all researchers by permission of the Director of Library and Archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, except items that are restricted due to their fragility.

Use Restrictions

Information concerning the literary rights may be obtained from the Director of Library and Archives of the American Jewish Historical Society. Users must apply in writing for permission to quote, reproduce or otherwise publish manuscript materials found in this collection. For more information contact:
American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16^th Street, New York, N.Y., 10011
email: reference@ajhs.org

Related Material

The Records of the Houston Action for Soviet Jewry is one individual collection within the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM) located at the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS). Other Soviet Jewry Movement collections at AJHS include the records of Action for Soviet Jewry (I-487), the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ; I-181 and I-181A), the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (I-410, I-410A), Medical Mobilization for Soviet Jewry, the papers of Joel Ackerman (P-787), Julia Mates Cheney (P-806), Jerry Goodman (P-863), Laurel and Alan J. Gould (P-866), Carolyn W. Sanger (P-870), Si Frumkin (P-871), Elaine Pittell (P-873), Sanford A. Gradinger (P-880), Shaul Osadchey (P-882), Leonard S. Cahan (P-883), Doris H. Goldstein (P-887), David H. Hill (P-888), Margery Sanford (P-889) and Pinchas Mordechai Teitz (P-891). Individual accounts of activities within the Soviet Jewry Movement are preserved in the UJA Oral History Collection (I-433), which includes accounts from members of the following organizations: the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews (BACSJ), Seattle Action for Soviet Jewry, Houston Action for Soviet Jewry, Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, Colorado Committee of Concern for Soviet Jews and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Interviewees include accounts by Lillian Forman (BACSJ), Ann Polunsky, Morey Schapira, Myrtle Sitowitz, Deborah Turkin, David Waksberg, Sylvia Weinberg and Dolores Wilkenfeld. In addition, posters related to the Soviet Jewry Movement can be found in the Jewish Student Organizations Collection (I-61).

Additional materials from other collections include records dealing with the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) located within the North American Jewish Students Appeal (NAJSA, I-338) and the records of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC, I-172). Related records are also located at the AJHS in Boston, MA including memorabilia and ephemera of the New England Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (I-237) and the Records of the Student Coalition for Soviet Jewry – Brandeis University (I-493).

Preferred Citation

Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date (if known); Records of the Houston Action for Soviet Jewry ; I-500; box number; folder number; American Jewish Historical Society, Boston, MA and New York, NY.

Acquisition Information

The records were donated by the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2007.

Access Points

• Subject Names:

  • Begun, Yosif, 1932-
  • Nudel, Ida
  • Shcharansky, Anatoly

• Subject Organizations:

  • American Jewish Historical Society
  • Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews
  • Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry
  • Union of Councils for Soviet Jews

• Subject Topics:

  • Antisemitism
  • Bar mitzvah
  • Bat mitzvah
  • Emigration and immigration
  • Human rights
  • Jews, Soviet
  • Political activists
  • Prisoners -- Legal status, laws, etc.
  • Psychological abuse
  • Refugees
  • Refuseniks

• Subject Places:

  • Former Soviet republics
  • Houston (Tex.)

• Document Types:

  • Audiocassettes
  • Bumper stickers
  • Buttons (information artifacts)
  • Case files
  • Correspondence
  • Minutes
  • Newsletters
  • Newspaper clippings
  • Phonograph records
  • Photographs
  • Slides (photographs)
  • Videocassettes

Container List