Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ)

Between 1970 and 1981, the UCSJ national office was located in each UCSJ’s president’s home city. As the UCSJ’s political activities increased, a Washington, D.C. office was added in 1972, staffed by one salaried employee who acted as Congressional and media liaison. All national operations were consolidated in Washington, D.C. in 1981. 

• • Some of the hallmarks of the UCSJ’s work between 1970 and 1991: The creation of personal connections between individuals and groups in North America and individual Jewish refuseniks and prisoners in the Soviet Union. Many People-to-People programs and initiatives were developed by UCSJ councils and became mainstream advocacy techniques. Beginning in the mid-1960’s and accelerating in the 70’s and 80’s, focus increased to maintain contact with refuseniks via phone calls, letters and packages, and visits by Westerners who had received briefings to maximize their effectiveness. This work included maintaining extensive databases and telephone contacts to track the cases of thousands of refuseniks, Prisoners of Conscience, and their families. The resulting stream of information was vital to Western activists in maintaining accurate and up-to-date information and in keeping the issue in the public’s eye. Resources and support was provided to the burgeoning network of underground Jewish study groups in the Soviet Jewish as well as to scientific and other seminars started by Refuseniks who had lost their jobs. 
  • Public activism to create local and national awareness of the plight of the Soviet Jewish community including demonstrations, protest vigils, marches, public programs, media coverage in North America, and programming targeted for summer camps, schools, and synagogues.
  • Specialized work by affiliated groups, including Medical Mobilization for Soviet Jewry, International Physicians Committee, and Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center, that involved North American experts in medical and legal issues to advise and advocate for the health and legal needs of Refuseniks and Prisoners of Conscience.
  • Political advocacy both locally and nationally.

• • • The earliest such effort was made in 1963 to tie U.S. wheat sales to the U.S.S.R. with matzo for Soviet Jews, work done by Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism.
    • Lobbying to pass HR 14806, a 1972 Bill to amend the Export Administration Act of 1969 in order to promote freedom of emigration. Such work led to strong relations with members of Congress. 
    • The UCSJ coordinated a multi-year campaign towards passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 designed to link US trade credits to the USSR with freedom of emigration. This campaign included White House meetings, Congressional lobbying, meetings in the Soviet Union with refuseniks. It also included ongoing negotiations with Jewish establishment organizations not to abandon the Amendment. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment was signed into law in 1975. 

Notable were the UCSJ’s strong connections established between the UCSJ’s individual councils and their respective elected officials in each local community and in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa. These extensive, long term relations with members of the government by UCSJ and other activists were crucial to: the passage of legislation, advocacy on behalf of specific cases of Refuseniks and Prisoners of Conscience, and in recruitment of U.S. and Canadian government officials to raise the issue directly with Soviet officials.

The UCSJ’s international work included involvement in the Helsinki Human Rights Review Process, starting with the UCSJ’s Robert F. Drinan Human Rights Center in Madrid (1980) and subsequently at review conferences in Warsaw, Geneva, and Helsinki. In the late 1980’s when conditions in the USSR shifted, the UCSJ held its 1989 annual meeting in Moscow and Leningrad. The following year the UCSJ established a human rights bureau in Moscow, which was the first Western human rights joint venture registered in the history of the Soviet Union.

After 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved and the barrier to emigration for Soviet Jews was removed, most of the UCSJ member councils ceased their work. The councils that continued to operate, coupled with the UCSJ national office, turned their focus to assisting those Jews who remained in the former Soviet Union and to monitoring human rights in the region.