The 60th anniversary of the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism (CCSA) – the first independent group in North America, and beyond, formed to advocate for Soviet Jews will be celebrated on Sunday, October 22, 2023 in Cleveland, Ohio.
The CCSA was founded by a group of young professionals at Beth Israel-The West Temple in Cleveland: Don Bogart, Herb Caron, Mort Epstein, David Gitlin, Rabbi Dan LItt, and Lou Rosenblum. The group, which had been studying 20th century antisemitism, was dismayed to learn that the established Jewish community was doing little on behalf of the almost three million Jews in the Soviet Union.
Their earliest efforts in 1963 included: (1) lobbying the US government to link the sale of US grain to the Soviet Union with Soviet persecution of its Jewish population and to allocate grain for matzah production, (2) galvanizing religious leaders in Ohio to participate in the CCSA’s work, and (3) publishing Soviet Terror Against Jews: How Cleveland Initiated an Interfaith Protest. In 1970, the CCSA was a founding council of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, along with five other North American Soviet Jewry organizations.
Four diverse Cleveland religious leaders formed the CCSA’s first honorary board. NASA leader Abe Silverstein also led the nascent organization.
Beth Israel-The West Temple, the synagogue where the early activists formed their social action committee in 1961 and where the CCSA’s earliest office was located starting in 1963, will host the 60th anniversary commemoration. An Ohio Historical Marker that commemorates the first Soviet Jewry organization stands in front of the synagogue and will be formally dedicated as part of the October 22nd event.
Link to press coverage, October and November 1963, about the earliest efforts of the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism. https://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/sj/images/lr-soviet-terror.pdf
Link to information about the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism. https://www.clevelandjewishhistory.net/sj/lr-beginnings.htm