The Soviet Jewry Movement, Revisited

At its root, the struggle over the fate of Soviet Jews was a struggle over where in the world Jews belonged.

Antisemitism was a fact of life for Soviet Jews, but it did not top their list of reasons to leave.

An alliance between Jewish activists and congressional neocons made Soviet Jewry a key issue in superpower relations—and reshaped American Jewish politics in the process.

Even once the magazine accepted the evidence of Soviet antisemitism, it continued to distrust the politics of the mainstream campaign.

A circle of activists known as pravozashchitniki, who advanced a universalist argument for Soviet human rights, have been largely erased from Jewish communal memory.

In compiling an oral history of Soviet Jewish experience, asking different questions yields surprising answers.

The Soviet Jewry Movement exposed a rift between Israel and the US that persists to this day.