The National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSEJ), formerly the National Council for Soviet Jewry (NCSJ), is an organization in the United States which advocates for the freedoms and rights of

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

, the

Baltic States The Baltic states, et, Balti riigid or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term, which currently is used to group three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, ...

, and

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...

. Emerging from the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, now with a paid staff, it played an important role in the Soviet Jewry movement, including such landmark legislation as

Jackson–Vanik amendment The Jackson–Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 is a 1974 provision in United States federal law intended to affect U.S. trade relations with countries with non-market economies (originally, countries of the Communist bloc) that restrict fre ...

. Headquartered in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, it is now an umbrella organization of about 50 national organizations and 300+ local federations, community councils and committees.

History

NCSEJ comes out of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, which first met in October 1963. Among those present were

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only wr ...

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

Herbert Lehman Herbert Henry Lehman (March 28, 1878 – December 5, 1963) was an American Democratic Party politician from New York. He served from 1933 until 1942 as the 45th governor of New York and represented New York State in the U.S. Senate from 1949 ...

, Bishop

James Pike James Albert Pike (February 14, 1913–) was an American Episcopal Church (United States), Episcopal bishop, accused heretic, iconoclast, prolific writer, and one of the first mainline, charismatic religious figures to appear regularly on televi ...

Walter Reuther Walter Philip Reuther (; September 1, 1907 – May 9, 1970) was an American leader of Labor unions in the United States, organized labor and Civil rights movements, civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of ...

Norman Thomas Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 – December 19, 1968) was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. Early years Thomas was the ...

, and

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the liter ...

. This was followed in April 1964 by

Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the U.S. movement for rights of the Soviet Jewry. Small, medium, and 6-digit-size demonstrations, at important loca ...

. The AJCSJ was formally established in 1971, with the name change to NCSJ was approved on December 13, 1971.

Jerry Goodman Jerry Goodman (born March 16, 1949) is an American violinist who played electric violin with The Flock and the jazz fusion ensemble Mahavishnu Orchestra. Career Jerry Goodman was born on March 16, 1949, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were ...

was the founding executive director of NCSJ and led the organization until 1988. The organization helped link Jewish emigration to trade restrictions, leading to increase of immigration of Jews from Soviet Union to Israel in the 1970s. It organized a march for human rights for

Soviet Jews The history of the Jews in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked to much earlier expansionist policies of the Russian Empire conquering and ruling the eastern half of the European continent already before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. "For ...

on December 6, 1987, the day before a meeting between

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

and

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

, known as

Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews was the title of a national march and political rally that was held on December 6, 1987 in Washington, D.C. An estimated 250,000 participants gathered on the National Mall, calling for the General Secretary of the ...

. About 250,000 people were there, among them

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

Iosif Begun Iosif Ziselovich Begun, sometimes spelled Yosef (born July 9, 1932 in Moscow, Soviet Union; russian: Иосиф Зиселевич Бегун, he, יוסף ביגון), whose last name is pronounced "bee-goon" and in Russian literally means "runner ...

Yuli Edelstein Yuli-Yoel Edelstein ( he, יוּלִי־יוֹאֵל אֵדֶלְשְטֵיין, russian: Ю́лий Ю́рьевич Эдельште́йн, link=no, uk, Ю́лій Ю́рійович Едельште́йн, born 5 August 1958) is an Israeli ...

Ida Nudel Ida Yakovlevna Nudel ( he, אידה נודל; russian: Ида Яковлевна Нудель) (27 April 1931 – 14 September 2021) was a Soviet-born Israeli refusenik and activist. She was known as the "Guardian Angel" for her efforts to help ...

, and

Natan Sharansky Natan Sharansky ( he, נתן שרנסקי; russian: Ната́н Щара́нский; uk, Натан Щаранський, born Anatoly Borisovich Shcharansky on 20 January 1948); uk, Анатолій Борисович Щаранський, ...

. The chairman of the organization is Stephen Greenberg, and the president

Alexander Smukler Alexander Smukler (born 1960) is the chairman of the board of Agroterminal LTD and the chairman of the board of Century 21: Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. He is a former managing partner of Ariel Investment Group, which develops commercial ent ...

.NCSJ Executive Committee
/ref>

References

External links

NCSEJ website

1988 Conference
a

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

video with speeches by

George Shultz George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fou ...

and

Guide to the Papers of Jerry Goodman
at the American Jewish Historical Society {{authority control Jewish organizations based in the United States Jewish political organizations Organizations established in 1971 Political advocacy groups in the United States Soviet Jewry movement