Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ) is a

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

that reports on the human rights conditions in countries throughout

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

, exposing hate crimes and assisting communities in need. UCSJ uses grassroots-based monitoring and advocacy, as well as humanitarian aid, to protect the political and physical safety of

Jewish 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""The ...

people and other minorities in the region. UCSJ is based 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, ...

, and is linked to other organizations such as the

Moscow Helsinki Group The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, russian: link=no, Московская Хельсинкская группа) is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 ...

. It has offices in Russia and Ukraine and has a collegial relationship with human rights groups that were founded by the UCSJ in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The UCSJ was formed in 1970 as part of the Movement to Free Soviet Jewry, a response to the oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union and other countries of the

Soviet bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

Leadership

The founding president of the UCSJ was

Louis Rosenblum Louis Rosenblum (15 November 1923 – 4 April 2019) was a pioneer in the movement for freedom of emigration for the Jews in the Soviet Union, was a founder of the first organization to advocate for the freedom of Soviet Jewry Movement, Soviet Jews, ...

. Other former presidents include Hal Light,

Si Frumkin Si Frumkin (born Simas Frumkinas) (November 5, 1930 – May 15, 2009) was a Lithuanian-born Jew who survived imprisonment at the Dachau concentration camp, Dachau Nazi concentration camps, Nazi concentration camp, and emigrated to the United Sta ...

, Irene Manekofsky, Bob Gordon,

Lynn Singer Roselyn "Lynn" Brod Singer (born March 13, 1925, in Manhattan – died November 30, 2005) was an American activist for the rights of Soviet Jewry refuseniks, 'refuseniks'. As the leader of the Long Island Committee for Soviet Jewry and a member of ...

, Pamela Braun Cohen, and

Morey Schapira Morey Schapira (born 1949) is a Silicon Valley High Tech executive and Soviet Jewry movement, Soviet Jewry activist leader. Early life Schapira was born in Chicago. He resides in Sunnyvale, California. In 1970, Schapira graduated from Case Wes ...

. Leadership after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 includes

Yosef Abramowitz Yosef Abramowitz is an Israeli-American environmentalist, president and CEO of Energiya Global Capital as well as co-founder of the Arava Power Company. Biography Abramowitz was born in 1964 in the United States, to a Jewish family. He lived i ...

and Larry Lerner, Leonid Stonov as Director, and Meylakh Shekhet as Director of the Lviv Bureau. Leonid Stonov has been involved with the UCSJ since before his emigration to the U.S. in 1990, when he was a prominent

Refusenik Refusenik (russian: отказник, otkaznik, ; alternatively spelt refusnik) was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, Soviet Jews—who were denied permission to emigrate, primarily to Israel, by the authori ...

and author of the first emigration law in Soviet history, which was presented to the

Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union The Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Верховный Совет Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, r=Verkhovnyy Sovet Soyuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respubl ...

in 1989.

David Waksberg David Jonathan Waksberg (born December 14, 1956, in New York City), was a leading activist in the Soviet Jewry Movement during the 1980s and early 1990s. In the 1970s he became involved in the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. In the early 1980s h ...

served as National Vice President during the 1980s.

Activities

Activities of the UCSJ after 1991 include reporting on the human rights situation in countries of the former Soviet Union, assisting communities in need, providing support for

asylum seekers An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and mi ...

and migrants, and exposing

human rights violation Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

s and

hate crime A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...

s, whether directed against

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 or other minorities in the region, such as

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnicities * Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia ** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule * Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

s. According to a UCSJ report in 2013 approximately 1.71 million Jews remained in the post-Soviet states at that time. The reports it produces on the situation in various countries are often presented to the

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

. The Lviv office of UCSJ, in addition to running a soup kitchen for the poor of Lviv and running Jewish services for the Jews of Lviv, he has taken on the task of working to protect Jewish historical sites and to fight for human rights. He has been successful in lawsuits against the authorities in Lviv to preserve cemetery sites and destroyed synagogues from commercialization. He has also been successful in pursuing actions against officials who violated the human rights of individuals. In 2006, the UCSJ spoke against the members of the

State Duma The State Duma (russian: Госуда́рственная ду́ма, r=Gosudárstvennaja dúma), commonly abbreviated in Russian as Gosduma ( rus, Госду́ма), is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, while the upper house ...

from

Motherland A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethni ...

and the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

party who have signed a letter demanding Jewish organizations be banned in Russia. In 2007, the UCSJ condemned the conviction of journalist

Boris Stomakhin Boris Vladimirovich Stomakhin ('' Russian'': Борис Владимирович Стомахин) (born August 24, 1974 in Moscow) is a Russian radical political activist, and editor of "Radical politics" periodical. He was convicted three times fo ...

, who was accused of

hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...

. The UCSJ alerted the public to the revival of the cult of

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

child saint

Gavriil Belostoksky Gavriil is a variant of the name Gabriel and may refer to: *Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov (1921–1992), Soviet physician * Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov (1875–1960), Belarusian astronomer *Gavriil Baranovsky (1860–1920), Russian architect, civil en ...

and related blood libel accusations in

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 ...

, after the Belarusian state TV showed a film alleging that his

ritual murder Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...

was a true story.Is the New in the Post-Soviet Space Only the Forgotten Old?
by Leonid Stonov, International Director of Bureau for the Human Rights and Law-Observance in the Former Soviet Union, the President of the American Association of Jews from the former USSR (''Vestnik'' magazine) Subsequently, a branch of the UCSJ was closed by the

government of Belarus The Government of the Republic of Belarus ( be, Урад Рэспублікі Беларусь), which consists of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus (), is the executive branch of state power in Belarus, and is appointed by the ...

as part of what many observers saw as a wider crackdown on political

dissent Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...

in the region. In 2012, the USCJ supported the

Magnitsky Act The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in D ...

, a legislation adopted by the US Congress directed against Russian officials suspected of human rights violations.

References

External links

UCSJ's official siteGuide to the Records of Union of Councils for Soviet Jews
at the

American Jewish Historical Society The American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) was founded in 1892 with the mission to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish history and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation and ...

, New York.

Other Jewish organizations in the former Soviet Union

Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC) is a Jewish organisation dedicated to restoring Jewish life, culture and religion in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the former Soviet Union. The FJC was founded on August 1, 1997 ...

Russian Jewish Congress The Russian Jewish Congress is a non-profit charitable fund and Russian Jewish organization. It was established in 1996 by a group of Jewish businessmen, workers and religious figures with the goal of reviving Jewish life in Russia. It unites som ...

*The Congress of Jewish Religious Communities of Russia (KEROOR) headed by Adolf Shaievich
The World Congress of Russian JewryFederation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR)
*Vaad (Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Russia) *Moscow Jewish Community *Jewish Association of St. Petersburg (JASP).
Chabad Lubavitch movementFoundation for Jewish Campus Life (Hillel)
{{Authority control Human rights organizations based in the United States Organizations based in Washington, D.C. Jews and Judaism in the Soviet Union Jewish political organizations Supraorganizations Soviet Jewry movement

Leadership

Activities

See also

References

External links

Other Jewish organizations in the former Soviet Union