Letter to Mayor Lindsay Soliciting His Endorsement for Soviet Jewry Campaign (1969)

/ Letter to Mayor Lindsay Soliciting His …

Correspondence

Nov. 25, 1969

Letter to Mayor Lindsay Soliciting His Endorsement for Soviet Jewry Campaign (1969)

Soviet Jewry

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Speech by Mayor John V. Lindsay - Soviet Jewry Protest (1969)

Rabbi Lamm, Mr. Riseman, Senator Goldin, Theodore Bikel, Ladies and Gentlemen: Tonight should be a time of celebration – for the Jewish community of New York, and of the world. Yet we meet tonight in sorrow – and we meet in anger, too.Tonight we should be gathering to mark our rejoicing over the Laws of God, enriched by the work of man. Yet we gather here to speak out – to speak against a continuing, unjustifiable insidious desecration of one of the supreme laws of the spirit – the right to worship our God by the dictates of our conscience.Tonight, even as we meet, thousands of Jews will gather in the streets of Moscow -- to worship, to sing, to express their own sense of joy. We gather in freedom - they do not. For the Soviet Union has made clear that it does not intend to permit its Jewish community to nurture its traditions and to survive. And thus these brave men and women celebrate their faith at great risk. We are here tonight to let them know that we stand with them in the streets of Moscow -- and we stand with them in their struggle to remain free in spirit.We know the burden they bear. Their cultural heritage is threatened by official sanction and hidden intimidation -- they are effectively forbidden to develop schools, federations, journals, the whole range of tools for the preservation of a rich cultural heritage -- a heritage which lives and thrives today in every part of this city and this country. We know, too, that by heavy-handed persecution of Jewish writers and thinkers, the Soviet State has raised an unmistakable warning - a warning which says that to remain a free Jew in Russia is to put your career and your freedom in jeopardy.The courage of the Soviet Union’s Jewish community, in the face of this threat of cultural genocide, is inspiring. They have raised their voices in protest; they have publicly asked for their rights; and tonight, in celebration of the Law of God and man, they will in effect be saying "no" to the threat of state-sanctione…

Correspondence

Letter to Mayor Lindsay about UN March for Soviet Jewry (1969)

Dear Mr. Lindsay: The New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, a coordinating committee of the local chapters of the major national Jewish organizations, will be conducting a demonstration for Soviet Jewry at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza of the United Nations on Thursday, October 2, at 6:30 p.m. The demonstration, which will be called a Simchat Torah Celebration, will be held to express solidarity with the young people in the Soviet Union who each year have congregated at the large synagogues in Moscow and Leningrad to dance on this joyous holiday as an expression of their Jewish identity. We would be most honored if you, as the Chief Executive of this great city and as one who has spoken out on this important issue in the past, could be with us and extend greetings to the thousands whom we expect will be there. We hope your schedule can be so arranged, and would appreciate it greatly if you could let us know as soon as possible, so that we can make the necessary arrangements for our publicity and invitations. Rabbi Norman Lamm, Chairman – David Geller, Coordinator – N.Y. Conference on Soviet Jewry.

Correspondence

Letter to Isadore Cohen Soliciting Support for Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (1969)

Dear Mr. Cohen: I am writing to you concerning a most unusual, little understood, and highly underappreciated group – the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. As one who has been associated with them directly from the very beginning, and especially recently in my capacity as Chairman of the New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, I have had occasion to judge the quality and extent of their contribution. They are the only full, exclusive group of young people devoted to the cause of Soviet Jewry, and they are involved in every single public project of importance that the Jewish community undertakes for this cause. Their value to all work for Russian Jews is inestimable – without their participation and leadership, very little of what the community does could succeed.Furthermore, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry has had a marvelous effect on the young people they attract. It is no secret that so very much of the best of our youth is being drained away from the Jewish community for radical and other non-Jewish (and sometimes anti-Jewish) causes. Somehow, we have failed to provide a healthy, Jewish outlet for the idealistic zeal of our youth, at the very time that youth throughout the country — and world — is gripped by a fervor for action and new ideals.The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, however, has stepped into the breach and is answering this need in a splendid fashion. It was a remarkable and heart-warming sight when, on October 2nd (at the Simchat Torah Celebration for Soviet Jewry), some 2,000 young people, the greatest number of whom were brought down by or belonged to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, sang and danced and listened and protested for 3–5 hours while drenched by uninterrupted rain, coming down in buckets. Surely such devotion and enthusiasm deserves recognition by the adult community.But despite such heroic contributions, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry lives in abject poverty. True, the students all give of themselves voluntarily …