People & Histories
1948–1991

Soviet Jewry: silence, refuseniks and exodus

Soviet Jews face state antisemitism and a ban on religious life, a worldwide campaign demands "Let my people go", and after 1989 over a million emigrate.

  • A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present — Zvi Gitelman, Indiana University Press (2001)
  • Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press (2012)

Well established persecutionmigrationidentity

In the Soviet Union, “Jewish” was an official nationality stamped in internal passports, but Hebrew, religious education and Zionism were suppressed. Stalin’s last years brought the execution of leading Yiddish writers in August 1952 and the fabricated “Doctors’ Plot” of 1953.

  • A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present — Zvi Gitelman, Indiana University Press (2001)
After Israel’s 1967 victory many Soviet Jews sought to emigrate; those refused exit visas, the refuseniks, such as Natan Sharansky, imprisoned from 1977 to 1986, became causes célèbres for a global “Let my people go” movement. As the USSR collapsed, around a million Jews and their family members left for Israel from 1989 onward, with many others going to the US and Germany.
  • A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present — Zvi Gitelman, Indiana University Press (2001)
  • Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press (2012)

Why it matters today

Jewish people

Russian-speaking Jews are now a major part of Israeli society and of communities in the US and Germany. The campaign to free Soviet Jewry united Jews worldwide, and many families still carry the experience of being "Jewish" only by the stamp in their passport.