Let My People Go: The Transnational Politics of Soviet Jewish Emigration During the Cold War

by Pauline Peretz

Overview

American Jews' mobilization on behalf of Soviet Jews is typically portrayed as compensation for the community's inability to assist European Jews during World War II. Yet, as Pauline Peretz shows, the role Israel played in setting the agenda for a segment of the American Jewish community was central. Her careful examination of relations between the Jewish state and the Jewish diaspora offers insight into Israel's influence over the American Jewish community and how this influence can be conceptualized.

To explain how Jewish emigration moved from a solely Jewish issue to a humanitarian question that required the intervention of the US government during the Cold War, Peretz traces the activities of Israel in securing the immigration of Soviet Jews and promoting awareness in Western countries.

Peretz uses mobilization studies to explain a succession of objectives on the part of Israel and the stages in which it mobilized American Jews. Peretz attempts to reintroduce Israel as the missing, yet absolutely decisive actor in the history of the American movement to help Soviet Jews emigrate in difficult circumstances.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412856751
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/30/2015
Series:	Routledge Jewish Studies Series
Pages:	372
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Pauline Peretz is associate professor at the University of Nantes and previously taught at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Paris). She is a researcher at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Peretz is a member of the editorial team of La Vie des Idées and is the editor of the book series Raconter la vie published with Le Seuil.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: Israel, Instigator of Mobilization within the Diaspora, 1953–63

1 The Jewish Community Reaches Political Maturity

2 Mobilization in the Postwar Years

3 An American Campaign Orchestrated by Israel,1955–63

Part II: From Community Mobilization to Humanitarian Movement, 1964–71

4 An American Movement in Support of the Rights of Soviet Jewry, 1964–66

5 The Six-Day War: A Turning Point for the American Jewish Community, 1967–71

Part III: The Emigration of Soviet Jewry: A Central Issue in Soviet-American Relations, 1972-Late 1980s

6 The Emigration of Soviet Jewry: An Obstacle to Detente, 1972–74 193

7 Jewish Rights or Human Rights in the Soviet Union? 1975–79

8 Jewish Emigration as a Barometer of US-Soviet Relations in the 1980s

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Chronology

List of Acronyms

Select Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

Pauline Peretz has written an insightful and important book based on exhaustive research and documentation. Her brilliant analysis explains the role of the American and Israeli governments, as well as that of the American Jewish community, in encouraging or discouraging the immigration of Russian Jews to the United States. One of the most important books ever written on this critical period in the history of the Jews.” —William Helmreich, City College of NY and CUNY Graduate Center and author of Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Sucxcessful Lives they Made in America Review of the French edition, “The campaign on behalf of Soviet Jewry for the right to emigrate was a transnational social and political movement for human rights that spanned decades, and culminated with considerable success. Between 1948 and 1991 approximately 1.3 million Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union. . . . Pauline Peretz’s finely etched study demonstrates the complexity of the movement and the conflicting agendas that motivated the major protagonists. . . . Peretz’s narrative weaves together analysis of those competing agendas on the levels of public and state policy, communal mobilization, and social activism. . . . This is an outstanding study that is admirable in its attention to detail, groundbreaking in its exploration on the role of Israel in shaping (or attempting to shape) a complex international movement to its own advantage, and appropriately nuanced in drawing conclusions. It is the best book on the theme available.” —R. Craig Nation, The Journal of American History "Peretz has written a fascinating account, especially as the relevant archives remain classified in Israel. . . . One million Jews left the USSR for Israel and elsewhere during the 1990s. This book sets in context the origins and commitment of the American movement that led the way." —Colin Shindler, The Jewish Chronicle Praise for the French edition, “To my knowledge, nothing quite like this book exists. . . . International historians will be impressed by the work’s cross cultural analysis and the blending of sources from Israel, several European countries, the former Soviet Union, and of course the United States. Others will be pleased to see that the analysis is not limited to the rarefied world of policy makers but includes broad social and intellectual movements. . . . The saga of how the American Jewish community and American leaders came to embrace the cause of freedom for Russian Jews had not been told well until Pauline Peretz came along.” —Olivier Zunz, University of Virginia Praise for the French edition, “A very important book. . . . This promises to be one of the more thoughtful and constructive interpretations of how the American Jewish community was and was not able to influence American public policy.” —Julian Zelizer, Princeton University “This book comprehensively examines the emigration of over a million Jews from the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. French scholar Peretz (Univ. of Nantes, France) focuses on the transnational nature of the campaign that the Israeli state undertook to promote and facilitate the emigration of Soviet Jews by mobilizing and influencing Diaspora Jewish communities, especially American Jewry. The author explores the extensive clandestine and public efforts to create circumstances that would cause the Soviet regime to allow its Jews to emigrate. Political science methodology provides the primary framework for examining the institutions, groups, US and Soviet governments, and others engaged by the Israeli efforts to bring Soviet Jews to Israel. Transnational interaction and friction between Israel and American Jewry is a major theme. The translation from French is at times awkward or too literal, and not fully adapted to American English usage. There are also numerous errors in grammar and syntax that should have been corrected by copy editors. Too often, passages lack sufficiently clear citation of sources. Nevertheless, the book provides a valuable French-European perspective on Soviet Jewish emigration and American Jewry.” —R. M. Shapiro, Brooklyn College

From the Publisher