Let my people go! The Rescue of Soviet Jewry

1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK

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The rescue of Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and 80s was a vast project involving grassroots initiatives working in partnership with the organized Jewish community and government officials. Meet Jerry Goodman, the founder and Executive Director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, and other activists who struggled on behalf of refuseniks trapped behind the Iron Curtain. 

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WATCH THE TRAILER

THE SCHEDULE

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⇒ July 16-19, (optional) rent/watch the film Refusenik on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register.

⇒ Sunday, July 18 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time, tune into the discussion with our distinguished panelists.  A link will be provided to all who register.

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MEET THE PANELISTS

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Jerry Goodman, left, was the founding executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, a national agency established to coordinate the grassroots efforts of American Jews on behalf of refuseniks. He co-established the organization in 1971 and directed it until 1988. Goodman acted as a consultant to the U.S. Congress in creating the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe and helped the passing of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, a 1974 provision in United States federal law intended to restrict U.S. trade relations with USSR. He was one of the coordinators of the 1987 Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews, the largest human rights national manifestation for Soviet Jews in the history of the Soviet Jewry movement.

Born in the Soviet Union, Semyon Pinkhasov, right, immigrated to the United States in 1976. After his arrival in the United States, he coordinated the campaign to rescue the famous pianist and Soviet refusenik Vladimir Feltsman. A championship fencer, Pinkhasov was the Fencing Coach for U.S. Pan American, Olympic, and Maccabiah Teams. Later he became a documentary filmmaker specializing in stories of individuals who act heroically in the face of totalitarianism. One such film is With God Against Man telling the story of the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes. His inspiration derives from the interplay between the various aspects of his background, including sports, politics and the arts.  For more information see www.semyonpinkhasov.com.

Attorney Dorit Perry serves on the HIAS Board of Directors. She served as Chief Legal Counsel for HIAS in Rome in 1989-90 and assisted in the mass migration of 42,000 Soviet and Iranian Jewish refugees. She has practiced international and corporate law and and led global initiatives at Intel Corporation. She has served on the Adjunct Faculty of Santa Clara University Law School and Leavey Business School. She has been appointed to the California State Bar Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution and is a Fulbright Specialist. She is a graduate of Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California, Berkeley.

Robert Jacobvitz, who will moderate, serves on the Sousa Mendes Foundation Board and chairs its Advisory Council. In the 1980s he traveled to Russia to meet refuseniks on behalf of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. At that time he directed the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater East Bay, and it was in this capacity that he also began championing the cause of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. In 2005 he received the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Humanitarian Medal from the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. He wrote a seminal article on Aristides de Sousa Mendes that can be read at this link.

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Registration for this program is closed.

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This program is co-presented with HIAS.

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