Interview with Jerry Goodman – February 19, 2004 – Inbal Hotel.

The interview took place at the Inbal Hotel where The Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations was convening.

I (Yuli) said that the purpose is to keep live voices of those who contributed a lot to our exodus. I want to restore all fabric of events in Russia, America, Israel and Europe concerning our exodus. I know it’s a mission impossible. But I try to be as exact as possible. First, America.

Then, Robert Meth was introduced by Chairman of NCSJ. He recalled that I came to Los Angeles with Martin Wenik, the director of NCSJ (he previously worked in Leningrad). I explained that I was taking an interview. Robert mentioned that I raised the pension problem of refuseniks last year at the Jewish Agency when Chaim Chessler was still treasurer.

Jerry asked if I am working with Aba. I said that Aba is creating an archives, whereas I’m writing a book. Jerry commented that several people are doing books on the Soviet Jewry movement in America and I’ve been working with them. As Jerry’s wife said, it’s the book I should have done but I didn’t. Instead I’m working with others who are writing books. One [of those people] is in Israel, Professor Fred Lazin at Ben Gurion University. He’s writing a book on the Soviet Jewry movement in America. I put him in touch with [some] archives and in touch with Mark Levin, but he’s more interested in the Soviet period when I was there; Mark was there, too, but in a different capacity. He’s more interested in the founding of the movement in America: asking questions about Jackson-Vanik, the struggles with the President’s Conference, the groups who did what to help the National Conference come into existence even within the Jewish community.

Then there’s another fellow writing a book, a professor at the Baruch College in New York in the city university system – Henry Feingold. His book will focus on the campaign in Washington. He’s not interested in the movement around the country.

Fred Lazin is [writing about] the whole movement. I haven’t seen the texts. Those are two books.

Then there’s a young woman in Paris doing a doctoral dissertation, Peres or Peretz. She interviewed me and sent me two tapes of my interview with her, but, since they were on a European system and I couldn’t transcribe them, I never heard them. Then there are two other people doing dissertations [who] I didn’t work with, but I sent them to others [who are] doing doctoral dissertations.

Jerry said that there are a lot of people now focusing on the American movement. I said that it’s natural, as these were the glorious hours of our Jewish history. I told Jerry that Joe Smukler [works] with a professor who is writing a book to restore the history of the advocacy movement in America. He thought that, perhaps, Joe may have been talking about… Jerry said, “We are building an archives on the Soviet Jewry movement in America. We are building it at the Center of Jewish History in Manhatten, a building on 16th Street. We’re doing it together with the American Jewish Historical Society. NCSJ is one of the cooperating groups and Mark Levin [is] on our planning group. We have Micah Naftalin from the Union of Councils. We have the President’s Conference and all the major groups working together on this project. I’ve already put my personal archives – emptying out 10 cartons I’ve been storing… We need to put together a board to raise money but we can’t put together a board until we find a Chairman or Chairwoman… So far, everyone turned us down because they don’t want the responsibility… Joe would have done it… but we got to him a month too late, as ADL coopted him. Abe Foxman got him to chair his International Commission. We got to him a month too late.” Jerry told him, “It’s a mistake. This will be more exciting!” Joe said, “You’re absolutely right, Jerry, but I promised Abe that I would do it… If you hadn’t gotten to me a month before…” So much in life, timing is half of it…

[Jerry continued], “Someone suggested this person [who] said no, and then another [who] said no, and then we found a rich Russian Jew, Blavatnik, who said no. When I get back, I have to focus on the archives. Until we get a Chairman, we have a minimal staff. We have to raise money to hire an archivist, a professional.” Jerry said he’s not an archivist. He said [he will] work with [an] archivist. I asked what is Jerry’s profession now, and Jerry said he has a real job and doing [the archives] is a labor of love. In Colorado is the Union of Councils archives and Micah who put his personal papers in the same archives as mine in New York [sic]. Micah said he will try and get it back. Enid told Jerry that Boulder may no longer be interested in having the Union of Councils archives. Jerry said that he’ll take [those archives] back to New York. Jerry was happy that Enid told him about the possibility of getting the Union of Councils’ archives. Glenn’s archives are at the Yeshiva University.

My first question was from the end… My impression was that American Jewry throughout all this fight for our exodus demonstrated its excellent qualities and succeeded to cooperate within itself and to press Soviet authorities and get excellent results. Why it wasn’t possible to do the same during the Second World War?

Jerry explained that he wrote an article about this, because the Jewish community in World War II, which was my Mother’s generation, was a generation mostly of immigrants who came in the 20’s and 30’s who had no political power… It was a different world… a different Jewish community. The Jewish community in the late 1930’s and certainly during the period of the war was not as organized. It was heavily immigrant dominated, people who were born in Europe, my parents generation and they had no sense of coming up against the powers that be… against the government. This is not what they would have done… There were some demonstrations. There were some events. People think nothing happened. It’s not true. What happened you didn’t have the mass of the Jewish community organized the way it was organized after World War II. The reason after World War II, certain things happened. First of all, you already had a native born generation developing, spoke English, knew its away around the media, and Washington. Secondly, in the earlier generation you had poor people. They were working class people. My parents worked in factories. After World War II, you begin to develop a Jewish community that has professional people, business people, a different profile, and people who already had not only access to power and to the media but had money which the previous generation did not have. So they had the means to carry out activities. Certainly, by the time you got to the 50’s, and 60’s and 70’s – the 60’s when the movement began, you had a post World War II generation… You had a Jewish community which was organized the way the Jewish community before and during World War II was not organized. You had a grassroots network already in place which did not exist, like the Jewish Community Relations Council.

Yuli: Did Shoa play in this some role?

Jerry: there is no question. Then you had younger people whose parents may have survivors of the Shoa, who came to America and you had survivors themselves. You had both going. The slogan”never again” which was not created by the JDL. They used it. What did it mean? It was a slogan which meant that never again will we allow Jews to go as sheep to slaughter. I think it was a false statement. You and I know that Jews in Europe did not necessarily go as sheep to slaughter. It’s a fraud and a fiction on the many who died who were heroes. There were Jews were partisans, Jews who fought in the Russian army, and in the French army. There were Jews who even resisted sometimes in the death camps. It wasn’t easy. Nevertheless, OK, there is that myth, partially true, which is like many myths, built on some reality. So what you had is a generation of survivors and/or children of survivors. When I became the director of The National Conference on Soviet Jewry, when I was asked to organize it, one of the people on the staff of the New York Conference was Zissy Schnur. She was a child of survivors. She didn’t know it, by the way when she was a child. She discovered later that her parents were survivors. They had never told her. But the point is that she grew up in an environment of people like her parents. She was motivated, I think, to become involved. So it was a whole different profile of America, of American Jewry. You, also, had America which began to feel guilty about what it did not do to save Jews in World War II.

Yuli: was there a feeling of guilt?

Jerry: when you get members of Congress like Scoop Jackson who talked about.. one of the reasons he became involved and one of the ways we got him involved, I should say .. Not only was he the son of immigrant parents himself and he always talked about it. He first came to the National Conference when he first brought the idea of his amendment to our leadership group and he talked about his Norwegian immigrant parents. I am the child of immigrants. I know what it’s like to find a home. And they were affected by the stories of the Shoa, that came out in the 50’s, post Holocaust and people were saying Americans could have, should have done and yet it affected many members of Congress.. Jews who did not vote back then, who had influence of members of Congress said if you don’t remember, we’ll make you remember. They played on guilt.

Yuli: Helping us, partially at least, was solving its internal problems as well.

Jerry: I think what it was doing was, looking back, when you start a movement you tend to have blacks and whites – absolutes, it’s easier. You can’t create a mass movement with subtleties… So what happens was you have people who were saying; My grandfather died in the Shoa. In part, that’s what happened to me. My grandparents were killed in the Riga Ghetto. I have a whole bunch of uncles and aunts. When I first became involved in the Soviet Jewry movement, I went as a student to the Soviet Union. I was not yet involved in the movement and I met my only surviving Uncle in Russia. Listening to his stories, later when I came back in the mid-60’s I was then a young worker in the Jewish community and that story of what happened to him remained… and then I began to hear about the Jews in Riga… the activists. I put it all together…

Yuli: A passionate movement…

Jerry: No question.. In my view… I’m being simplistic. Some of the major forces which affected our movement was the sense of frustration about the Shoa and that we did not really know what was going on with you in the Soviet Union. There had been some trials. Jews were arrested for economic crimes in the early ‘60’s. We hadn’t even heard from you.. You and your colleagues were silent as far as we were concerned. The first national conference on Soviet Jewry was in America was in 1963 or 1964 in Washington. There were no refuseniks. We never heard of Kosharovsky. Natan was hardly even born. We didn’t know any of the people. So we did it because Jews were being arrested for economic crimes I’ll never forget… we came to Philadelphia, we had a meeting. We were so ignorant. The emotion. We drafted a bill of rights for Soviet Jewry. 18 points for Soviet Jewry. 17 focused on religion, culture, Hebrew… Number 18, the last, last one dealt with reunification of families. We were as ignorant about of you as anything else. The Jews of Silence that Elie Weisel went to write about in 1965, was not us. It was Soviet Jews! People think that Jews of Silence meant American Jews. No he meant the Jews of Silence in the Soviet Union. What sold us: The Shoa and, secondly, the civil rights movement in America. When African-Americans began to mobilize and create their own civil rights movement, there were a lot of young Jews who became part of that movement. And they transferred both the emotions and techniques to doing Soviet Jewry work. Some of the first people in Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, myself as well, had all been involved in the civil rights movement in the United States and they saw simplistically that freeing Soviet Jews was a movement for civil rights and they plunged right in.

Yuli: I know in America there are plenty of Jewish organizations, in every city, how did you succeed to coordinate them somehow, to make them move in one direction, to present them to the American government as policy makers, as a united mighty movement. Who did political analysis? Who did decision-making? How do you organize all this bullion (salad of different organizations with their own agenda)?

Jerry: How was this done? You asked several questions. How was it done? How did we learn how to do it? Who did it? There not all the same answers. The government of Israel was an important component in why did an dhow we did it. You can blame Lishkat Hakesher for a million things but without them there wouldn’t have been a National Conference. I would not have become the first director. I was plucked by the Israeli emissary in New York who said to me will you take this job? It took me four seconds to think about it… For two reasons: I had an academic background. I had my master’s in international affairs. I wasn’t working as an academic. At the American Jewish Committee I had already taken on responsibility for Soviet Jews. There was something called the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry which was a loose gathering of organizations, very loose – no staff person, no professional person. Towards the end, my former friend who died, Abe Bayer did it for seven years. So I was the American Jewish Committee representative there. What I had that most of my colleagues did not have was the academic background. I had the activist background. I had been a Zionist kid. I had always been an activist. That was why I chose not to go into academia, not to teach. I wanted to be on the ground. Then there was the magic of my personality. Whatever it was – I had it all put together. Yehoshua Pratt came to me… I’ll never forget..and said Jerry – would you do this? I must have insane… because I said yes. We had no money… I was given 11,000 dollars.

Yuli: Was that the start of the National Conference?

Jerry: Yes.

Yuli: What year?

Jerry: It was 1971. I was given 11,000 dollars that had been left over from a pool of money from Soviet Jewry activities before that the community did in a sort of in an ad hoc way…

Yuli: Was the Lishka a source of financing?

Jerry: Financing was American. The political background. I was just sitting with Meir Rosenne today and he reminded me that back in 1963 the Israelis brought to the American Jewish Committee a book by Trofim Kichko, a Ukrainian, called Judaism Without Embellishment and he gave it to Morris Abram who was President of the American Jewish Committee and, also, the American Representative to the Human Rights Commission and the book was exposed to the world. It was a horrible book with anti-Semitic cartoons.. It was one of the first things that got people mobilized which is what the Israelis wanted and we re-printed copies to make it exactly looking like the original. I have one of the originals and I have one of the original copies and you can’t tell the difference with the same yellow cover with a man in a tallit with finger nails hanging out… It was so ugly… It was like from Der Stumer.. When people saw that – they went crazy. It’s one thing for a Jewish organization to issue a propaganda booklet. It’s something else to see something coming out of the Soviet Union. That was 1963. The first conference was in 1964 in Washington in the Willard Hotel and in part, it was that book that got everyone including the American Jewish community all agitated.

Yuli: The conference of what?

Jerry: 24 national Jewish organizations came together. It was the first time that they had all met on the issue of Soviet Jewry.

Yuli: You were not part of it?

Jerry: I was. I was a kid. I was a student. I was at that conference. They asked me if I would be the first coordinator afterwards. What did I know. I said yes. I did all the wrong things. I sent out a letterhead to mobilize a meeting and I sent it out on the letterhead of The American Jewish Committee. Someone from American Jewish Congress, Shad Polier, I’ll never forget, said: Whose the fool who sent out this letter? I’m this kid sitting in the corner and I said – “Here I am”… My master’s degree in international relations did not train me for that… I learned quickly… The scars on my back show it… So we developed a letterheard… It was called An American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry. This was 1964. I don’t remember how long it lasted..

Yuli: 1964 – National Conference started?

Jerry: This was the origin. I’ll explain… Afterwards it was decided that we can’t just have a meeting – something must be done afterwards. Therefore, we created the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry. Every six months there would be a volunteer professional from one of the member organizations to send out notices, call a meeting, send out minutes, whatever… Eventually, it began to do things. We held an event organized by a Rabbi – Dick Hirsh who is here in Jerusalem. It was “An Eternal Light Vigil for Soviet Jewry. There was still no National Conference, there were still no refusenik movement, there were still no refuseniks. We had this “Eternal Light Vigil for Soviet Jewry” in Washington. We did things like that… There was a big event in Madison Square Garden. When Leah Slovina came out, Ruth Alexandrovich, her niece, from Riga, was imprisoned or about to be, we had a big rally in Madison Square Garden. (I forgot which year. I can check the archives… still before National Conference was formed) Phil Baum, of the American Jewish Congress, was one of the major organizers and we had Bobby Kennedy who came to speak. So we began to do things but it was sporadic, erratic… We didn’t have a regular… After the Leningrad trials, the arrests in 1970 and the trials in 1971, after the aborted airplane so called… I don’t use the word hijacking because under law it was not a hijacking…

Yuli: It’s one of the questions… They really tried to catch a plane.

Jerry: But it wasn’t a hijacking… It was one of the first things I learned about propaganda. Know what you’re doing and be careful how you phrase it. Hijacking is a very specific definition. The plane has to be up in the air. You seize the plane with passengers. They had their own pilot. They were stealing state property. Yes… but you could have stolen a truck… Same thing… The fact that you’re flying doesn’t matter. It wasn’t skyjacking in the classic sense. We learned how to phrase it. It was very important. When that happened and they began to arrest young folks in different cities around the Soviet Union, the old American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry got together again and said we can’t do business as usual. Then there were trials in December 1970 and Dymshitz and Kusnetsov were sentenced to death and we called a major, major leadership rally in Washington. We had 1,000 people who came to Washington. A delegation went to see President Nixon. (I wasn’t part of it… I was still young… I wasn’t important enough) This was December 1970. The result was they succeeded in averting the death sentences and instead they got 15 years. One of the highlights of my life is when Dymshitz and Kusnetsov came out which is another story… Anyway after that the groups met and Lishkat Hakesher said wait a second, we have to do something much more than we have been doing…and they decided to create an ongoing permanent group and they set up a committee to do it. They came out in June of 1971 with the report to create a National Conference for Soviet Jewry which would be permanent, ongoing, have an office, a budget and a staff, none of this other stuff which had been ad hoc. Some of the groups didn’t want it. They don’t like to hear it but the Conference of Presidents, the group that organized this very meeting we’re at now, was opposed to it because it would have meant taking away their power and influence to some extent… I’m being very blunt…

Yuli: A professional body plus a special task force…

Jerry: It wasn’t a task force. They wanted something more – a separate office the Israelis said and they were right. The President’s Conference said – you can meet in our office. Yehuda Hellman was absolutely opposed to it. The late Isaiah Minkoff who was then executive vice chair of NJCRSC, now JCPA, said you’ll meet in our office. No – no – No. Eventually I was hired as the first director. Malcolm Hoenlein became the first director of the New York office – of the Conference of Soviet Jewry. He went on to bigger and better things. I remained in the back water of Jewish life.

Yuli: Who was the first President?

Jerry: Richard Maas. I agreed to do it on one condition. I should have made more conditions like a pension for my kids. I wasn’t smart enough. I said one condition. Richie Maas with whom I had worked at the American Jewish Committee, a lovely, lovely human being, who was Chairman of their International Commission… I said Richie Maas has to come on as Chairman. Richie agreed. Two of us came from the American Jewish Committee. I came as Executive Director of this new body. He came as the first Chairman. He was respected. It was important that I knew him so we could work together. He knew me. I knew him It was easy to work together. We couldn’t afford the luxury of getting to know the lay leadership and waste all that time. I was comfortable with him. I was given 11,000 dollars which was left over… We got an office and we didn’t have money. I remember paying staff out of my pocket… my money for about four months… I paid the secretary out of money they paid me…

I then took some of that and paid staff which I never got back. Otherwise the organization never would have taken off the ground. I’m not saying I was better but it was a commitment I made. I was going to turn all sorts of cartwheels and do everything possible to see that this organization would move ahead. Eventually we got our own offices… and the rest was, as we say was history… That’s how it started. We had opposition. There’s no question. You know -it got done…

Yuli: Who did real political analysis what to do; mainstream; how to deal with other organizations who tried to put their legs into the Soviet Union like religious orthodox organizations?

Jerry: We took into the National Conference orthodox, Zionists, non-Zionist, a whole range of Jewish organizations. We didn’t have the ultra orthodox as many of them were opposed to our demonstrating and going public even then… The Lubavitch doesn’t do that… We already had a wide range… Through one of the organizations – then called National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council and today called the Jewish Council for Public Affairs – we were able to reach into the local communities. That was one of our major strengths. We could already reach down into the local level because they already had a set-up; I don’t know how many communities then; now it’s over 100 communities now where you have local community relations councils; and through their national organization which is a member of the National Conference – we had the reach. We could also, reach through the Council of Federations every local federation around the country. We didn’t have to set up local chapters. And that’s why when we were criticized by local militants… We didn’t have to do what the Union of Council did.. They had to create local chapters. People criticized us for not being grass roots… What are you talking about? We had 100 local community relations councils. Between local federations and community councils – 300 hundred local groups. No one ever had that…

Yuli: The main thing you had a policy and you had a direction.

Jerry: then we developed a direction and a policy. We had a network. How did it happen? In a variety of ways. A lot of people would take credit. First of all we had the insight of the Israelis. They had their fingers into the Soviet Union. They analyzed the Soviet press.. They gave us information which we would never have gotten on our own and with a steady flow. We worked very closely which one was one of the differences between us and then the Union of Councils
and Student Struggle. Student Struggle then joined us. They joined the National Conference early. We had a very close relationship from the beginning with Lishkat Hakesher and Misrad Hachutz.

Yuli: Student Struggle began independently?

Jerry: Back in the ‘60’s. We all did. That’s one of the reasons we created this umbrella. We invited the Union of Councils in and they refused. When the National Conference was created and then asked to bring the Union of Councils in. They decided not to join. They wanted to maintain their own independence. Student Struggle joined. There were two groups. The brains… the vision… the political analysis was a collective process. We would meet with a group of professionals of some of the major Jewish organizations, sophisticated people, like William Korey of B’nai Brith who knew the Soviet Union, written books and was an expert on human rights. He knew Russian. Phil Baum of the American Jewish Congress. People like that… Phil was in charge of international issues for the American Jewish Congress. We would all meet on a regular basis and we would share insights and thoughts. We began to work… That’s what this book that Henry Feingold is focusing on… There were people in Washington who were Jewish operatives. Sy Kennan, was then, I’ll never forget, was the chief executive at AIPAC and he taught me things that I never even thought of asking… There are things you don’t know but then there are things you don’t know you didn’t know… There were things that he taught me that I didn’t know that I didn’t know… He was one of my mentors because I had to to learn a lot. I had the intellectual background but I didn’t have the grassroots way of doing things. I ultimately had to have the responsibility but I had to learn and I was blessed by having these people… When we came up early on with the idea of linking trade with emigration, Sy Kennan brought me to Washington and I met with some of the key Jewish operatives – Richard Perle from Jackson’s office, Mark Talisman from Vanik’s office, from Javitz’s office, Ribicoff – Jewish senators and we became a brain trust of our own. We would meet and we were just as smart as anyone in the State Department or in Washington. If we needed to consult, I began to bring in from time to time academics, I’ll never forget, Maurice Friedberg, I think he’s still alive, and Abe Brumberg – these were people who specialized in Soviet affairs – good Jews and we brought them into our process – It became collective. There was no one person. We’d sit around. Someone would have an idea…

Yuli: the brainstorm consisted of how many people?

Jerry: It varied..

Yuli: On a constant basis more or less?

Jerry: No more than a dozen. Then we’d bring in others..

Yuli: name names..

Jerry: I gave you some.. Bill Corey from Bnai Brith. Phil Baum from the American Jewish Congress. Yehuda Hellman from the President’s Conference. Sy Kennan – early on because he knew Washington and about legislation. Then we brought in Jewish staff people like Mark Talisman Richard Perle, Morrie Amitay who came in later, at that time he was working for Ribicoff, and then became the executive head of AIPAC. So we had a Jewish cabal – I say that laughingly… We had a network of people who cared enough..

Yuli: the idea of Jackson-Vanik was born in this group?

Jerry: in some part…

Yuli: inside the Soviet Union – they demanded the credit…

Jerry: the person who deserves the credit is a young woman whose name I cannot remember.. She worked for Congressman, Burt Podell, a Brooklyn congressman. I saw Burt Podell a year ago. I interviewed him. I’ve forgotten her name The idea of linkage came up through his office. Jacob Javitz who was a Senator, was the first one, if my memory serves me, was the first one to articulate it in public. There was a rally in New York City organized by the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry. Javitz spoke there. We were part of it but it was really New York and Malcom. Javitz spoke there and he spoke about linking, I don’t know how he phrased it, but trade and economic issues…

Yuli: grain…

Jerry: that was part of it.. but the whole issue of economic relations was to use it as a lever.. Then the exact formula which came to be known as Jackson-Vanik once we agreed on the principle of economic linkage that came about through the Washington brain trust of Talisman, Perle, and this young woman initially, and Sy Kennan was part of it. They then brought me to a meeting in Washington to test out the idea. I liked it. I liked it. We then had a meeting of the National Conference – an emergency meeting..

Yuli: About Jackson-Vanik – did you have any quarrels with the Lishka?

Jerry: No. Jackson-Vanik – once we discussed the idea of linkage and these guys came up with linking it specifically with credits and with related issues and trade specifically, we had an emergency meeting. The Russians thought they were so smart. Moscow introduced an exit tax for education. We went crazy. Soviet Jews went crazy. By that time we were already in contact with people from Moscow. This was in 1972.

Yuli: Was it 1973 when you first came to Moscow?

Jerry: 1972

Yuli: I remember you at the synagogue with Sharansky pushing each other.

Jerry: Then I couldn’t go back. I went there before I became notorious or well-known. Then after that they refused me visas. At one point the Lishka said even if they give you a visa, you can’t go. They were afraid for my security. They were convinced because it happened to an official of the Joint when was in Prague. He was killed. Charles Jordan was killed in Prague and they were afraid something like that could happen to me. I could be hit by a car. There would be an accident. And so they wouldn’t let me go. It was 1972. I had been there before on my own. In 1972 I was there from National Conference. Then I went later with members of Congress and Mark Levin. I already hired Mark for our Washington office. We went with three members of Congress. I remember Nehemia Levanon of the Lishka finally said OK but only if you go with members of Congress. They were my protection, they were my shield. It may have been 1985 or 1986. When did we go to Washington – in 1987? I have forgotten. It was a big interval. No, no it was the late ‘70’s. It was the winter time. It was cold.

Yuli: Lishkat Hakesher was for?

Jerry: What happened was I got a call from Richard Perle. We had this emergency meeting. We tried to decide what to do about the tax. This came up as a possible issue. Richard Perle, Jackson’s staff person called me and said look- Scoop Jackson wants to come down and speak to your meeting. I spoke to Richie Mass, our Chairman. He and I made the decision that Scoop Jackson would come down. We didn’t ask anybody because we had 125 people there. What would you do? Take a poll? It wasn’t very democratic but we made our decision. I’ll never forget. We were standing in the kitchen. I’ll never forget. We took the phone in the kitchen. We were meeting in the B’nai Brith building.

Scoop came down and he put the specifics of the bill (which we had agreed upon in a general way) before us. There was a big debate. Yes. No. Some people were opposed to it. The overwhelming majority approved it the next day. And that’s how the whole battle for Jackson Vanik… The Lishka was definitely behind it. Absolutely. They were opposed to the kind of militancy of the students did – disrupting a concert in Carnegie Hall. That they were opposed to. They were behind it (Jackson Vanik). They were behind the rallies. They provided us with information we couldn’t get elsewhere. Lishka was always involved. In fact there were times when some people tried to soften, who were pro-Nixon in the Jewish community, tried to soften our support for Jackson-Vanik. And I remember meeting…

Yuli: Nixon’s first visit was 1972 and second in 1974

Jerry: What happened. Nixon went in 1972, came back and the Russians launched the education tax after he came back. We said, “You were betrayed. They lied to you Mr. President.” In fact he felt that they had lied to him and they waited until he came back to make this announcement about this tax. We began to mobilize Congressmen. The Jewish members of Congress in both the House and the Senate were always the foremost but they got others in. Some members like Jack Kemp from New York who had Jewish voters. Others because they were sympathetic to the issue. Some because were anti-Communist. There is a whole bunch of reason as to why they became involved. With Jackson-Vanik, we also, had the labor movement who were anti-Soviet. Someone asked me years later could you do it again. I don’t think so. Why? At a certain time in history all of the forces were lined up. The stars, the planets were lined up the right way. We had labor who was anti-Soviet. We had Nixon who wanted detent but felt screwed. We had Jackson and a whole bunch of members of Congress. Everything fell into place.

Yuli: for you, as an American citizen and American public, it was a question of human rights. For Israel – it was a question of aliya. For Israel, our working with dissidents was not so pleasant. For you, it was an advisable issue. How did you solve this?

Jerry: Actually for us, aliya was important. We knew that.

Yuli: You worked for aliya. You worked with Lishkat Hakesher but you could not present it to the American public?

Jerry: Exactly. The way we presented which was legitimate was that it was about human rights. These people have the right to leave. We used the United Nations international conventions – the right to leave and the right to live. One of the first posters which the National Conference put out which won a prize, I’ll never forget it – a red poster with black Kremlin wall – a tough place to live, (not grammatically correct, a tough place to leave. Even from the beginning… All these questions.. All my energy… I get so excited. I relive my whole life. I get so excited again.

Yuli: the difference between human rights and aliya you solved.

Jerry: We had no problem. What we did is as a tactic because we could not sell to the American people aliya to Israel. We used the term legitimately “reunification of families”. That is enshrined in international law. It’s part of the Helsinki Accords – part of the Helsinki Final Act – in basket 3 of the Helsinki Final Act – reunification of families. We latched onto that. This is a perfect example of that. You asked about the brain trust. We always analyzed what new tactics could we use – what new tools could we use. And it varied. One thing which we decided upon internationally because at that point a World Conference on Soviet Jewry was created because of the Lishka. They brought us together. We held the first conference in Brussels in 1971. Brussels II in 1976. I think it was 1973. I worked on both. The first one when I was at the American Jewish Committee, and the second one when I was already at National Conference. And we brought together similar groups which had been created in England and France and Holland. While we were the big guerilla, so to speak, nevertheless they were important groups because you wanted the Dutch, and the French and the British involved – not just an American cold war issue so to speak. That was important strategic decision to globalize it and bring in countries that are not known as anti-Soviet. When we decided collectively after the Helsinki Final Act was approved there was the Helsinki Committee. It included Dr. Stephan Roth from London, it included William Korey and myself from the United States, it included Alan Rose from the Canadian Jewish Congress, Rabbi Soetendorp from Holland, etc. etc. We decided to use the Helsinki Final Act as a tool. We all agreed that Basket 3 made sense and when there was a review conference in 1980 in Madrid, (I know I’m jumping ahead) we were able to mobilize and bring people to Madrid. We rented an apartment so Bill Korey and myself and others and people would come and go and we had this apartment where we could stay. The hotels were too expensive. It didn’t make sense. We rented an apartment for a couple of weeks during the time of the Madrid Conference and that’s how we first met and involved Ambassador Max Kampelman who headed the American delegation and we got some of our people – citizens delegates to the conference, like Morris Abrams. I’m jumping ahead. We already worked for eight years – nine- ten years in developing relations with Washington – with the administration – with people in other countries… The world Jewish conspiracy is real!

Yuli: overestimated…

Jerry: It’s exaggerated… but there’s some little bit of truth…

Yuli: When you have a real national cause… when you have a real national idea…

Jerry: Exactly…

Yuli: In between it can take thousands of years…

Jerry: In-between it falls apart but when we need to mobilize collectively we can.

Yuli: How did you correlate your policies with ups and downs of détente and tensions between America and the Soviet Union?

Jerry: If you recall, I mentioned the informal brain trust that we had and we would evaluate all the time..

Yuli: Not Lishkat Hakesher

Jerry: Right. I personally but not only me. National Conference had a Washingon office. We would meet with State Department people on a regular basis. We would meet with leaders of Congress on a regular basis. If it was important, I would come meet with them as well. Through that process of meeting with State Department and Congressional leaders, we were able to evaluate what US policy was like. We were able to test out some of our ideas.

There would be an exchange. Is this feasible? We never wanted to do anything that would hurt American foreign policy. We needed Washington. The only time we came close to it was on Jackson-Vanik when Mr. Kisssinger was opposed to it. But then he accepted the idea of Jackson-Vanik but he felt Scoop was asking for too much by way of how many Jews we would find acceptable. But that’s history. He has it in his book. Basically, we were always in touch with members of the National Security Council. As a result when Dymshitz and Kusnetsov came out through a prisoner exchange, I got a call from the Carter Administration from Brezhinski. I’ll never forget. I was sitting in a hotel with Nehamia Levanon who ran the Lishka and Myrna Schinbaum of my office tracked me down and said Brezhinski wants to speak to you! I got on the phone. He said “Your prisoners have been freed.” Remember we only had two, the other three – one was Ginsburg, one was a priest, I forgot the other…. I have to go back. Your prisoners. The State Department turned over care for all of the prisoners to us. I came to the hotel. We convened a press conference the next day with these people with Sylva Zalmanson who was still married to Edik at that time. So they had confidence in us. On of the things that was important.. and I cannot stress this enough. When we had information about someone being arrested, for example, or names of people – if we got them from the Soviet Union – a list of refuseniks, from the Lishka, if people brought them out on their own from visitors that we sent we always checked with the Lishka because I knew that if we sent out information that was bad information we would be in trouble. Sometimes we were accused of not acting quickly enough because it was important to double check. I, once, got a call from Student Struggle… I won’t mention who… Somebody was arrested. A Jew and put in prison. Shrai… Gevalt… Scream… Wait a second. Let’s check! Who – what – what? It turns out he was a criminal. Not every Jew was émigré connected but the Student Struggle was already getting into action. You do what you want but we double-checked with the Lishka with people in the States. They checked back with Tel Aviv and got back to us two days later. It turned out that the person was a criminal and went on trial for a real crime. So as a result of being a little bit conservative on that kind of thing, we had credibility with the State Department, so much so, that when Shultz was Secretary of States, he would turn to us. He had a good relationship with Morris Abram and he would call us and say do you have a new list of refuseniks? We gave them the names which they would then re-do on the computer and give it to the Russians.

Yuli: with all this coordination and double-checking..

Jerry: We didn’t want the Russians to come back and say see look this list of 100 people… this one is out…this one is dead… and say you people don’t know what you’re doing… That was very important that we had credibility.

Yuli: About the case of Sharansky? Sharansky has the feeling that Lishkat Hakesher just betrayed him – didn’t want to occupy himself with his case. He was really an American spy. He was, of course, broken not as a spy but as a person who tried to make as painful as possible for Soviet authorities to keep security refuseniks who were very often kept just under this pretext of secrecy. How do you explain this?

Jerry: In the case of Sharansky, it’s very possible that Lishkat Hakesher made a mistake. But you know – in one of our meetings here it was stated – in a democracy – making mistakes is not a crime. Correcting mistakes is… If you don’t correct a mistake – that’s a crime…

Yuli: What was your position on Sharansky from the very beginning? You had to check?

Jerry: We had to check. We had to check a variety of sources. Because we heard some people said ‘x’, some people said ‘y’, and the Lishka said ‘z’. Then we heard from people like Slepak who very close to Natan. We were in a little bit of a dilemma. We had to try to put it all together. We decided to make Sharansky a refusenik as far as we’re concerned.

Yuli: A Prisoner of Zion?

Jerry: When he was arrested, he was an Assir Zion. He was one of the Assirei Zion. Yes – exactly. We thought that maybe he had made a mistake and that’s why he was imprisoned by the Russians as trying to bridge the refusenik movement and dissident movement. Many people, not only us, thought it was a mistake from the point of view of strategy. The Russians didn’t like the refusenik movement but they tolerated it at some point. Every once in a while, they’d arrest a few people. They arrested Hebrew teachers but it wasn’t massive in those days.

Yuli: We were fighting for the release…

Jerry: Exactly

Yuli: We wanted to go out… We were troublemakers but we go out…

Jerry: The dissidents wanted to change Soviet society. I understood the dissidents – that was a different issue for Moscow and KGB.

Yuli: For sure. I thought about it. If you link the two – there was potential danger. What was your position?

Jerry: With the Sharansky case which was unique became a problem – where is he and who is he? Since he ran back and forth between the two… Volodya did a little bit too…but Sharansky was younger and more aggressive… Sharansky was definitely part of the aliya movement but he was definitely close to the democrats.

Enid: Didn’t Sharansky represent the Jewish movement?

Jerry: That’s what we wanted…

Yuli: He was a liason – a link between and foreign correspondents… Later he became a representative…

Jerry: What Tolya did was take over the job from Alexander Goldfarb

Yuli: After Alexander Goldfarb, Volodya took over… (Volodya Kozlovsky)

Jerry: Their job was to work with the media as they knew English but Natan went beyond that.

Yuli: He grew up beyond that because of his activities and Sakharov… and because of his brain.

Jerry: Yes. I’m not faulting Tolya. But that created a political problem. Because once he went beyond just working with the media and met Sakharov and those other people. Tolya being a mathematician and chess fanatic and he admired Sakharov’s intellect. I don’t know all the details but all we knew is what we heard that he got involved. And it was sort of worked out that Volodya Slepak and Natan would kind of be with the Helsinki people and the monitors and they would be sort of the Jewish representatives. But they were already there. Let them be there and fine and it was accepted and somehow bridge.. but for the Soviets both Volodya and for Natan especially represented a threat especially in terms of the aliya movement. So that’s why Natan’s case became difficult and Volodya Slepak was not as aggressive in working with the Helsinki Monitoring Committee.

Yuli: But there was another person attacked in the Lipavsky article. Alexander Lerner who was attacked and Polsky? We thought target #1 would be Lerner as a leader. Tolya was a young little guy with the correspondents. That’s all Talented, good but young guy…

Jerry: Tolya brought that he was working with the media. You know better than I do. You’re dealing with KGB people who believe in conspiracy. You have this bright aggressive little guy – a. He’s with the aliya movement b. He’s with the media c. He’s with the democrats. All of sudden, for them, it’s a whole linkage. Lerner was for it but he wasn’t an activist with the Helsinki people. Firstly, he was older. He was a professor, an academic. Natan is till the same way. Pow. Pow. Pow…

Yuli: Lerner prize

Jerrry: I’m getting off the track. We finally resolved the Sharansky case for ourselves. Because we had to wait a little bit to think about it. Sharansky’s wife came to America the first time with us. After that she decided not to work with us. She went to Student Struggle – Glenn Richter to his credit. She was housed for a long time in religious circles. She became more interested in having religious groups. Glenn was more acceptable because he wore a kipa than Jerry Goodman who was a goy. I’m being sarcastic. That may have been part of it. She stayed in Schneir’s shule. We decided we will do whatever we have to do for Tolya. I remember having discussions with Myrna. Look Myrna. Myrna said we’ll do whatever we have to do for Tolya! If we can’t get her cooperation, we won’t. When she had a hunger strike near the UN, we came down and we visited. We sent people every day – our people. She said Hello to me in a civil way. Then we went back and did what we had to do for Tolya. We owed it to him and we had to transcend whatever her problems were with us. They became secondary. We just continued to do. So Tolya became certainly one of our Assirei Zion. No question.

Yuli: What was your policy towards American groups orthodox – Chabadniks?

Jerry: We knew about the Chabadniks. We had somebody on our board – Rabbi David Hill who works for Young Israel, dati. He became our link to the Chabadnik emissaries. So we had a link to the Lubaviticher movement through David Hill and we knew they were sending schlichim. In fact, David Hill provided them with kosher meat. That was his business. He provided the Lubavitch with kosher food which they brought in.

Yuli: All kinds of interesting stories.

Jerry: All kinds of interesting stories… They’re doing their thing. Let them do their thing. Whatever their thing would be – to work with their own people. Fine. They didn’t think what we’re doing is wrong. They didn’t tell us to stop. There were some ultra-orthodox community who said what we’re doing is endangering Soviet Jews and we just ignored him… A Rosh Yeshiva in New Jersey wrote terrible things about us which were horrible – demonstrations, public event… The Lubuvitch never did that. It worked out. You do your thing. We’ll do our thing and it was that simple… We then sent our own people in and the Lishka sent their own people in to do what Lubavitch was also, doing. But those people we knew were people some sent from America – They were picked by [redacted] whom we were not supposed to see… I was not supposed to meet him. For years his name was kept secret from me…

Yuli: From the Lishka. Aryeh Kroll.

Jerry: Aryeh Kroll who ran that whole thing.

Yuli: He always liked to present it….. I didn’t know his name as well. I worked with hin for 14 years from Russia from 1975 to 1989 and I didn’t know his name. He was very proud… When I met him on Kibbutz Saad…..

Jerry: We subverted Aryeh’s people. What happened. He would pick these couples to go, mostly with a kipa, not all dati, some from the Seminary, from the Conservative movement. And then they would come to us for briefing. They met Aryeh but they also, knew about the National Conference. OK. So they came to us. We did not reach out to them. They came to us. Not all of them but a large number would come to us in addition. They said look you have contacts with the refuseniks that Aryeh doesn’t have… We would brief them, mostly Myrna. That’s what she did. Sometimes I sat in. That was her responsibility. I didn’t know who Aryeh was we were was briefing some of his people. Later I met Aryeh and he sort of reluctantly… OK … Look… There was a lot of this shush..shush stuff…

Yuli: In 1973 there began the neshira problem. What was your policy towards this phenomena and how it changed?

Jerry: Initially, we were aggressively supportive of the Lishka position. That was one of the things we had difference with Union of Councils.

Yuli: Pam Cohen

Jerry: Yes

Yuli: I had quarrels with her.

Jerry: OK. The position we took, Yuli, is that most of the people with whom we were in touch, like you, like Volodya when he was out, they were all opposed to neshira.

Yuli: It endangered the whole movement.

Jerry: These are the people we worked with in the Soviet Union. Forget the Lishka because the Lishka was, also, opposed. We already had relations at that time on the telephone, through visitors with a network in the Soviet Union. The people with whom we had contact, 90% of them were opposed to neshira because they thought it would endanger the whole aliya movement.

Yuli: We were not exactly against. We were against the use of the channel to Israel
You want to go to America. Fight for it and go. Do it yourself!

Jerry: That’s the position we took. We’re not opposed to coming to America. My parents came here. That should be a separate struggle. You should be able to go to the American Embassy and apply, etc. through channels. But for the aliya activists, I never knew the exact number of people. I used to be asked, How many people are you talking about in the Soviet Union? I said no more than a thousand. I don’t really know. I don’t know if anybody knows. How many were the real aliya activists throughout the country? I said in Moscow you can probably count a couple of hundred. You go out to Leningrad, the provinces – 3 here, 5 there, 10 there – maybe there are a thousand. I don’t really know. That was the numbers I used. What I meant is it wasn’t large. These are the people who are going to prison. These are the people who are being harassed. These are the people who are pushing open the doors so the others can go through.. and, therefore, we listen to them, meaning to you, etc. It didn’t have to be numbers but according to the Marxist principle, you were in the vanguard of the movement. That’s with whom we worked. We didn’t know all those silent Jew who then applied. If someone said, look there are three hundred thousand people who applied to go. I said yes but we don’t know three hundred thousand.

Yuli: In 1980, we already worked in 76 cities underground and we had more than 1,000 students of Hebrew which was dangerous. …practical steps Soviet regime which then very cruel

Jerry: What would you say would be the number of people who are aliya activists and peoplestudying Hebrew at the peak – maximum? 2,000?

Yuli: Those who were completely exposed and under danger…

Enid: Real activists?

Yuli: Real, real activists who organized… Up to 2,000. Around these circles, there were tens of thousands.

Jerry: I was right. There are about 1,000. Then there were other people studying. There not the activists. You don’t see them but they’re studying. They are studying Hebrew. They are studying Jewish history.

Yuli: Asking for invitations. We had already 100,000 invitations in the year 1983 or 1984.

Jerry: Which is why we used the figure…Yuli. You were the vanguard. That’s why on the issue of neshira we consulted with the activists whom we knew mostly in Moscow, and in Leningrad. We didn’t know all the others personally. The overwhelming majority despite the Union of Councils, I know that.. We had a lot of fights. We said we would oppose using…
Enid: I was already in Israel.

Jerry: You were clean.. With all those folks sitting in Chicago and in New York.

Yuli and Jerry: You paid your dues!

Jerry: I don’t make the decisions. Between the Lishka and the activists with whom we consulted and our leadership agreed.

Yuli: What was the main point of disagreement with the Union of Councils?

Jerry: Maybe Enid could tell you but maybe she’s already forgotten.

Yuli: I will talk to Enid of course

Jerry: I don’t mean that we were angelic

Yuli: Was it primarily a question of control? …

Jerry: In part…

Yuli: Or ideological differences? Management ?? or differences or ideology

Jerry: maybe a little of both in this sense…

Jerry: Can we continue maybe ? I’ve been speaking for an hour and a half and I’m exhausted.

Yuli: You are so rich inside. Really!! I was talking to Micha Chlenov. Micha said I have an hour. We talked for 6 hours. And he was so much in this…

Jerry: I’m not surprised. Same way.. When this young woman who is doing a doctoral thesis came to see me. OK, I have a half hour , maybe one hour. We spoke for two and a half hours until the tape ran out…

Jerry: I’ve already drained my memory and I have nothing left to say… but it keeps coming back… As you ask me questions, things that I had forgotten or thought I had forgotten come back because I haven’t though about some of these things in 10 years. And they evoke. Next time I should bring my own tape recorder.

Yuli: I will transfer the interview to your computer because it’s digital. I will burn for you a disc, a CD. I will send it to you by email. The format for the audio is MP3.

Jerry: came from a meeting (with a speaker from Tel Aviv University) on the level public education in this country and where Israel now stands compared to where it was 20 years ago, even 10 years ago in education, in education output, in production as a result of trained people. Israel which had been #1 is now 39. People almost fell out of their chairs. It was a shock. Someone with whom I’m meeting wants to re-train Israelis in the field of construction. The idea is we want to get Jews back into the construction industry. We don’t need foreign workers. One of the ways we can do it, he says, is to have them re-trained using the American technique of building. I was fascinated. The problem is, he said the cost for Israelis is much higher. Even if you have someone trained in a more efficient way, and you have to pay him 400 shekels per unit, let’s say, you can pay foreign workers at 100 shekels each. It’s illegal, it undermines the system but it’s done because they’re paying less than the minimum wage. The government should crack down on the contractors who are defying the law, paying below the minimum wage, exploiting these people essentially.

Yuli: After you have spent 40 years working for Soviet Jewry, what is your impression of the Jewish people? (such a phenomena on the earth)

Jerry: My Mother spoke Yiddish. She was an immigrant from Riga who came to America so she still spoke Yiddish. I remember an expression she used, I don’t know if you can translate it, she would say, “a modena folk”, meaning the Jews are.. Who was it, DeGaulle called them a stiff necked people. It’s more than that. Jews are unique both for good and for bad. When she said a modena folk. I’m not sure how you translate it. It’s with affection. Jews are a special breed, for good or for bad. I don’t know exactly how you translate it but, it’s very apt. That expression is very apt. But having said that, I’m less than optimistic these days about the Jewish future. I was more optimistic 20, 30 years ago. If you have young Israeli Jewish kids, yes, they are Israelis. They are not very Jewish and they don’t care to be very Jewish. They’re not inspired to be very Jewish. You could pluck them from a Tel Aviv café and drop them into New York and they would blend in instantly. They dress like them. They look like them. They have some of the same attitudes. They look like American Jews, young Jews. I’m not speaking of the orthodox, not ultra orthodox, not haredi, but what we call modern orthodox. Those people and I’m not one of those practicing Jews, but they give me a little more optimism. They are linked to Israel. They care about Jewish continuity. But they are a minority. Some estimates are that the orthodox living in America is 20%.

Yuli: Do you know what Yosef Zissels said to me recently that real Jews only live in the Diaspora because the mentality of the Jews is to be a minority and to differ themselves from other people?

Jerry: Let’s say that Micha Chlenov was right, the real Jews are living in the Diaspora, in galut. Let’s take a look at galut, at the Diaspora. In the United States, most young American Jews, despite Birthright, have very weak ties to Israel. I think that trend will continue, meaning the ties will weaken even more so. I think of my own kids. My daughter studied at Tel Aviv University. My son has been to Israel three times. He climbed Massada when he was ten. He always reminds me. And yet Israel is not central to their lives. It’s not at the core. While they care about Israel, they are not Zionists. Zionism is an irrelevant issue, concept, I believe, in the United States if we are honest. Someone asked me the other day who are trying to re-structure one organization – the Labor Zionist Alliance in America which once had a glorious past when the Jewish community was very much tied in very closely to Zionism. They had Chaim Greenberg. Labor Zionism in America almost helped fashion secular American Jewry in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s. Today they don’t even have a raison-d’etre. They don’t have a reason for their existence. Socialism is irrelevant. We talk about labor. Zionism, people who are pro-Israel probably would probably not call themselves Zionists unless they belong to Zionist organizations. The Zionist organizations are shrinking. The leadership is old for the most part. At the President’s Conference, you see the same tired leadership that’s been around for 20 years.

Yuli: What is the umbrella organization of the Jewish people?

Jerry: On the global scene, the World Jewish Congress would like to think that it is a global representation of world Jewry. It’s the closest thing that we have at least for good or for bad. In a sense that it at least brings together some organized Jewish entities in many countries around the world. But I know the United States best. I think that I know the Jewish community. I don’t see young people. There is intermarriage of 50%. Despite the new rise in anti-Semitism, which I think is probably a little exaggerated. I think it’s there. But I think some people are exaggerating more than the reality. But let’s say there is certainly an increase…

Yuli: Do you think anti-Semitism is one of the causes of Christian civilization? Killed their G-d…

Jerry: There’s a joke. Why do Christians hate Jews? Because we gave them Jesus Christ. Think about it. We gave them a human being who they deified and that human being, Jesus brought them moral considerations, a way of life, certain restrictions on how you behave if you live up to being a true Christian. So it’s a burden. We gave them a form really of Judaism because that’s what Christianity really started as, a form of Judaism with restrictions. Yes we live there but there’s a difference. The fact that there is 50% inter-marriage and just the other day at this meeting here someone who comes from an orthodox family, was telling me everywhere including orthodox families. His Uncle who grew up in a religious community is married to a non-Jewish woman. There is almost no family except haredi families who live in a very insular world. That’s a small perentage but even among modern orthodox, there’s inter-marriage. Because even with this new anti-Semitism which I believe is not so new… I believe what it is that the people who were anti-Semites in the past feel now free to express themselves. That’s the difference. Jews are accepted and the rate of acception allows for inter-marriage, allows for integration. It allows Jewish brains who used to be at the forefront of Jewish organizations as leader, either they are no longer there. (I will be exiled for this) Most Jewish leaders are second rate personalities because the first rate minds go into academia, business, government. They don’t have to go into the Jewish world the way they did 40 years ago.

Yuli: You were the exception. You went into the Jewish world. You were an excellent student.

Jerry: Yes I was a good student. I am a product of a different era to some extent. I’m talking about young people now, young people coming up, like my son, that generation. He doesn’t want to be a Jewish communal leader. He wouldn’t mind being active in a Jewish organization. But he doesn’t aspire to be President of The American Jewish Committee, let alone a Zionist organization. It’s not in his mindset.

Yuli: My kids, also.

Jerry: My son is a lawyer. My daughter happens to be a teacher in a Jewish Day School. Some of it rubbed off somewhere at least in terms of my daughter. My son cares by the way. Neither of them wants to be involved in the Jewish community full time or as organization people. The truth is I discourage them. I don’t encourage them to be Jewish organizational leadership because I think most Jewish organizations are moribund. They are living in the past. They have not changed with the times. It’s a post-Zionist era.

Yuli: For some Diaspora people. For us – not. Do you think that the Jewish people are a people or civilization or an ethnic group? How do you define our people?

Jerry: I have a discussion with my wife all the time because she comes from a different Jewish background. It’s an old argument. Are Jews a religion, a culture, a way of life, an ethnicity? The answer in my view is yes – all of the above. In that sense we are modena folk – We are a unique people for good or for bad. We have developed a lifestyle, a culture, a civilization which grew out of a religious foundation. But it changed because we were a people and a religious almost simultaneously before we became a nation. We were a people. Then we became a nation.

Yuli: If you would choose the most important criteria for defining the Jewish people, what would you choose?

Jerry: Birth but beyond that blood – genes. Beyond I think it means accepting
whatever the symbiosis of Jewish existence is – all those four different characteristics. Because if you’re not born a Jew, it doesn’t mean you can’t become a Jew. If you’re crazy enough to want to identify with our people, I welcome you.

Yuli: Me, the same. In Israel, there are groups that are seen differently.

Jerry: I know. Blood – yes. Birth – but it’s not the only factor. It’s the first one.

Yuli: In Israel, if you look at Jews coming from different backgrounds – USA, Africa, Russia – you not so sure it’s the same blood.

Jerry: Look at the three of us sitting here. There are test that show genetically
certain traits that you can trace..

Yuli: I’m sure the most important thing is that we share a common destiny wherever we are for centuries. This is what unites us most of all.

Jerry: We’re willing to identify together to share that destiny both the past, the history, even if you acquire the history as a new Jew and be willing to share that destiny as we go forward. What that destiny includes. I come from a synagogue where the Rabbi was Milton Steinberg. I didn’t know him but I knew of him. I remember reading something when I was a student where he talked about Jews as a G-d, faith, people – meaning whatever you are now as a Jew, you have to recognize that we began as a people with a faith in G-d. Everything springs from that even if you reject it as a Jew. You want to be a Jew but you’re not religious, you don’t go to synagogue… Fine… A friend of mine in New York, Michael Steinhardt, a very wealthy Jew. He wanted to start a Jewish school. He wanted it to be secular. I said, Michael – it won’t succeed because the Jewish experience… and he’s an atheist which he said publically. You can choose to be an atheist. Michael – if you don’t recognize the fact that the Jewish experience today and the Jewish destiny as we know it now, and as it might go forward in the future comes from a religious faith, from a belief in G-d, then you have lost the essence of who we are… That’s what Milton Steinberg, I believe, was trying to say. Whatever you may be, you may be secular but if you don’t recognize that Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, Jewish history comes from that initial religious experience, then you’ve lost the essence of Judaism.

Yuli: You don’t believe a Jew can be a Christian?

Jerry: No. You can’t be both. I don’t believe you can be both.

Yuli: If you are growing up in the ground where religious beliefs, scientific beliefs, it’s just a matter of outlook. You can believe in Buddha, in anything, but if you feel, you identify as a Jew, you are a Jew. You believe inside yourself that you are part of the Jewish people, you are a Jew.

Jerry: I don’t think that you can be part of the Jewish people, a Jew but, then also, say I accept Jesus as the Messiah and I believe in the Christian faith, in the Christian religion. That’s what Messianic Jews believe.

Yuli: Look, Messiah is a good fairytale.

Jerry: I don’t personally believe in the Mashiach. It was an important part of our culture but I don’t expect Maschiah, whoever she may be, to come down anytime soon in my lifetime or in my son’s lifetime. I know that sounds like heresy but to be a Jews means to accept those four parts of what makes up the Jewish complex – the acceptance of the religious foundations, the acceptance of an ethnicity which grew out of that, the sense of people which grew out of that, the culture, and that’s part of what gives us our common destiny for the future. You have to accept the fact that there is a religious foundation for all that even if you yourself may not adhere to all of the religious precepts. So that you can’t be a Chrisitan and be a Jew, so then you are denying a foundation for Jewish existence.

Yuli: Let us return a little bit to this era and how you did it happen? How would you describe the organized Jewish world – the most important Jewish organization of the Jewish world working with or without Israel who took part in this struggle and really contributed to this success. I would like to take 10-15 Americans who made the most important contributions to the success of this exodus – to win this devil empire – to disintegrate it even partly. It’s a huge victory.

Jerry: When the Soviet Jewry campaign began to unfold in a structured way with National Conference, Union of Councils, Student Struggle, when it became institutional, when all of that happened, none of us thought about, except maybe in our heart of hearts, some of us wished it to happen but we didn’t really think about dissolving, that what we would do would cause the Soviet Union to unravel… That was not a goal. Our goal.. We always said we’re not anti-Soviet and that was an important both as a tactic and more important, as a strategy. We’re not anti-Soviet. We’re pro-Jewish. Yes, some of us said we would love to have a more democratic Soviet society for all the people living there. But that’s not our objective. There were other groups, like Helsinki Watch, that was part of their mission. Fine. Sometimes, we would share together. I would come to Helsinki Watch and give regular reports on Soviet Jewry movement because they were interested.

Yuli: Helsinki Watch was established by the United Nations?

Jerry: The Helsinki watch was started by some prominent Americans. The first president was Bernstein from Random House.

Yuli: Helsinki Watch was a Jewish group?

Jerry: It was begun to monitor the Helsinki Final Act and deal with human rights. Now we were a part of that if you remember our discussion the other day because we were looking at the Helsinki Final Act as a tool to assist our campaign for Soviet Jews and to utilize the Helsinki Final Act which Moscow had signed, especially Basket III. They were interested in Basket I which fixed the boundaries of post World War II Europe. That’s what they wanted. My guess is and I’m not the only one that they didn’t think too carefully about Basket III or didn’t take it too seriously – the human rights issues.

Yuli: Do you think the Helsinki process was due to the end of the Vietnamese War?

Jerry: No. It was World War II.

Yuli: It was 1975

Jerry: But what the Soviet Union wanted was to have legitimization of the boundaries – that East Europe is mine and no more arguments and that’s it folks.

Yuli: Kallingrad..

Jerry: Exactly. The West wanted what’s called Basket III dealing with human rights.

Yuli: Did you understand that they would not stand a democracy of human rights?

Jerry: We played naïve.

Yuli: But in the depths of your soul, political analysts, it was a weapon against the Soviet Union, against its ideology.

Jerry: Americans, even analysts, tend to be more idealistic than maybe reality would suggest. So while and I can’t speak for all people, not all of us understood that the Soviet Union would become a democracy because they signed the Helsinki Final Act. Still we thought that there would be some greater liberalization within Soviet society at least. That’s how Helsinki Watch was born, in part to help monitor and press Basket III. The Soviet Jewry movement, at least National Conference for Soviet Jewry, we cooperated with Helsinki Watch, but we were separate the way the movement in Moscow was separate. Helsinki Watch was voluntary and the way in Moscow most of the Jewish Aliya activists, many, perhaps, were sympathetic to the so called democratic or dissident movement, they kept them separate. We did the same thing. But that didn’t mean that we didn’t share some common interests and some common values. I personally had very good contact with the professional and the voluntary leadership of Helsinki Watch and they would invite me down as Director of National Conference on Soviet Jewry to come and report on the Soviet Jewry movement. They wanted to know! Once in awhile we did some things together. For example, we would testify in Congress jointly on matters affecting the Helsinki Final Act. The U.S. Congressional Commission that was created to monitor the US involvement with the Helsinki Final Act, the so-called Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.CSCE was actually the brainchild of the National Conference which we created with Congressman Dante Fascell of Florida and Congresswoman Millicent Fenwick of New Jersey.
I’ll never forget when Jon Rottenberg, who was then Director of our Washington office, and myself, testified before the Commission which was to be created and Fenwick and Fascell held hearings. The Commission will be created and they said: “What would you say should be our budget ?” How did we know? We had never thought about what your Congressional budget should be. Jon leaned over to me and I said $300,000. I had no idea where the number came from. Jon or I said $300,000. They said OK and that was the first budget for the Commission. Fortunately, we had a very decent human being as the first Chairman, and that was Dante Fascell from Miami in Florida, very sympathetic to human rights, very pro-Israel, very pro-Jewish issues. We had good partners and it worked. Later on, when the Commission began to function, there would be times when we would testify and Helsinki Watch at the same hearings. We would talk to each other but we kept the issues apart. None of us even Helsinki Watch ever thought what we would be doing would mean the unraveling of the Soviet Union. What we hoped was to bring about changes, to make it more liberal, to make it easier for the Sakharovs of the world and the Kosharovskys of the world to do what they wanted to do as Jews, as non-Jews and to give them the freedom of choice that the Helsinki Final Act provided for…

Yuli: How did you channel all the information from Russia through Lishkat Hakesher?

Jerry: In the beginning, we got most of our information from Lishkat Hakesher. After a while we became more sophisticated, and we developed a lot of our own channels. We didn’t ignore the Lishka but we added to it. We began to develop Travelers Programs. So travelers would come back and said: I spoke to so and so… They sometimes would bring out tapes, verbal reports, photographs, and documents. We established good relations with the State Department and in our case and I can’t speak for the Union of Councils and I assume it was the same thing, I and or the head of our Washington operations would meet on a regular basis with State Department officials and we’d share information.

Yuli: Who, Shifter?

Jerry: Even before Shifter… I can’t remember all the names now. Going back from the beginning…

Yuli: Did Shifter work for Kissinger?

Jerry: Shifter had several jobs. It depends which administration. Shifter was later on. We would deal with people on the Russian desk. These were the career people. Dick Shifter was a political appointee – a good man and cared very much for what we were doing and he was very helpful.. Even before Dick Shifter, we dealt with people on the Russian desk. I’m speaking about the ‘70’s.

Yuli: From 1987, most dignitaries who came to Moscow were meeting with us first. There were many cases when Congressmen and Senators were sitting in my flat and then after that meet with Gorbachev. We were briefing them. How did you succeed to raise the attraction of certain people. In our analysis, it was behind the Iron Curtain. We didn’t have a lot of information. How did you succeed to put them in this track?

Jerry: Hard work! It didn’t happen by itself. It’s one of the things that I personally,but I didn’t invent this… I don’t want to take real credit for it.. We merely drew upon the experience of Jewish organizations that had already been in Washington before National Conference was created, before we opened our Washington office. I have to tell you when we opened the Washington office, some of our own member organizations were not too happy about it. But then they recognized that there should be a separate Russian Jewry presence in Washington and we worked very closely with the Reform movement, American Jewish Committee, B’nai Brith, the National Council of Jewish Women and what would happen is they would introduce us to members of Congress whom they knew and then we developed some of our own contacts, and then there was an ongoing relationship with members of Congress. We would meet with them regularly. We knew their staff people. Whether they were Jewish or not was irrelevant. When Spenser Oliver became the key operating of the Helsinki Commision in Washington. I would see Spenser once a month. I would be on the phone with him. He would visit with our Washington office. We would give him information. He would give us information. When members of his Commision went to the Soviet Union, at least the Congressional members, we would brief them.

Yuli: Did the Afghan War in 1979 – 10 years of Afghan War influence on your activities to some degree? Was it more interesting Jewish issue from the beginning of the Afghan War ?

Jerry: The war in Afghanistan had an impact because it had to do with the whole issue of détente.

Yuli: If they came to make détente in 1972, 1974 (in 1974 he drove all the American troops from Vietnam) so there were good chances for détente.

Jerry: We’re getting here into the more complex issue of US-Soviet relations and the whole issue of détente and how in 1979, it deteriorated partially because of in part because of Afghanistan and other issues. I not sure know if anyone has done a study… Maybe they have and I haven’t seen it… In my view détente..

Yuli: Do you think if there were good relations between the USSR and the US… Do you think the United States would risk their relations for Soviet Jewry?

Jerry: It’s not a question of risk… I think the United States in dealing with Moscow had an agenda and there many, many items on their agenda…

Yuli: Priorities

Jerry: Right and those items were prioritized. I cannot say that Soviet Jewry or human rights in general were ever at the top of the priority list.. but they were on the list…

Yuli: Now they are not.. There are many other countries now… Arab countries, for instance… African countries…

Jerry: But there is a difference… The difference is that we had a Jewish community in the United States that was organized and pressed the issues… Because of that we made sure that the issues were on the agenda of the United States and we understood it was not one or two but we were always assured unless everyone lied including George Shultz who was in my view marvelous on this subject that it is on the list – it is one of the agenda items that the President will be discussing and at that it was Ronald Reagan with the administration. And when we had a major demonstration in Washington in December 1987, when Gorbachev came to America for his first visit…

Yuli: Sharansky was there and Mendelevich…

Jerry: Yes – all of the above. The administration knew about our demonstration and they welcomed it in the sense that they thought it would help the President in his discussions with Mr. Gorbachev on a range of issues including Soviet Jewry. He promised us because we met with him beforehand and us I meant the Jewish community and when the National Conference organized an event with the President, we also, invited the Union of Councils to that meeting with the President, we felt that everyone had to be there. It was not often that you would have a meeting with the President. Pam Cohen was at meetings with the President. It didn’t happen all the time…

Yuli: Pam was constructive in relation with National Conference or a troublemaker sometimes?

Jerry: I wouldn’t say troublemaker… that’s not fair…or that would be unkind..
She had her own agenda. The Union of Councils didn’t always agree with us sometimes it was more a matter of style than substance…

Yuli: On the neshira problem, for instance, they were very strong… They were for…

Jerry: Sometimes, it was also, a question of substance – big differences and the issue of neshira “dropouts” they and we had different attitudes. They wer much more accepting and we were a little bit more narrow…

Enid: They believed in reunification of families in America.

Yuli: They believed in saving Jews in the Soviet Union. We believed saving Jews out of the Soviet Union is in Israel first… Second, the dropouts endangered aliya. That’s it…

Jerry: We never had objections to reunification of families. That would have been immoral – in this country. I think Yuli is correct. What we thought and who know if that would have happened that if there was a greater emphasis on coming to the United States which was, after all, the fleshpots of the capitalist world as opposed to going to the quote “ Jewish homeland”, the “ancestral homeland” unquote – that the Soviets could save face in accepting the notion of people going to their ancestral homeland rather than coming to the United States which was the enemy and we were afraid to risk jeopardizing the aliya movement. That’s all… If they came to Vienna…

Enid: I agree 100%!

Jerry: If they came to Vienna…

Yuli: Preferring the United States – it was bankruptcy of all Soviet ideology and all Socialist camp ideology. Jews are voting with their feet out…….??

Jerry: No question…

Jerry: to the capitalist world and to show the shortcomings of the Socialist world.

Yuli: We have seen now some reports from the KGB. We are able now to read some KGB documents – Politboro documents… It is fascinating…

Jerry: We wandered on this subject…

Yuli: I have a lot of questions… With dignitaries, you worked very successfully. They were meeting with us. Reagan accepted Gorbachev very well and you demonstrated your approach. How did you prepare yourselves for the visit of Reagan to Russia and as a common approach to Nixon’s visit before that in 1974 when we were all arrested… by the way… (2 weeks)

Jerry: You were temporarily arrested – just to keep you off the streets – clean up Moscow. We understood that… At first we were terribly frightened. Nothing much they could do. They were trying to keep you troublemakers off the street which if I were running the KGB in Moscow, I would have done the same thing… keep those bloody Jews away…

Yuli: How did you prepare this visit from the Jewish point of view? I understand that everybody tried to push in his pocket his subject… businessmen wanted something…

Jerry: The way we functioned and sometimes when I think back on how we worked, it’s bewildering even to me… We would assess what are our assets and the assets that we had included Jewish community leaders locally, prominent Republicans who were Jewish like a Max Fisher, members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, with whom we had developed good relationships, the media. We had been working for some time with the media in Moscow certainly..

Yuli: The American public was sympathetic to the cause of Soviet Jewry.

Jerry: Absolutely. The Moscow-based media helped tremendously by filing stories
I remember working and Myrna on my staff with Peter Osnos, Robert Toth of the L.A. Times and all the journalists. The articles that the journalists filed were very important because the administration, Congressmen and the American people read these articles about Soviet Jewry. We had people from the Baltimore Sun. We were very selective. We worked closely with David Shipler of We had the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun.

Yuli: You had someone special who was monitoring the press or you just sent to everyone…

Jerry: We sent to everyone but we worked very closely and developed a special relationship with about a half a dozen key journalists. I mentioned some of them.

Enid: They were based in Moscow.

Jerry: They were all based in Moscow. Hendrik Smith when he was there. And when they came back, we maintained a relationship with them.

Yuli: How? Just feeding them with information or inviting them?

Jerry: Some of it was personal; social – the way the American society works. I remember arrange an interview with Rick Smith to be interviewed here on TV and radio programs. We would bring some of these journalists who were n’t returning to Moscow to meet with us and brief with us on their own experiences. And then when journalists were going…(I wont’ mention the names now0 Some of them told us we’re coming back and my replacement is X… We would meet with the replacement before they went so there was always a continuing process of working with journalists…

Yuli: And journalists were asking politicians all the time on press conferences all the time on Jewish issues.

Jerry: We would give them the questions and the issues. But they were already sensitive to it and they knew this was an issue that was good news and important to discuss and ask… I’ll give you my own sense Yuli. At some point I think we lost control…and that’s good meaning that we had already done so much work that the thing began to feed on itself. We almost didn’t have to do anything.

Yuli: Spontaneous reaction began…

Jerry: Exactly. People ask me did you know so and so in Des Moines, or Bismark, South Dakota? And I would say No. How come you didn’t know them? I’m glad that I didn’t know them. The fact that our movement was already generating involvement of people around the country meant that more and more people were involved.. It was impossible and not even desirable for me to know everyone because if I knew everyone, it would have meant that it was a small movement. The fact that it was so big…

Yuli: You maintained personal relations with Jewish Congressmen in the Capital in both chambers and press–media. There was more essence than that – the organized Jewish communities?

Jerry: You had the organized Jewish community locally. They were part of our network and it meant that if the local community relations council or the local Federation, let’s say in Philadelphia…

Yuli: Very strong.

Jerry: I always said that Philadelphia both during and after the Wurtmans left I always considered Philadelphia actually our best community. Why? New York had 2 million + Jews. You had a huge reservoir. It was understood that new York would be active and organized. But for its size and for its wealth if you will, meaning the resources, human and financial I thought that Philadelphia probably did the best job in the country as a community. Not everyone likes to have me to say that… What about my community? That’s my judgement. I could be wrong. That’s my assessment. Locally what would happen is that the Philadelphia community would meet with its Congressman or Congresswoman on a regular basis. And every community around the country did the same thing – either home or sometimes they’d come to Washington. We would have events in Washington. Let’s say we would organize a two day conference and half day the different community groups who came to a National Conference Assembly would then break out and we would arrange meetings for them to meet with their Congressman, their representative in Washington so that was a kind of lobbying. Then we’d also, make sure or even we didn’t make sure because we didn’t always know they did it themselves when someone came home for a holidays to their community, the local community, the better ones certainly did on a regular basis would meet with their Congressperson.

Yuli: Strategically, you counted your assets and what did you do with it – all
dealing with Congressmen; political figures; heads of State; what was your strategy – how did you trade it?

Jerry: The strategy was if we were going to have an impact on US policy, that more important than the White House as important as the White House was was Congress because Congress spoke for the will of the people, the voice of the paper. Working with elected representatives, with members of Congress was a fundamental concept to our strategy. One of the best ways to insure that the White House would be responsive is to make sure that you had a strong Congress behind them. In addition to working with members of Congress, we organized something called Congressional Wives for Soviet Jewry. The Union of Councils had their own group in Washington doing much of the same thing.

The Congressmen were initially upset but after a while learned to work with both groups – maybe a waste of resources. We had Congressional Wives. What’s interesting, now as we chat, the primary campaign in the Democratic Party and Senator Kerry seems to be moving ahead. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry was one of our Congressional wives for Soviet Jewry, one of the better ones.

Yuli: She’s not Jewish?

Jerry: She’s not Jewish. She was born in Mozanbique which is Portugese. As a result of her birth experience, (we once had a conversation about this) she understood what it was like not to be free. She meant Africans who lived in colonial Portugese colony. I remember speaking with Teresa about this. She became involved with us. That was very important. She was then married to Senator Heinz who was tragically killed. She could say things that her husband could not.

Yuli: She knows how to collect men.

Jerry: She went from Senator Heinz to Senator Kerry. We could get Congressional wives to do things that their husband couldn’t do.

Yuli: what do you call advocacy? What does it consist of?

Jerry: Everything. All the things I’ve been talking about. Everything. Public demonstrations; OP-ED pieces in the media; local meetings with your Congressman; pressuring your mayor; getting petitions e.g. When Nixon went to Moscow, you asked before, we had a million people signing a petition which we delivered to Nixon before he went to Moscow.

Yuli: That’s what made him so antisemitic…

Jerry: Outwardly he was not anti-Semitic. What he was, he probably just suffered all the stereotypes that many people have about Jews. And we delivered a million signatures. I remember coming to Washington with big boxes of all petitions from around the country.

Yuli: Who? Your brainstorm group?

Jerry: It’s very awkward… If something good happens when you sit in a key position, you take all the credit. (laughter…) If something bad happens when you’re sitting there, someone else did it… Yes I could take the credit. But the truth is and I really believe it in my heart of hearts, the Soviet Jewry movement in America succeeded because it was a people’s movement. A people’s movement. It didn’t succeed because of Jerry Goodman. Jerry Goodman may have been a catalyst. Jerry Goodman may have been a thinker. He may have come up with ideas. He wasn’t the only thinker. He didn’t come up with all the ideas himself. What my role was to help see that all these different things worked together, that they moved simultaneously or separately, that when necessary.. Yes, I went out to speak on the subject. I was interviewed because That was part of my role to motivate people. But I didn’t do it. If I motivated, I was successful. If they did it and I didn’t know about it, I was successful beyond anything I could even imagine.

Yuli: One of the possible titles for my future book is: When We Are Together

Jerry: I’m glad you said that Yuli. The Soviet Jewry movement was the most successful movement in American Jewish history, not so much how it succeeded for Soviet Jewry but what it did for the Jewish community. There are people who come to me now who first met me 20 years ago when I was young…. And said my involvement in the Soviet Jewry movement was the most important development in my life as a Jew. It brought me into the Jewish world. It made me a Zionist. All sorts of things came out of it – things we never even dreamed would happen… It affected Jewish life. The Soviet Jewry movement helped bring people who then became leaders locally in the Jewish community, and some nationally. They became involved in local federations. Many of them were not religious. They didn’t all have a good solid Jewish background. What they had was a soul and somehow.. (sometimes I get emotional..) The refuseniks saved these people for the Jewish world the way Israel and Zionism might have done in the ‘40’s for another generation and the post World War II generation. And that not why we started We didn’t even understand this would happen. It was one of the significant fallouts of the Soviet Jewry movement….

Yuli: Because this is so important, I would like to understand it better: what united these people together? I would like you to keep in mind the next point, a very important part which may be a key part of all our talks. When we remember the past, we are thinking about the present and future. I think about these young people who don’t feel so much that they are Jews, are not so interested in Israel today. I would like to publish the glorious pages of our history in such a form that they will somehow feel more or less the sameway as you feel…. What are the ingredients which can unite new young American Jewish generations, and young Europeans and Israelis – to understands that when we are together and when we have a good national course, we can move mountains. We can replace regimes and superpowers. We can break the iron curtain which Churchill couldn’t do and Americans couldn’t do. We can break it together with all these forces and accumulate these powers?? What are these ingredients?

Jerry: Just a comment before that. What the Soviet Jewry movement did is help unite the Jewish community the way it was never unified before…even though there were differences within and there were splits within and there was The National Conference for Soviet Jewry, the big guerilla and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry, a smaller but not unimportant guerilla, if you want to use the same analogy, and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry and G-d knows what else. Lubovitch was doing it’s thing. But, nevertheless there was a sense of unity. There was a common purpose. But I believe in my heart of hearts that if Yuli Kosharovsky, Natan Sharansky, Ida Nudel, Vladimir Slepak and Ilya Essas and you go on and on were not there struggling and being arrested and being sent to prison we would not have been able to achieve the unity that we did. To a great extent the price that you and your friends paid was very high in some instances – 1 yr out of 5 years out of your life. It doesn’t matter…

Yuli: 22 years…every day…

Jerry: Some for two decades.. either in prison or unable to function in their jobs, in their work – that was an important motivation

Yuli: for us, it was the finest hours of our lives…

Jerry: No question. And for me the Soviet Jewry movement in the US was the finest moments of my life.

Yuli: How will we transfer it to the next generation?

Jerry: I don’t know. It’s something that I wrestle with in my own mind all the time. What I think will do it – it has to come from Israel… Israel today is unable to do it. When you have a Prime Minister who is touched by scandal – whether it was Rabin and his wife – whether Barak.., etc. You have a corrupt political system in this country.

Yuli: We have a different political system. We are a fragmented society.

Jerry: When Israel becomes unified and united, when there is a common vision in this country which doesn’t exist and may never exist.. The Haredi community will never see Israel the way Yuli Kosharovsky sees Israel – not ever… I don’t think ever…

Yuli: Not ever may be an exaggeration… Not now…

Jerry: I don’t think ever…

Yuli: Perhaps even the next couple of generations…

Jerry: Which means you and I won’t be around… Yuli Kosharovsky and Jerry Goodman… maybe our children… You know the expression, “from your mouth to G-d’s ears”. And I say jokingly because I’ve been brainwashed by my daughter – only if she’s listening… She educated me. I’m hyper-sensitive. Anyway… I know it’s an old cliché… “From out of Zion will come forth the law, not necessarily the law, but rather “Out of Zion should come forth a sense of mission for the Jewish people.” I heard the Prime Minister last night speaking about Jewish people. I believe he means it but I don’t believe he deals with reality. We are not a unified people throughout the world. French Jews are having serious problems and I can only guess that most American Jews are marginally aware or even care about it. There is no real global Jewish strategy. We have brilliant people who are Jews. We have brilliant people who could be developing that… I don’t think that Israeli bureaucrats who are prepared to bring together the Presidents of American universities for example and there are many now who have brains, who are thoughtful people, many whom care about being Jewish even if they are President of Harvard or Columbia. They are not utilized. Why not? What a terrible waste. They are sometimes utilized in part. We have the resources. Mostly you have people here, the leadership… I know I’m using a broad brush…but it’s hard to narrow it down.. When I see debates in the Knesset – oh my G-d – what has happened – small people – small minds – small vision…. I heard a guy today who excited me at one of the sessions. His name is Harish, a lawyer. He has mobilized a thousand volunteers for feeding the undernourished, providing shelters for the homeless, providing clothing. with an interesting project Egged – Beged they have an old Egged bus bringing begadim (clothing) around the country. That’s what we need – a thousand people like Mr. Harish and his wife. In Tel Aviv, therefore, they no longer have people sleeping on the street. Maybe a few..It’s not a major problem We need a hundred people like him in this country. They exist. We need to have them come forward to brainstorm with the politicians, with people in the Knesset. Then maybe when we see people like that who are generating some new spirit and maybe some of those people come into the Knesset and are not yet corrupted by the political system, then you can bring a message to American Jewry. If you
don’t have it, I don’t believe American Jewry will do it on its own. We need an Israel with a vision – if you will, a messianic vision – forgive me but without the mashiach. I’m not going to wait for the mashiach but at least a vision that the maschiach should bring. And it’s what Israel is supposed to do. It’s one of the reasons I became involved in the Soviet Jewry movement because I believed in it then. I don’t see it. Not now. Without it, I’m very pessimistic. I’m really not a pessimist. I’m usually an optimist. When I became involved in the Soviet Jewry movement, I’ll never forget. I had a meeting with Nehemia Levanon. I know a lot of people disagreed with Nehemia and there were fights. With all his shortcomings, he was a marvelous visionary on Soviet Jewry and he really knew his stuff. I said to Nehemia how long will I be doing this work? I had been a young professional for the American Jewish Committee. They sent me on a two year leave of absence which was then extended to four years. Nehemia said ,”not in your lifetime” and my daughter was just born and he further said, “not in her lifetime”. He was wrong. I’m glad he was wrong. He meant it would be a long struggle and it was. We need to struggle for some time now but we don’t have time on our hands because we are losing too many young Jews who could be productive. My son is a lovely human being really – better than his father but he won’t be involved because he doesn’t find something that will engage him. He’d rather be with his friends. I meet them. They’ve come to our home. I’ve met them. I can’t tell you how good these kids are. We can’t harness them. They’re not interested in the Jewish community of America today which is run by organizations, many of whom are doing the same thing they’ve been doing for the last 50 years or 40 years or 30 years – led by people who for the most part, not all, are really nice people, but not necessarily people of vision or people who are charismatic. The last person I worked with in the Jewish world and I brought him into National Conference was Morris Abrams. It’s interesting. I know I’m boasting…but I take some pride. I re-discovered Morris Abrams and I brought him in as the Chairman of National Conference. I created enemies when I did that because he was not head of an organization. We made him, webrought him in and we manipulated the system because he dropped out of Jewish life. He had cancer. He had all sorts of personal things to deal with. I met him once at a party and I somehow re-connected with Morris and brought him back in… He and a handful of others but they are an older generation. Many of them are now dead or they’re too old to function. It’s almost the last generation of Jewish leaders in America with vision. I see people now, the’re not bad people but they are not people I would run to the walls with. They don’t excite me. They don’t excite my kids. Forget me.

Yuli: Everyone thought really Soviet Jewry was a lost tribe because there were three generations of complete forced assimilation, losing all their roots and look all of them all of a sudden came back. More than that mixed marriages came back. We have here hundreds of thousands of people who are from mixed marriages. And this means miracles are possible. Now this is a product of social Communist experiment. No matter whether we want it or not.. We are the results of communist experiments – psychologically, mentally and how does world Jewry see this, how it wants to integrate this, where the problems are…

Jerry: You are the product (and you said it very well) of adversity. You are the product of pain. You are the product of persecution. We’re not. We have a good life. Jews in the industrial world and there are exceptions – Argentina –economic problems which affects every Argentinian. But for the most part we are a product of the world which has opened its doors to us. We have achieved status, some wealth, some comfort. We don’t live in adversity. There’s no one really persecuting us (never mind what my colleagues say) Personally, I don’t feel persecution. My kids don’t feel persecution or anti-Semitism. They know it’s there but they don’t really feel it.

Yuli: No glass ceiling?

Jerry: Still a glass ceiling for some of my wife’s friends, female friends but that’s a universal problem, not a Jewish issue. I think Achad Ha’am, one of the Zionist pioneers raised a question – “does Shabbat keep the Jews or do the Jews keep Shabbat”? Then someone else said was it anti-Semitism and Jewish destiny and Jewish continuity… We don’t have those issues with us. That’s why I said. I would love the way it came out of the Soviet experience with young Jews coming up in America and by the way there are many young good Jews who are beginning to do things now. I may be wrong. But the other problem is that I scan the Jewish media. Someone starts a project which I find very exciting. What is it? A Jewish website. Very important That’s not going to turn on 1000 people and get them to do something. A website, you sit at home as an individual, you log on and it’s a new Jewish website. Fantastic! All kinds of interesting things on it and that’s another problem which I hadn’t thought about until now which not only affects Jews but everybody.

Yuli: One of the reasons why we are doing everything electronically, because the new generation will only accept it only electronic way.

Jerry: Yes but the electronic world also, means that the community disintegrates
Because you’re more individual. You can log on..

Yuli: Change the form. I wouldn’t say disintegrate.

Jerry: It disintegrates in the sense that you don’t need the central focus that we used to have. You can sit at home. We don’t need community the way we used to have community. If you can’t come to shule, can’t go to synagogue, if someone hasn’t done it yet, it will happen – you can log on to a prayer service on the internet. My goodness. But we need 10 people for kaddish – a minyan. I know it’s a fantasy but it could happen. That’s another problem. Basically we have in the West highly individualistic society and that seems to be the trend. What the Soviet Jewry movement gave expression to was a communitarian concept. But I don’t know if the forces exist that will allow the sense of community to function as a community the way we had…

Yuli: We didn’t have a community there.

Jerry: I’m talking about us because you asked about us in the West. You did have a community that you created – a community of otkaznikim. That was a community in and of itself… Modern Zionism was born as a result of anti-Semitism.

Yuli: I’m optimistic from this point of view. I think if it happened in the centuries, it will happen again. We also, had the Golden Ages in Spain…

Jerry: I want to be an optimist and I like to hear you because I need some of your optimism. In Golden Spain, in Golden Germany – we lost thousands of Jews who inter-married and their children, which is what we are having in the United States, and their children were not Jewish and they were lost not because of persecution but they faded into the population and within a generation it was so good…and German assimilation.. Hitler turned around and said that people who thought they weren’t even Jewish but had a Jewish grandparent were suddenly Jewish. That’s different.

Yuli: Like I asked you about the previous generation and your generation succeed to mobilize all the forces and accumulate them together. I thought a long time about why our fathers weren’t capable to break through. You know what my conclusion was that’s a change of identity approach. Our identity before the Six Day War was very negative. It was an identity of people who suffered during the the Second World War and they were still aching; identity of people who were under the negative under the pressure/cloak of the Doctor’s Plot, Cosmopolites and all the rest… The Six Day War changed our idenity very positively as it filled us with pride. If you look for keeping Jewish…

Jerry: I thinking about something else. Think about it. Maybe I’m wrong.. Among other thing I like to think of myself as having been a student of Soviet behavior.
and totalitarian behavior. Revolutions almost never take place when you have a strong authoritarian government. It’s when you begin to see the seeds of liberalization that revolutions can take place. Under Stalin, you would have been deported in two seconds.

Yuli: That’s right.

Jerry: You would have been killed. You would have been imprisoned. You never would have succeeded. What happens is that you were able to succeed, not only because of the Six Day War because Soviet leadership in the Soviet Union, even though they didn’t know it, was already disintegrating.

Yuli: I accept that.

Jerry: Otherwise you all would have been rounded up. The fact that when we had the Leningrad trial and Dymshitz and Kusnetsov had their sentences revoked were revoked already showed not strength but weakness from the Soviet viewpoint. They gave in to pressure. Stalin would have said – what are you joking…

Yuli: I want to bring you to another point. I think when you are talking about a new generation, if you will not be able to give them a feeling of pride, internal joy of belonging to the Jewish people, we have some points to give them…

Jerry: Many.. I couldn’t agree with you more. How will it happen? From whence will come my strength? I don’t mean to be too biblical. Where will that come from? Because I agree with you that there is that need. I once had a discussion with a colleague of mine, Deborah Lipstadt who was giving a presentation before a large Jewish conference on the need to have young Jews identify with synagogues.

Yuli: That’s a clue.

Jerry: that’s a clue. OK Deborah. I got up from the floor. One of the problems -we have over-intellectualized our Jewish experience. We have studied it to death. Books, and analysis… While I may not always like the Lubavitch, we need a little bit of that ruach and spirit to come into the synagogue, to come in, not like my synagogue where they now started singing. We have people in their 40’s and 50’s who aren’t comfortable because they didn’t grow up that way. You have to start with kids –when they are 4 and 5 when they go to Jewish day schools to givr them a sense, a spiritual connection of joy. Let’s not just focus on the study. Give them a little bit… I have some friends connected with a day school in New York – Ramaz. They give their kids that… They do. The result is if you go to a synagogue service on Shabbat or the chagim for the people affiliated with KJ – Kehilat Jeshuran you see people who started at Ramaz when they were young and they’re coming back with their kids and they’re having a ball and they’re praying and there 3rd and 4th generation. There are people in synagogue and B’nei Jeshuran in New York is trying to do that as well. It’s a little artificial but they’re trying… Maybe you’re right and I’ll be proved wrong… I hope so.. I don’t want to be correct. I want to be proved wrong… But I think we need some joy – some spirituality, not necessarily just in a religious sense but in a broad sense to introduce them to Jewish life. That’s why I was hoping.. It either has to come from ourselves or from Israel. Right now, Israel is unable to give it to us because it doesn’t have it.. Israel has the potential..

Yuli: Too many Jewish wars here.

Jerry: You also, need peace.

Yuli: We will need peace when we settle some ideological problems. If we will have peace now, we will have Jewish fights.

Jerry: You’ll have the fight but then you’ll resolve it… That’s the point… Whatever comes out of that… You have to get beyond that… That’s the point…

Yuli: I don’t mind some external dangers. That unites us.. It give the feeling of one ???

Jerry: It’s also, diverting emotional, intellectual, and financial resources.

Yuli: We ‘ll create mainstream. OK. I’m living in the territories and it’s a good feeing to go out at night with a rifle and to guard the roads. We’re volunteers. I’m a policeman, a volunteer guard

Jerry: Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t have to be a shomer and you could focus more energy in re-building and re-kindling the Jewish people and the Jewish spirit?

Yuli: I’m afraid according to my experience on Diaspora, the Jews tend to spoil themselves very quickly. In the moment they have all the options, they are going for very easy ones.

Jerry: That’s human.

Yuli: Look at our wives. They don’t want to give birth to more than one or two kids… Why? Because they are released from religious obligations to do so…
Why are we not so much Jewish here? Because we don’t have to be… We are living in Jewish air and everything around us is Jewish so we don’t need additional signs of affiliation. It’s easy… It’s natural that we are a community here, of course. I’m guarding together with gentiles here… I feel very close to them because if I check the car and if they will not watch my back, I may be hurt.. That’s togetherness.. It’s a good thing…

This is almost my last question… If you would try to number the very strong points of the Jewish people vis-a-vie the very weak points of the Jewish people, how would prioritize them today?

Jerry: I’m not an expert because my training is in political science. It’s not my field so I can’t say that I thought about it that much…but I think Jewish history is high on the list… Knowing Jewish history, understanding Jewish History… I think high on the list for young people is to understand that Jewish culture has a very broad definition and we have a big umbrella called Jewish culture under which you can fit.. If we limit the Jewish culture experience only to the synagogue and I think the synagogue is very important by way in Jewish continuity… but if we limit it only to the synagogue, we will not attract and keep many young people…including some who come to the synagogue. The whole breadth… When I discovered Solomon Rossi in the 18th century wrote Jewish music, it blew my mind. I did not know that… It made me feel better because I always suffered from an inferiority complex about Jewish music. Why couldn’t we write music as good as Bach and Mozart and Rossi did…including two of the synagogues… It’s true there weren’t many Rossis but the point is and in art why couldn’t Jewish genius.. and the Jews in art, in painting and sculpture.. I know that we were forbidden for centuries even though we did it.. Old Haggadot shows us illustrations. Never mind… Jews always do that…We have the rules and then we get around them. Not until the 19th century were Jews painting. Some of the best architects in the world today are Jewish. I’ve been fighting with people to have an exhibition at museum –about the phenomena that some of the leading architects are Jewish, not just Leibiskind who designs museums but many others. People never thought about them…

Yuli: Are you talking about Berlin?

Jerry: Yes but beyond that… I don’t mean only designing Jewish institutions… If we were smart or smarter we would get some of those leading architects, not just Leiberskind and commission them. I didn’t know until five years ago that frank Gearry was Jewish. I just didn’t know. I never thought about it. I knew he was a marvelous architect. I don’t like all his work but that’s irrelevant. But after he created for the Guggenheim Museum, I learned that he was Jewish because he didn’t identify… Now he identifies himself publicly as a Jew which is interesting… That’s what I mean about Jewish culture.. It’s a very broad definition. I want young Jews to feel that umbrella is big enough to bring them in and to feel comfortable with whatever part of them is Jewish and wants to be expressive.

Yuli: Here you’ll have a fight with the Rabbis…

Jerry: I know that I’ll have a fight with the Rabbis and that’s part of the problem. In my view, they think too narrowly.. I’ve heard some Rabbis say I’d rather have a tiny Jewish community that is really traditionally Jewish. You are going to say – 10 million people will vanish… yes – that’s what they’d rather have…

Yuli: Not only 10 million will vanish but a lot of world intellectual human wealth will vanish… ?

Jerry: Very narrow…very tiny..

Yuli: It’s political more than cultural..

Jerry: I don’t know… Maybe you are right…but the point is when I hear a Rabbi who has been educated… I flew over on El Al when I came here. I could bring with me… I read religious texts in English because my Hebrew isn’t that good. I notice when you fly EL AL 90% of the men are wearing kipot so I can tell that they are dati… Not one of them was reading a book in English on philosophy, on art. They are all reading the sidur or the tanach. They’re studying tanach for 50 years. There’s a big world out there. Maybe Jews in the past were not so narrow. They absorbed from the world and we gave to the world and if we don’t do that, we’re going to be a tiny minority holding on to tradition, forgetting that the Jewish experience has always evolved and changed including the Jewish religious experience…

Yuli: Voluntary ghetto of a banana republic…I think the situation is changing a bit.. Russian immigration is a good instrument for change

Jerry: it’s still early so maybe you are right.. It’s still early in terms of time and impact and maybe you are right. I hope you are right..

Yuli: I hope it will express itself…

Jerry: I didn’t mean to be too pessimistic..

Yuli: You’re not..I read in your eyes… You are not pessimistic. I thank you very much Jerry. I think it would be very good if you could send me your biography. I would like to know where you were born, what family it was, how many Jewish roots you received in your childhood, the same warm feeling of being Jewish that you are generating now…

Jerry: It comes from my Mother.

Yuli: Do you want to speak about your background?

Jerry: B’kitzur – in brief, my Father died when I was eight. So it comes from my Mother. He was Polish. She was Latvian. He died when I was eight. My mother’s family was killed in the Shoa – my grandparents whom I never met..her brothers and sisters and cousins and nieces that I would have had.. We were very poor.. When I was young some elderly woman took pity on me and my younger brother and sent us to a Talmud Torah. We couldn’t pay for it. That was the beginning of my Jewish education which was in an orthodox environment.

Yuli: In which city?

Jerry: In the Bronx. I was born in America.

Yuli: How did your Mother succeed to go to America?

Jerry: She came to America and as a young woman, met my father. They met in New York and married, etc. We ended up in the Bronx.

Yuli: You were born in America – the first generation..

Jerry: They spoke Yiddish at home which I remember as a child. My Mother spoke Yiddish with her friends. She spoke Russian when she didn’t want me to understand… We learned Yiddish young… In fact my older brother spoke Yiddish before English. He became a linguist, speaking French and Spanish. He is marvelous at languages.

Yuli: You have one brother?

Jerry: No, two. I’m the middle child – the rebellious one…

Yuli: Me too. I’m also, the one in the middle…

Jerry: I had a traditional Jewish education of sorts. There was no yeshiva there. I went to Talmud Torah three days a week in a very old fashioned Talmud Torah where they spoke Yiddish where the Rabbis, if you didn’t pay attention, would hit you with a ruler on your hand like they did in Europe. It was amazing. My shule was a shteibel when I was a child.

Yuli: A shteibel?

Jerry: If we had 20 people in shule – it was fantastic. That’s the foundation. The Shoa – because my Mother never forgot the loss of her family. It was always something that she talked about.. I think that experience in part is what got me into the Soviet Jewry movement. My first trip to Soviet Union was to Latvia. My uncle who now lives in Rishon was still living there. After the war, he survived, and married and had two little kids. This is my Mother’s brother. I know very little about my Father’s family.

Yuli: Goodman was your father’s name?

Jerry: Yes. Goodman was not the original name. They were Polish and the name was changed when they came to America because no one could pronounce the Polish name or spell it.

Yuli: What was your Mother’s name?

Jerry: Frost. That was real name.

Yuli: What was your father’s name?

Jerry: Grzeda

Yuli: You never explored your family tree?

Jerry: I did. In fact I discovered a cousin in Montreal by accident. Then I tried to find other Grzedas in America. It turns out almost all of them are Polish Catholic even though I was told the name was Jewish. It means plot of land or garden. I looked it up in a Polish dictionary. We think what may have happened is one Grzeda escaped Poland in the 19th century to avoid being enlisted in the Czar’s army and came to Chicago where most of the Grzedas lived and married a non-Jewish woman. He probably didn’t have any Jews to marry when he came in the 19th century. I once tracked a Grzeda down, a young one, and I tried to see if he was Jewish related and he said: “Oh no. We’ve been Catholic forever.” OK. No problem. I discovered that my Uncle, who was not a real activist, but he was one of the people who came to the mass graves in Rumbula outside of Riga where my grandparents are buried and his brothers and sisters are buried. He had been one of those Latvian Jews (he was the youngest in the family) who came and cleaned up the place and re-built it when they re-built it. When they found bones just lying around, it was a whole story about what happened in Rumbula … Leah Slovin was part of that group. That’s one of the things that made them the early Zionists. He was there but he’s very passive but very nice. I had been a student of international affairs, got my master’s in the field, went for my doctorate, etc.

Yuli: Who paid for your education?

Jerry: Well my undergraduate school was free. I went to a State university. When I went to NYU for my Masters, I had a partial scholarship and part I worked. I always worked as a child. When I was in high school I used to work at night to pay for my way through school.

Yuli: You paid for yourself?

Jerry: My Mother had no money and I had no rich relatives. I used to work at night until one o’clock in the morning and then go home and do homework and managed…

Yuli: When did you marry?

Jerry: I married 34 years ago, two children, a boy and a girl as I mentioned, both recently married. My son is a lawyer

Yuli: Did they marry Jews?

Jerry: Yes.

Yuli: They remained in the Jewish fold/world

Jerry: Not only that but my daughter is teaching in a Jewish Day school at the Heschel School in Manhatten which is a non-affiliated school not Conservative or othodox but mostly Conservative but also, some Orthodox students there as well.

Yuli: I took my kids here, first of all because I didn’t want them ………

Jerry: She teaches Hebrew to children with learning disabilities. Her speciality is Special-Ed.

Yuli: what is her second name now?

Jerry: she keeps the name Goodman.

Yuli: and son as well. Goodman is a good name.

Jerry: I said to Nina, my daughter, what happens when you have a child? I know it’s Russian. Her Hebrew name is Sara and there is no connection between Nina and Sara. I liked the name Nina. It’s also, Spanish but I’m giving you the Russian Nina when she was born. I used to take my kids to the early demonstrations, schlepping them on my back. They were almost born demonstrating for Soviet Jews. Enid’s children too… Same thing. Of course, when they could stand and saw Daddy up there, they felt proud. They took part in marches and demonstrations while they were growing up.

Yuli: You feel really Jewish all your life – when you studied…when you worked…

Jerry: All my life…

Yuli: You’re not visual. You have a completely international appearance really… You can be Norweigan, or German, or Russian or Jewish – whatever – only blue eyes you have something Jewish…

Jerry: That’s rascist. The blue eyes tell me that I’m not Jewish. I should have brown eyes.

Yuli: My father had blue eyes. My Grandmother had very blond hair.

Jerry: I had blond hair when I was a child. I was born I had platinum hair – like bleached blond and blue eyes. Then gradually the hair got darker but I always had some red… My Father was a gingy. I met some relatives later and they were all gingy.

Yuli: I had a gingy beard and mustache. From which shtetl were they from?

Jerry: A place called Yadav, an hour north of Warsaw on the way to Bialostock in Poland. I went there four years ago to visit. Nothing Jewish. I thought I could find the house… so I have a photo that my wife took of me next to a sign saying Yadav. I went to Treblinka where I think some of my family is buried. We don’t really know for sure…the death camp near Yadav. Not too far from there. I’ve been to Riga a couple of times where my Mother’s family is from… I even took my kids there once. I said – get a sense of where you are from…

Yuli: When you were a student and when you were exposed to all the temptations of the world, you have never had any thoughts about why do I have all these Jewish troubles on my head?

Jerry: I didn’t want to go into Jewish life. I wanted to go into the foreign service – into the State Department. I took the exams. In those days it was very difficult for Jews. It changed within ten years. My timing was bad. I was studying the Middle East and southeast Asia which is what I did my graduate work in. I was a specialist in Vietnam. When I took the exam and I was interviewed by a foreign service officer – what would you do. The Middle East – forget about – you’re Jewish. There’s only one country you could serve in – Israel and we can’t have all Jews on the Embassy staff. The chances of you doing anything in the Middle East were very, very slim.

Yuli: did you study Arabic?

Jerry: for a year. When I realized the Middle East was not going to be an area of specialization, I then switched… When I did graduate work, I did some studies in Soviet History.

Yuli: How did you know you are Jewish? It’s not written on your face. According to your second name – Goodman?

Jerry: When I was younger and even when I didn’t have a beard, I could pass. People thought I was Swedish, German, North European.

Yuli: You didn’t have an accent?

Jerry: I still don’t have an accent…

Yuli: Your speech in English is a bit American.

Jerry: Yes. No question.

Yuli: You don’t write in your documents that you are Jewish

Jerry: It’s also, not a New York accent.

Yuli: How did they recognize it? When you come to the job…

Jerry: As it happened, the first job that I got, a real job, I was a student and I got a job at the Foreign Policy Association which did research in Foreign Affairs and did public education in foreign affairs because that’s where I wanted to go. Once I decided that I wasn’t going into foreign service, this was the next thing. I was still a student. It was a part-time job doing research and writing. Then one day when I was doing research, I went to the American Jewish Committee as part of my research. I was doing research on human rights organizations for this job.

Yuli: It was the time of the Vietnamese War? No not yet…

Jerry: Just on the edge…

Yuli: In 1964, it began approximately…

Jerry: Then I go involved actually in protesting the Vietnam War. I was on the other side of the war.

Yuli: You were getting experience.

Jerry: (Laughing..) I didn’t know I was getting experience. I was on the other side of the war. I did it as a filmmaker. I marched in the street. Mostly I did documentary films on Vietnam.

Yuli: You know how to do films?

Jerry: I haven’t done it in 25 years…

Yuli: Now it’s easy…

Jerry: It was easier then. So I did documentary films.. Anyway, when I was at the Foreign Policy Association, I came to the American Jewish Committee and I interviewed their human rights specialist. He wanted to know who I was. He asked me a little bit. I told him that I’d been to Israel, came from a Zionist youth organization – left of center Zionist youth orgaznization, Habonim, today Habonim Dror. He said why don’t you meet the head of the Department? He brought me in to the head of the Department, Dr. Simon Segal, sat me down. He was a Jew from Lvov. His family had been bankers and escaped the war. He offered me a job on the spot. We sat for a half hour. He heard about my background, both in international affairs, my interest in Israel, my Jewish education andhe said do you want to come to work for us? I said when I finish school and finish my Master’s degree. I came to work at the American Jewish Committee as the Director of European Affairs. In doing that, I dealt with Germany and the Soviet Union. That’s how I began to move slowly into soviet Jewry. Because of my covering the Soviet desk, I represented the American Jewish Committee in the early years at the Conference in Washington 1964. I represented the American Jewish Committee as their staff person. The result was that they asked me to be the first coordinator.

Yuli: How old were you – 19 -20?

Jerry: I was about 24. They took this stupid kid, dumb kid who didn’t know anything. I was 23. That was it.

Yuli: I still don’t understand in the foreign affairs department, how did they know you were Jewish? You didn’t wear a kippa on your head.

Jerry: When the man at the American Jewish Committee asked me something about myself, who are you, what’s your background so I told him. I didn’t know who the American Jewish Committee was. I had never heard of the organization. I had no idea what organized Jewish life was like. I was not part of the community. I said well I’ve been to Israel. Oh how come you’ve been to Israel? I told them that I had been a member of a Zionist youth group and I had been a leader in the Zionist youth group and I had been. That’s interesting… Then he said I’d like you to meet the head of the department because we may have an opening here. Would you be interested? Maybe… I have no idea. I’m prepared to talk… and so I met Simon Segal… He’s long since dead and that’s how they knew I was Jewish…

Yuli: And then your direction was clear?

Jerry: Then I was already on the path so to speak… The die was cast…

Yuli: You became the symbol of the Jewish establishment in Russia. For us, for sure…

Jerry: A lot of it was fate. I was in the right place at the right time… If you would have asked me if this is what you’re going to do with your life, it would have been like how about going to Mars…

Yuli: May I ask you to send 5 or 10 pictures of yours by email?

Jerry: pictures I don’t have

Yuli: You don’t have pictures, even hard copies?

Enid: Do you have a biography?

Jerry: Yes, I have a biography. I have resumes for job applications.

Yuli: If you could send your resume, it would be good. I would like to have some of your photographs from this time when you were involved in the Soviet Jewry movement, when you were young… one or two at least…

Jerry: I just found a black and white picture of myself and the Slepaks. It must have been when they arrived in Philadephia because we were at the airport.

Yuli: I have more than a thousand photographs of this kind. I’ve seen you several times in the photos and it was excellent. Some 20 years ago… some 25 years ago… I would you to send some photos. Whatever we will be able to put…

Jerry: What is this for? Now that you’ve taken 5-6 hours of my life. Bshvil ma – what for? I suddenly realized what are you doing? Yuli, the spy..

Yuli: I will disclose you the secret. Besides the book, since you are occupied with this as well, I want to create together with Enid a gallery of those who made the exodus possible a gallery of people from inside the Soviet Union, from the United States, from Europe and from Israel… It will be a very limited number of people and I would like your recommendations for the American part. As I said to you previously, I need 10-15 names of American activists that you would recommend that I interview – from your point of view. I will ask for additional recommendations from others too regarding those who made major contributions to this fight. Of course, I would like to keep these glorious pages of the history of the Jewish people for the next generation.

I want to keep your voice for another thousand years in digital form. It’s already on the computer. It’s clear and recognizable and you spoke with so much passion. I would like some photos from you. I would value your recommendations for the next 10 names with their profiles and we’ll try to speak to them as well.

Jerry: I’ll probably have their names and where you can reach them.

Yuli: I thank you very, very much.

Jerry: It gave me a chance to relive my past.

Yuli: For me, it gave me an opportunity to understand the great forces behind the Soviet Jewry struggle.

Jerry: I work… and Israel – to generate support for Israel. There are 13 million members of the Labor movement in America – AFL-CIO which is non-political but they are going to support Mr. Kerry against Mr. Bush.

Yuli: You’re the executive director of 20 million people?

Jerry: mancal… 13 million. I work with the central body of the labor movement. I work with their Histadrut so to speak in America – not exactly because there’s no socialist factor…

Yuli: With the Amir Peretz of America?

Jerry: I work with John Sweeny, an Irishman. I work with John Sweeny and his staff and the man who works on international issues is very sympathetic to Israel is a Jew, Joe Fishman. That’s my contact to the Labor movement. We brought John Sweeny here four years ago. We would bring more now but they are afraid to come.. Everyone says: “How can you go to Israel? You’ll get blown up.” I try to tell them you won’t go on a public bus. That’s my main job.

Yuli: When will be able to see your archives in New York?

Jerry: No yet. We have a problem with leadership. We have to raise 2 million dollars for the archives. We have to put together a board. I can’t put together a board until we have a Chairperson. Thus far, we’ve been turned down by five people. They’re willing to help but they don’t want to assume the responsibility. Interesting project but not for me… It’s one of the primary things I have to do when I get back to New York.

Yuli: You’ll keep it in your own offices…

Jerry: There’s a building in New York called the Center for Jewish History and in that building is YIVO (originally from Vilna:History of East European Jewry), American Sephardic Federation, Leo Baeck Institute (German Jewry) and The American Jewish Historical Society and I’m working with their scholars to build these archives. The Soviet Jewry archives will be at the Center for Jewish History in New York.

Yuli: When will they be ready?

Jerry: I hope in a year.. I’m hoping.. We haven’t begun to collect the archives because we don’t have a staff person. That’s why we need the money… To store the archives.. My personal archives are there and Micah Naftalin’s personal archives are there. It’s interesting National Conference and Union of Councils are together… A lot of the old National Conference archives are already there.

Yuli: Thank you very much. I hope we’ll do a good job Jerry, thanks to you. We’ll continue…