DESCRIPTION

The National Conference on Soviet Jewry was created in June 1971 as a result of the reorganization of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry (AJCSJ, 1964-1971). The NCSJ was devised to be an umbrella organization; a structure representing the effort of the main Jewish communal organizations to aid Soviet Jews and to attract the attention of the U.S. government to the plight of Jews in the USSR. Its main functions included development of planning and strategy on behalf of Soviet Jews, coordination of the work of all constituent members of NCSJ and assignment of particular tasks and the collection and distribution of information on Soviet Jews, refuseniks and prisoners of conscience (POC) and Soviet policies towards them. In one of its leaflets the NCSJ described itself as, "an autonomous body working to develop programs designed to be helpful in relieving the problems of Soviet Jews: to aid Soviet Jews who seek their right to leave for Israel and elsewhere; to combat rising anti-Semitism in the USSR; to help Jews live in the Soviet Union with the rights, privileges and freedoms accorded to other religious and national minority groups; [and] to help protect the civil and personal rights of Jews within the USSR." At the peak of its activities the NCSJ included about fifty national organizations, among them the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Public Affairs Committee, American Zionist Federation, American Jewish Congress, B'nai B'rith and B'nai B'rith-Women, Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization; the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, and, on the local level, by hundreds of Jewish communal organizations.