Burning Bright

By the early 1970's, the American movement to save Soviet Jewry was in full swing. In addition to normal protests, the growing movement began a greeting card campaign, collecting lists of refuseniks, and making group phone calls to Soviet Jews and refuseniks - actions largely started by Cleveland's Louis Rosenblum.

"...we began hearing from people who had purchased greeting cards. Bingo! They were delighted and thrilled. They had received a response from a Soviet Jew to whom they had mailed a card. For them, Soviet Jewry was no longer an abstraction. It was personal and immediate — embodied in the individual or family who replied to their card. What an eye-opener! ... these projects were a major factor in transforming Soviet Jewry from a cause into a mass movement." -  Louis Rosenblum, founder of the Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism.

A 1970 Passover greeting card. Translation: "A Happy Pesach (Yiddish). Wishing you a joyous and happy passover. Jews of USA to Jews of USSR we have not forgotten you!" Images Courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society.

Transcript of a telephone conversation between a temple in Los Angeles (S.L.) and refusenik Lev Lerner (L.L.) in Leningrad, Febuary 6, 1972. Courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society.

Photos of telephone conversations on February 6, 1972. Courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society

A lighthearted example of the movement's success in raising public awareness was a sketch on the television show Saturday Night Live. The ability for a widely watched show to joke about the cause without passing over people's heads was a testament to the new position of the issue in mainstream American life. 

Excerpts from a Saturday Night Live skit on January 24, 1976