Personal Reflections on Soviet Jewry Activity in the Greater Washington Area Daniel Mann December 2008

I am a retired Jewish communal worker and educator as well as a veteran volunteer in the Jewish community. Our family moved from Long Island to Bethesda 35 years ago. I already had participated in a range of Soviet Jewry activity in my New York days, ranging from the annual “Exodus March” and other demonstrations in Manhattan to attending meetings of the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, predecessor of the NCSJ, including its founding meeting and rally in DC in 1964 or 1965, well before the Six-Day War. I also spent a school year in in 1950-1951 on the pioneering longterm Israel experience program sponsored by Habonim, and – if memory serves me correctly – recall David Ben-Gurion’s address at Kibbutz Afikim, founded by immigrants from the USSR, condemning Soviet treatment of its and calling for their aliyah. I mention these events to demonstrate that, while American Jewish and Israeli activism on that front emerged only in the late 1960s and the 1970s, there was a pre-history of at least some activity.

By the time we came to Washington in 1973, Soviet Jewry had of course become a major priority of the organized Jewish community, and the local one in the national capital was particularly active because it recognized that it was especially visible and well-connected. As Executive Director of the Jewish Community Council from 1973 to 1979, I was one of the people at the center of that program.

I was always a fan of the Vigil and tried to attend as often as possible, even – perhaps I should say especially – when no big problem was taking place there that would attract a creditable crowd. Sometimes, when I was the only attendee, I wondered what happened when no one came. It was the opposite of the proverbial question about the tree that falls silently in the forest. If no one came to the vigil, could we really claim that it was the longest continuing demonstration in Jewish or American history? But we came close enough that the contention was acceptable. Often I would run into Reverend John Steinbruck there. We bonded further on an interfaith mission of local leadership to Israel, and I’m gratified that we are still in contact.

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On one occasion Buddy [Sislen] was informed that at some synagogue somewhere in the USSR, prayer books were confiscated. Accordingly, Frank Ridge, then the Council’s Soviet Jewry chair, and I brought prayer books to the Soviet Embassy as a demonstrative replacement, and -- because the guards had no idea what we were delivering or in what language they were printed -- we gained entry to the embassy and were met by higher-level personnel, who recognized the language and perhaps the contents of our baggage. I recall one of them saying “Ivrei” (Russian for Hebrew or Jew). Later, when I told Isaac Franck the story, he commented that I was lucky they didn’t spit out the word “Zhid.” Anyway, we engaged in a pleasant but totally unsatisfactory dialogue. The Soviet official used us as a sounding board to criticize Arena Stage for its support of Soviet Jewry.

We learned soon thereafter that the prayer books were returned to the synagogue in the USSR, one more indication that the KGB could not ignore protests from the West. We often had to remind our activists that when they wrote to refuseniks or even “Prisoners of Zion,” they were protecting those heroes from further punishment or disappearance altogether. I would only add that there was some friendly envy on the part of volunteer and professional colleagues that I, a newcomer to the community, managed to gain access to the Soviet Embassy when none of them had ever succeeded in doing so.

The personal high point of my involvement in Soviet Jewry, and my wife Elaine’s as well (her background is similar to mine), was our trip to the USSR in the summer of 1978 to visit with refuseniks, particularly those engaged in Jewish education. One accomplishment that was correctly credited to the Council and is even mentioned in the annual article on Soviet Jewry in the American Jewish Year Book for 1980 (actually covering events in 1978): In an apartment in Moscow we were shown a “samizdat” (an unauthorized publication) on a topic not previously addressed in those documents, which until then dealt almost solely with Zionism and/or Soviet Jewry. This one was called (in translation) “Jews in the Modern World, Issue 1, June 1978.” i.e., covering events and issues significant to all of World Jewry. The range and variety of topics was remarkable in view of the fact that these Jews had been cut off from contact with the rest of the Jewish people for so many years and decades, yet managed to glean accurate information from all kinds of resources that had been smuggled into the by visitors with a mission

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(like us). This samizdat even reported on the 100th anniversary of a synagogue in Singapore. I confess that we did not know that there was such an institution in that location. When we got to Israel and were debriefed by the special office dealing with Soviet Jewry, we handed them the samizdat and said that they probably had it already, but it turned out that it was new to them. They retained the original and gave us both a copy and a translation, which I still have.

Our main advance briefer and work assigner for our trip, Jerry Goodman, longtime executive of NCSJ, happened to be an old friend – a fellow participant in the 1950-1951 Habonim program in Israel mentioned above and a colleague of Elaine’s from the Bronx.

Another personality of note also had a connection to our trip: Nehemiah (Niumka) Levanon, of Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the Upper Galilee. Our ties to that kibbutz derived mainly from its having been the first kibbutz where the founders and early leaders of North American Habonim made their home, as opposed to the previous strategy of scattering among all the kibbutzim throughout the country. Elaine spent a year there on the Habonim Workshop, and we continued over the years to work with a variety of their members on a range of programs and projects tying Israel to the diaspora. Niumka was often credited with leading the initiative that turned Israeli strategy on Soviet Jewry around from a more passive one to one based on public demonstrations and activism, both within the USSR and outside, designed to embarrass the Soviet government and thus open the possibility for aliyah. Because of his diplomatic and communal work in the United States, he became close to the Americans at his kibbutz. We were debriefed after our 1978 visit to the USSR by the special office in Tel Aviv dealing with Soviet Jewry. The people there were essentially Niumka’s staff, so by the time we got to Kfar Blum for our usual stay during our Israel trips, Niumka had received a full report on our debriefing, and one night while he was on guard duty he told us about our mission to the USSR and analyzed it for us. That was vintage Niumka.

When we were preparing for our trip, Elaine’s colleagues at the JCC of Greater Washington, where she had begun working a few years earlier, said that if she was detained in the USSR they would storm the State Department until she was released. My colleagues at the Council wished me well but did not evince similar empathy toward their boss.

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While at the Council I participated actively in meetings of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ) in both D.C. and New York and in related sectors of the NJCRAC (now JCPA) also in New York. There was an inevitable gap between the two agencies, because of personal and political conflicts, but also for reasons of principle: The NCSJ argued that the issue of Soviet Jewry was of such central significance to the American and indeed World Jewish community that it needed a separate organization devoted solely to that issue. The NJCRAC contended that our success in mobilizing American public opinion and ultimately governmental action in support of the Soviet Jews depended on the classic community-relations strategy of coalition, which required placing Soviet Jewry activity in the context of all the coalitions in which the Jewish community was active on many fronts. The problem was that both were right, but it was impossible to square that circle. One time I was part of a small taskforce of CRC executives from around the country who tried to bridge the gap between the two institutions, but of course failed.

For the record, the colleagues with whom I worked on both fronts, in addition to Jerry Goodman, included Myrna Shinbaum at NCSJ in New York and June Rogul in DC, and Minkoff, Al Chernin, and especially Abe Bayer at NJCRAC, although our Council tended to have stronger connections with NCSJ. (A somewhat comparable situation obtained during and after the War, which descended on me the very first week of my service at the Council: We tended to work more closely with Si Kenen and his colleagues at AIPAC than with NJCRAC, which was still developing its identification with Israel, although I should add that having inherited all of Isaac Franck’s commission seats at NJCRAC, I was privileged to be one of the ten original members of the NJCRAC Israel Task Force, representing the Council.) As executive of the Council I regularly attended all the meetings of the “national reps,” the representatives of the national Jewish agencies working in Washington, who met frequently at AIPAC under Si Kenen’s and then Morrie Amitay’s leadership and sometimes separately to try to deal with other issues of concern. Buddy Sislen often attended those meetings as well. At the risk of omitting the names of deserving colleagues, I will mention – in addition to those already cited – Mark Talisman, who came to the Council of Jewish Federations (now United Jewish Communities) from Congressman Charles Vanik’s staff. I did – and still do – not know Richard Perle, who was Senator Henry Jackson’s key aide in advocating the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, perhaps

Mann Memoir Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington Page 4 Voices of the Vigil because – unlike Talisman, Amitay, and others – Perle did not move professionally from the public to the communal setting. He is of course one of the most prominent neo-cons associated with the Bush 43 administration and the Iraq War.

All the Jewish agencies were well represented in D.C. and at those meetings, but I want to note in particular the active involvement of the American Jewish Committee on the Soviet Jewry issue, represented by Brant Coopersmith locally, my good friend Hyman (Bookie) Bookbinder nationally, and later David Harris, who has written up that history and his part therein in the 2007 edition of the AJYB, where he reprinted a paragraph from his article in the Washington Jewish Week of December 10, 1987 on the success of the famous demonstration on the Mall, including a tribute to the role of our local community.

To return to the Jewish Community Council, in addition to Buddy Sislen I was privileged to work with a dedicated and creative staff, and want to mention in particular Marlene Gorin, now the CRC director in Dallas but then the factotum of the Council and its acting executive several times, who was involved in all of our work, including Soviet Jewry. I should also note that we had six excellent interns from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, several of them in the dual-masters program that was jointly conducted with the Baltimore Hebrew University. I have concentrated on professional colleagues in this memoir, but of course all of us were advising the volunteers and facilitating their activity (though there was also a degree of voluntarism in the devoted work of the staff). Since Bert Silver has recruited as many of those volunteers as feasible for this project, their achievements will perforce be included in the overall record.

Finally, we should acknowledge that not everything we did was equally successful. One time we sponsored a local rally in connection with an NCSJ event in D.C., at Constitution Hall, which of course looked half empty no matter how many of the locals attended, much to the chagrin and discomfiture of the NCSJ national chair, Gene Gold (also an old friend from pro-Histadrut activity in New York). The eyes of the nation and the world were once again on the local community, but we should have restrained our hubris and allowed those eyes to focus on a more reasonable venue. Another time a demonstration was built around a fancy concert, which was

Mann Memoir Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington Page 5 Voices of the Vigil totally rained out by one of DC’s late-spring monsoons. In general I determined that the prayer said in many synagogues between Shemini Atzeret and Pesach, hoping for rain in Israel, somehow became deflected to outdoor Soviet Jewry events in DC.

In 1979 I moved professionally from the Council to B’nai B’rith, where I served as international director of its Israel Commission until my early retirement in 1991. Despite its name my department dealt with non-political programs and projects – missions, fundraising, investments, lodge activities and the like – leaving the political work to the International Council, which handled Soviet Jewry and other issues along those related to Israel and the Middle East. B’nai B’rith has a stellar record in the Soviet Jewry area, including early public advocacy by its president, Label Katz, and the major professional roles played by Bill Korey.

My informal activity as a staff member was to find the openings for enhancing action by leaders, members, and staff beyond that of the top officials, focusing on the fact that B’nai B’rith was – and still is – one of the very few broad-based Jewish membership organizations headquartered in Washington rather than New York. I succeeded in incorporating group attendance at the Vigil many times when commissions held their annual meetings in DC. On one such occasion so many commissions met at the same time by design that the gathering at the Vigil assumed the proportions of a convention. I did the explanation of the origins, legal backing, and achievements of the Vigil, and even though it was a Sunday, John Steinbruck came and excited the group with his remarks. Later, attendees said that they felt that they had done something significant.

B’nai B’rith biennial international conventions were major events, particularly in American presidential election years, when the candidates appeared in person. (The organization has now changed its structure and format for comparable gatherings.) In the fall of 1980 the entire body of many hundreds of delegates came into town from the hotel meeting venue uptown for the dedication of something or other at the B’nai B’rith building, then at 17th and Rhode Island Avenue NW, so Jack Spitzer and Dan Thursz were supportive of the idea that the group should also attend the Vigil. There the delegates were, at a weekday lunchtime hour, swarming all over 16th Street to the dismay of the officers guarding the Soviet Embassy. When they finally headed

Mann Memoir Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington Page 6 Voices of the Vigil toward the B’nai B’rith building, the officers breathed a huge sigh of relief and told me that the delegates were welcome to crowd in front of their own headquarters all they wanted.

Prior to the vigil, Jack, Bill Korey, and I responded to an invitation from David Fitzmaurice to meet with him in his office at the Philip Murray building, on whose plaza the Vigil congregated. By then he had become president of the International Union of Electrical Workers; he was – I believe – secretary-treasurer when he raised an Israeli flag in protest of the Leningrad Trials in 1970, an action which proved to be the catalyst for the initiation of the Vigil and the securing of its legal protections even though it took place immediately opposite the Soviet Embassy. Fitzmaurice told us that when some of his own members would call to find out why people seemed to be demonstrating in front of the union’s headquarters, he would reply that for once they were doing something right. He then presented us with the famous flag, which subsequently was displayed and then stored at the Klutznick Museum. Once more there was a bit of friendly envy or perhaps suspicion: No sooner does the executive of the Council go to work for B’nai B’rith than he aids and abets the “transfer” of what should have been a Council artifact to another agency. Now with the Klutznick Museum somewhat in limbo since B’nai B’rith sold its building and moved to rented offices on K Street, on the one hand, and the purchase by the Jewish Historical Society of an office building one block from the original Adas Israel Synagogue, of which it is the trustee, on the other, the time might have come to negotiate another transfer of that flag, this time to the Society as the recognized authority for the maintenance of the archives of the local Jewish community.

In March 1983 I was part of – and the Hebrew interpreter for – the B’nai B’rith delegation to the so-called “Brussels III” – the Third World Conference on Soviet Jewry, this one held in at Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s urging rather than in the more neutral Brussels, the locale of the first two of those conclaves. The controversy over that change of venue, the boldness of Abba Eban in challenging the entire Jackson-Vanik strategy as a gratuitous and ultimately counterproductive attempt to embarrass a major world power (my friend Hyman Bookbinder commented on that in particular on our way home, although I disagreed), and the personal opportunity to have reunions with former refusniks whom I had met in the USSR in 1978 were three of the features of that event which I still recall vividly.

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Even while serving the community as a professional I always stressed our obligations to give of ourselves as volunteers. In 1982-1984, I served in a volunteer capacity as the president of what is now known as the Jewish Communal Service Association of North America, the professional organization of Jewish communal workers in many of the key fields and agencies in the United States and Canada. I believe that I was the first colleague from D.C. to serve in that post; I know that I was the first one from B’nai B’rith in over a half-century, going back to the years when that organization was headquartered in the home city of its president. Not surprisingly I found opportunities to enhance the dimension of World Jewry consciousness in some of the programs of JCSA. (I was deeply gratified in 2004 when its largest affiliated professional component, representing federation and other community-organization personnel, chose me as its retiree of the year, apparently to some degree recognizing my volunteer activity in the local, national, and international community. Very recently I began to point out that the field of community organization has taken on new luster now that one of our guys has made it to the White House.)

A complementary position was that of adjunct professor teaching Jewish communal studies in the Graduate School of the Baltimore Hebrew University. My course was open to any graduate student but primarily to those in the aforementioned double-masters program to train future Jewish communal workers in practice, through the University of Maryland School of Social Work or comparable units, and to educate them in Jewish civilization at BHU. My courses in Jewish political science and some years also in Jewish sociology were particularly valuable to the students since those were the only ones which earned double credit, both at BHU and at Maryland. Major topics covered in detail included the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, the issue of the noshrim (dropouts), and the structure of Soviet Jewry work through NCSJ, the CRCs, etc. Several times colleagues from among the “Washington reps.” spoke to my classes as visiting lecturers. Additionally, my main contact within the administration of BHU was the dean of the Graduate School and later president, Bob Freedman, whose own academic specialty was the Soviet Union, its role in the Middle East, and of course its policies toward its own Jewish citizens. Bob has remained a friend to this date, though unfortunately I do not get to Baltimore often since I stopped teaching in 1995, but I will always treasure my dialogues with Freedman about many subjects of mutual interest, notably the USSR.

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When Bob Freedman and the then president of BHU, Leivy Smolar, asked me to teach what was then a new graduate course in 1977, they were relieved to learn that I had an MA in American government from Columbia. (My BA is from the College of the University of Chicago.) In due course they urged me to undertake doctoral studies, which I began while still working fulltime at B’nai B’rith. I chose Georgetown partially because I had come to know their friendly political scientists from my days at the Council, when we began a visiting Israeli lectureship there, which eventually grew into a permanent visiting-Israeli professorship endowed by Aaron Goldman. In the end, BHU’s needs changed, I became immersed in volunteer pursuits, and there were administrative problems, so I dropped out of Georgetown as one more ABD (all but dissertation), but I did not regret refreshing my knowledge of American government and writing a series of well-received term papers all connected in one way or another to the role of the Jewish community in American politics in general and the Jackson-Vanik Amendment in particular.

From 1994-2000 I served as the national president of the Labor Zionist Alliance (now renamed Ameinu). Among the accomplishments of my administration was the renewal of the organization’s representation in a range of umbrella organizations, notably the Presidents Conference, AIPAC, and JCPA -- the latter via the Jewish Labor Committee. Those were the Oslo days, but we did not neglect Soviet Jewry, so I became the direct delegate of the organization in the restructured NCSJ, run by Mark Levin, and I continue to have that responsibility at the request of my successors, who I’m happy to say are considerably younger than I. One of the major attractions of the NCSJ assignment is that it meets in D.C. Parking in Bethesda and taking the Metro to their offices within the B’nai B’rith suite on K Street is enormously cheaper than traveling on Amtrak to meeting of Ameinu itself, the Habonim Dror Foundation (which I founded), or the American Zionist Movement in New York. The real benefit, of course, is that I can continue to be informed about and active in a cause that is so important to me.

In one of his famous 1952 campaign speeches Adlai Stevenson had gone on for quite a while when he stopped and said that he reminded himself of the little girl who stated that she knew how to spell “banana” she just didn’t know when to stop. At this point I need to honor the moral

Mann Memoir Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington Page 9 Voices of the Vigil of that story, but I repeat that I owe this project a follow-up summary of our 1978 trip to the USSR beyond the liberation of the samizdat on World Jewry mentioned above.

In addition, Elaine has her own story to tell. In the course of a distinguished career of 22 years at the JCC of Greater Washington in Rockville, beginning in 1976 and ending with her service as COO and even acting CEO during much of the 90s, she was actively involved in the agency’s program for acculturating Soviet immigrants and integrating them into the community. At a meeting in Jerusalem of the Jewish Agency’s Committee on Education, on which I served from 1996 to 2002, the executive of the JCC Association of North America, Allan Finkelstein, happened to mention that in 1982 there were only two fulltime Jewish educators on the staffs of any of the centers in the US and Canada. I went over to him and asked who the other one was.

Back in 1983 Elaine received the first North American award of Center Worker of the Year, nominated by her boss, Bob Weiner, for a multifaceted series of programs honoring the 100th anniversary of the great migration of Jews from Russia to the United States, so that part of our people has loomed large in both Elaine’s and my consciousness for many years. In Elaine’s case both sides of her family came here from that part of the world – what are now Lithuania and Belarus – and found their places in New York’s garment industry, though often on the entrepreneurial side. In contrast my parents came from Central Europe to Cincinnati in the 1920s with advanced degrees and knowledge of English. (We are a truly mixed marriage.) But both of us share a deep Jewish identity focused on Jewish peoplehood and Israel, so Soviet Jewry fits right in. On Passover we say that every Jew should feel as if he or she personally participated in the Exodus from Egypt. In the one from the USSR in our times we truly did so.

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