The Gateway: The , the Right to Leave, and the Rise of Human Rights on the International Stage

Jordan Chandler Hirsch Senior Thesis Essay Department of History,

Seminar Instructor: Professor Samuel Roberts Faculty Advisor: Professor Samuel Moyn April 12, 2010

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to all those who have helped me write this thesis over the past several months. I would first like to thank my thesis advisors, Professor Samuel Roberts and Professor Sam Moyn. In addition to reading and commenting on drafts and providing their invaluable guidance, Professors Roberts and Moyn always displayed enthusiasm when hearing about my thesis, which encouraged me throughout the process. That encouragement also came from my thesis seminar, whose camaraderie made the writing process an exciting challenge.

Next, I would like to thank my interviewees, who contributed their valuable time to answering my inquiries. Past President Edgar Bronfman and his former political strategist, Steven Hebits, offered an intricate sense of how they and others wielded human rights legislation toward securing freedom of emigration. American Jewish Committee President David Harris shared his experience as a Soviet Jewry activist in the 1970s and 80s and provided a detailed portrait of the complications involved in emigrating from the USSR. and Glenn Richter, founders of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, captured the urgency that infused the early Soviet Jewry movement, and described how grassroots activists cultivated a more public campaign for Soviet Jewry. I am especially indebted to Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, former aides to Senator Henry Jackson, who informed the intellectual scope and framework of this thesis.

I also must thank the archives and individuals which offered significant contributions to my work, including the New York Public Library Dorot Jewish Division and the Columbia University oral history collection. I am particularly grateful to the staff at the Center for American Jewish History in New York and the American Jewish Committee archives, who assisted my research. I also received help from the librarians at the University of Washington, who went beyond their mandate to locate specific documents for me that proved integral to a main contention of my argument. Finally, I would especially like to thank to Gal Beckerman for generously providing a manuscript of his upcoming book on the Soviet Jewry movement.

My thesis would have been a much lonelier experience without my close group of friends, who provided moral support and, most importantly, reminded me to relax. To those who frequented our kitchen table—Daniel, Ron, Brandon, Nick, Sara, Danielle, and Caitlin—I’m sure this is the beginning of many such gatherings in the future. I especially want to thank Sarah for soldiering through the final weeks with me as she wrote her own thesis and for sharing her much-needed companionship.

I want to thank my parents, Michael and Jacqueline, who instilled in me a passion for reading, a ceaseless desire to learn more about the world, and a constant sense of the bigger picture. Lastly, I would like to thank my grandparents for giving me a tradition to carry forward.

THE GATEWAY 2

Abstract

This thesis explores how the struggle to rescue from the contributed to the rise and recognition of human rights in international affairs. Just as the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948—recognizing the equal and inalienable right to freedom of religion, nationality, and expression—the Soviet Union stripped its 2.5 million Jewish cit