Larry Lerner teaches Brotherhood about UCSJ, describes Ukrainian trip

Larry Lerner teaches Brotherhood about UCSJ, describes Ukrainian trip

At the TBB Brotherhood brunch on September 7, Rabbi Lerner introduced a presentation by his father, Larry Lerner, a respected legal counsel and president of the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, also known as ‘Soviet Jewry’ (thus ‘UCSJ’).   The work of this non-governmental organization began around 1970.  The group responded, in the late 1960s, to the problems of a cohort of “Refusniks” or Jews in the USSR were refused legal travel permissions for arbitrary and capricious reasons.  Helping “Soviet Jews” through repressive obstacles the UCSJ represented a grassroots movement in the US that assisted Jewish congregations and individuals throughout the USSR and its modern nation-states. 

Lerner described how the UCSJ helped the US congress pass the 1994 Jackson-Vanik ammendment, which became law in 1975, responding to State Department and Jewish Community concerns about human rights for Jews in the USSR.  Jackson-Vanik was designed to affect non-Market economies (like the USSR) which did not allow full human rights to all, including restricting Jews in the USSR.  While some Jewish charitable groups helped Jews primarily or specifically, the UCSJ worked for general human rights principles in this and other cases.  UCSJ has also helped independent republics after the 1991 dissolution of the USSR, in places like Kazakhstan and other republics (including the Ukraine).    In 2012 the UJSC worked to support the law that is now the Magnitsky Act (initially H.R. 4405), which was attached to a bill updating some aspects of the Jackson-Vanik act and regarding trade with Russia.  The bill was supported by an interfaith coalition but originally lacked strong Jewish support.  When congress eventually passed this bill, larger Jewish organizations joined the cause after the fact.  Lerner describes Magnitsky as the most powerful bill ever regarding (international) human rights.

UJSC has often worked with NGOs in formerly Soviet nations.  In 2014, after a May election and the Russian ‘volunteer’ militarization of eastern Ukraine, protests and conflict arose in multiple areas.  UJSC invited 12 leaders to go on a mission to assess the situation of Jews in the Ukraine. Six people agreed, but only 4 people could eventually travel with this group.  The group included Leonid Stonov, UCSJ international director and former refusnik, Joel Sandberg, a Miami activist, and Stephen Bronner, a professor of political science and director of global relations at Rutgers University.  This group listened and offered help, met with NGOs and the Ukrainian government, and learned about the Jewish community remaining in Ukraine.  This nation experienced tragic losses during the holocaust (1.5 million killed), reducing its Jewish population (and synagogues) to only about 300,000 now in Ukraine.  It is now seeking outside aid from Jewish and other groups.  The UJSC group toured cities like Dnipropetrovsk, Chernovitz, Lviv, and Vyzhnytsia.  The four UJSC travelers found little modern anti-semitism and noted a movement to rebuild the golden rose synagogue headed by Meylach Schochet, who runs a soup kitchen and synagogue services in Lviv.  Many modern Ukranian Jews were Ukranian patriots, much like the Moslem tatars, and shared with many others a general distaste for the leadership of Putin and the power behind modern Russia.  Past and present problems of corruption were also discussed.  One final project noted is the development of an Institute of National Memory, charting the history of Genocide as it includes the experiences of Jews in the former Soviet nations.

Here is an article from NJN on Lerner’s trip!