Moshe Decter Papers

The Papers of Moshe Decter represent one collection housed within the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM). These papers reflect the effort, beginning in the 1960s through the late 1980s, of thousands of American Jews of all denominations and political orientations to stop the persecution and discrimination of Jews in the Soviet Union. The American Soviet Jewry Movement (ASJM) is considered to be the most influential Movements of the American Jewish community in the 20th century. The beginnings of the organized American Soviet Jewry Movement became a model for efforts to aid Soviet Jews in other countries, among them Great Britain, Canada, and France. The movement can be traced to the early 1960s, when the first organizations were created to address the specific problem of the persecution and isolation of Soviet Jews by the government of the Soviet Union.

Moshe Decter was among the pioneer activists of the American Soviet Jewry Movement. He began his work on behalf of Jews in the U.S.S.R. by establishing and directing the Jewish Minorities Research bureau, and continued in the capacity of the executive secretary of the Conference on the Status of Soviet Jews and director of research at the American Jewish Congress. Despite opposition from the sizeable segment of the American Jewish community advocating policy of quiet diplomacy in dealing with the U.S.S.R., Mr. Decter instigated broad publicity campaigns to raise global awareness about the persecution of Soviet Jews. He authored hundreds of articles on the subject in a variety of publications. The report "Jews in the Soviet Union: A Report by the Editors," which he co-wrote and published in the capacity of the managing editor of the New Leader magazine, became one of the pivotal publications in the Soviet Jewry Movement in America and abroad. Mr. Decter was instrumental in influencing national and international politicians, intellectuals and other public figures, including Martin Luther King Jr., Bertrand Russell and Saul Bellow, to speak out against the oppression of the Soviet Jewry. After the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Mr. Decter continued to support Jewish life in the Former Soviet Union.