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Joel Sandberg (1943- ) and Adele Sandberg (1944- ) Papers

 Collection
Identifier: P-872

Scope and Content Note

Papers of Joel Sandberg and Adele Sandberg cover the period from the mid-1970's to the early 1990's and document their activities as the leaders of the Soviet Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry, as well as their individual efforts in the American Soviet Jewry Movement. The documents include correspondence, memos, minutes, and news clippings.

Dates

  • Creation: undated, 1974-1988, 1992, 1994-1995, 2009
  • Creation: Majority of material found within 1975 - 1988

Creator

Access Restrictions

The collection is open to all researchers, except items that may be restricted due to their fragility, or privacy.

Use Restrictions

No permission is required to quote, reproduce or otherwise publish manuscript materials found in this collection, as long as the usage is scholarly, educational, and non-commercial. For inquiries about other usage, please contact the Director of Collections and Engagement at mmeyers@ajhs.org.

For reference questions, please email: inquiries@cjh.org

Historical Note

The Papers of Joel and Adele Sandberg 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 one of 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.

Adele Sandberg (1944- ) was one of the founders of the South Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry (SFCSJ) in 1972. She developed its Adopt-a-Family program, which connected families in the U.S. with refusenik families in the USSR. At that time this Adopt-a-Family program for Soviet Jews was the largest in the country. In 1975, she spearheaded international support for the hunger strike of Vladimir and Masha Slepak in Moscow. From 1979 to 1988 she was a co-editor of a series of books which documented case histories of refuseniks, an essential resource for activists all over the world as well as the U.S. Congress.

Joel Sandberg M.D. (1943- ) was the second chairman of the SFCSJ. As head of the tourist briefing program, he briefed hundreds of tourists from South Florida who were traveling to the USSR, including Congressmen, public officials and community leaders. Dr. Sandberg, an ophthalmologist and Voluntary Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Miami's Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, directed the SFCSJ's physicians group for Soviet Jews and was the Southeast Regional Coordinator of the national Medical Mobilization for Soviet Jewry. Dr. Sandberg has been on the board of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews for 30 years and served as Vice-President and on the executive committee.

In May 1975, Adele and Joel traveled to outlying cities to visit Soviet Jews who rarely got to meet American activists. They were detained and interrogated in Kishinev, then expelled from the USSR. For many years, their home was a center of activity for Soviet Jewry. They were active in organizing protests and rallies, community education and community speaking, congressional education, campaigns for individual refusenik families and public relations for the cause.

Extent

1 Linear Feet (2 manuscript boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Russian

Abstract

The collection contains papers of Joel Sandberg and Adele Sandberg, among the co-founders of the South Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry. It covers the period from the mid-1970's to the early 1990's and documents the Sandbergs' activities as leaders of the South Florida Conference on Soviet Jewry, as well as their individual efforts in the American Soviet Jewry movement. The documents include correspondence, memos, minutes, news clippings and photos.

Arrangement

The collection is organized into one series arranged alphabetically.

Acquisition Information

Donated by Joel and Adele Sandberg in 2009.

Related Material

The Papers of Joel Sandberg and Adele Sandberg is one individual collection within the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement (AASJM) located at the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS). Other Soviet Jewry Movement collections at AJHS include the records of Action for Soviet Jewry (I-487), the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ; I-181 and I-181A), the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (I-410), Medical Mobilization for Soviet Jewry, the papers of Joel Ackerman (P-787), Julia Mates Cheney (P-806), Jerry Goodman (P-863), Laurel and Alan J. Gould (P-866), Carolyn W. Sanger (P-870) and Si Frumkin (P-871).

Individual accounts of activities within the Soviet Jewry Movement are preserved in the UJA Oral History Collection (I-433), which includes accounts from members of the following organizations: the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, Bay Area Council on Soviet Jews (BACSJ), Seattle Action for Soviet Jews, Houston Action for Soviet Jews, Chicago Action for Soviet Jews, Colorado Committee of Concern for Soviet Jews and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Interviewees include accounts by Lillian Forman (BACSJ), Ann Polunsky, Morey Schapira, Myrtle Sitowitz, Deborah Turkin, David Waksberg, Sylvia Weinberg and Dolores Wilkenfeld. In addition, posters related to the Soviet Jewry Movement can be found in the Jewish Student Organizations Collection (I-61).

Additional materials from other collections include records dealing with the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) located within the North American Jewish Students Appeal (NAJSA, I-338) and the records of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council (NJCRAC, I-172). Related records are also located at the AJHS in Newton Centre, MA including memorabilia and ephemera of the New England Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (I-237) and the Records of the Student Coalition for Soviet Jewry - Brandeis University (I-493).

Title
Guide to the Joel Sandberg (1943- ) and Adele Sandberg (1944- ) Papers, undated, 1974-1988, 1992, 1994-1995, 2009 *P-872
Status
Completed
Author
Processed by Andrey Filimonov
Date
© 2009
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Description is in English.
Sponsor
Digitization of the Papers of Joel and Adele Sandberg (P-872) was made possible through a generous grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).

Revision Statements

  • April 2015: Added dao links by Eric Fritzler.
  • October 2020: RJohnstone: post-ASpace migration cleanup.

Repository Details

Part of the American Jewish Historical Society Repository

Contact:
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New York NY 10011 United States