American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry: A Call to Conscience by Fred A. Lazin

Abstract

Reviewed by: American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry: A Call to Conscience by Fred A. Lazin Eugene J. Fisher Fred A. Lazin, American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry: A Call to Conscience. Lanham, MD, and London: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. Pp. 253. $105.00. This excellent and detailed book narrates, based on existing files—especially those of the American Jewish Committee and Catholic and other church records, as well as numerous interviews with those involved—how American Christians, especially Sisters Ann Gillen and Margaret Traxler, created a movement and an organization dedicated to gaining the release of Jews from the Soviet Union, allowing thousands of Jews to emigrate to Israel and the United States. Lazin is professor emeritus at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and has studied and taught at universities around the world. He starts with the history preceding, during, and after the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) and its historic statement, Nostra aetate, the fourth section of which radically rewrote official Catholic Church teaching on its understanding of God’s continuing covenant with the People of God, the Jews. This acknowledged that Christianity is based upon its predecessor, Judaism, which remains a valid religion alongside the church. Further, he narrates the evolution of the lives and vocations of women religious into what he calls the “new nuns,” who no longer stay in their convents but go out into the world to help those in need. Gillen and Traxler worked especially to help the Jews of the Soviet Union, whose religious and social lives were suppressed. Together with others— priests, nuns, and laity—they reached out to create a task force to push the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate to Israel where they could live safely and openly as Jews. The task force soon realized that it would have more impact within the U.S. and Europe if it brought in those of other faiths and traditions. The American Jewish Committee, under the guidance especially of Rabbis Marc Tanenbaum [End Page 123] and James Rudin, became a central part of the task force, funding its activities and helping to make contact with like-minded Protestant and Orthodox Christians. Lazin then analyzes the events of the Brussels II Conference and the Helsinki Accords, which involved representatives from the Soviet Union and again raised the issue of allowing Jews who lived in the Soviet Union to emigrate to Israel. In the latter, the related issue of persecuted Christians in the Soviet Union was also raised. In effect, this meant that Jews and Christians of the West, working together, sought to aid both Jews and Christians whose lives and livelihoods were imperiled under the atheist, anti-religious regime of the Communists who controlled the Soviet Union. Gillen and others of the task force even traveled to Russia to attempt to deal directly with its authorities on behalf of Soviet Jews and Christians. They met with some success, as many Jews were allowed to emigrate to Israel and some Christians to the West. The task force was involved in international conferences on the topic and became a part of the Interreligious Legal Task Force on Human Rights, which also worked to alleviate the harsh life conditions of Russian Soviet citizens. The mid-1980’s saw continuity of these efforts as well as a significant change when Evangelical Protestants rose to the situation and formed an alliance with those already involved. This enabled the movement to spread word around America and into its rural towns and villages of the dire situation of Jews and Christians in the Soviet Union. Prominent American Catholics such as Sargent Shriver and Fr. Robert Drinan joined their voices to those of the movement, urging the U.S. government to use its influence on the Soviet Union to allow its Jews and Christians to emigrate. The U.S. government did so, allowing yet more Jewish and Christian refugees to leave the country of their births for better lives. On December 6, 1987, one day before a summit meeting of President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, some 250,000 people marched along Constitution...