Jewish Center launches exhibit on Soviet Jews

An American woman, Lillian Butler Hoffman, whose daughter is a part-time resident of Sagaponack, was one of the early pioneers of the Soviet Jewry Movement, a collective grassroots effort that crossed all party lines in America to work to allow Jews in Russia to practice their religion without persecution.

The 50th anniversary of Lillian Hoffman’s pioneering efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry will be explored at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons on Sunday, August 1, from 3 to 6 p.m. The event will include archival material collected by her daughter, Sheila Hoffman Bialek, a panel discussion, a film, and music. Ms. Hoffman was born in 1913 and died in 1976.

“One American woman’s record of successful activism has implications for other Jewish issues today, such as advocacy for Israel,” said Ms. Bialek, a documentary filmmaker. “As Elie Wiesel has said: ‘Today, we are not silent anymore.’” Mr. Wiesel is a well-known writer, professor, political activist and Holocaust survivor.

The title of the exhibit and program is “Freedom from Tyranny: An American Woman’s Struggles and Triumphs to Save Soviet Jewry.” The exhibit will include Lillian Hoffman’s collection of U.S. Congressional Records citing her work, photographs, letters, posters and films, the material from which has been compiled six books researched and edited by Ms. Bialek.

The protest movement on behalf of Soviet Jewry, which spread throughout the United States and other Jewish communities during the 1960s and 1970s, was in large measure a response to the Holocaust, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, online at www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.

“The revelations of what the Nazis had done to the Jews, coupled with the revelations of the general inactivity and indifference of much of the Western world’s leadership to their fate, left world Jewry (particularly that of America) with a deep sense of anger and guilt (the latter because of their own relative passivity during the years of the Holocaust). Thus, when news started to spread of the Soviet Union’s attempts to destroy the Russian-Jewish community, American Jews were outraged and determined to do something,” according to the site.

Ms. Hoffman was frustrated that she didn’t get involved in the Holocaust. “But she couldn’t—she was too young and there was hardly any information coming out about it in those days. But looking back, she decided if anything else happened, she would stand up and be an activist,” Ms.Bialek said.

“Lillian Hoffman protested for many years to save Soviet Jewry but along the way she really knew how to enjoy life,” she said. “This is as much a celebration as it is an event marking a landmark victory and moment of Jewish history.

“These archives bring to life Lillian as a young woman in Colorado, as the wife of Harry, a leading wine and spirits retailer in the country, as a mother of three, as activist with her colleagues in the movement and for other Jewish struggles, including as chairwoman of the International Committee to Save Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who helped rescue 100,000 Hungarian Jews and disappeared in the closing days of World War II into the Soviet Gulag.”

Ms. Hoffman persuaded U.S. Representative Tom Lantos, now deceased, and then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich to honor Wallenberg with his bust to stand permanently in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building. He is the second non-American to have this privilege: Sir Winston Churchill was the first,” she said.

At the exhibit, records of Ms. Hoffman meeting with presidents, senators and congressmen to push for freedom will be shown. Beginning in 1972, Ms. Hoffman helped Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson work on the Jackson/Vanik bill, which precluded the U.S. from engaging in trade with the USSR until all Jews were allowed to leave the country.

Photographs of the culminating moment of the movement in 1987 when a quarter of a million people demonstrated in Washington, D.C. against Mikhail Gorbachev’s summit in Washington with President Reagan will be on display. Ms. Bialek marched in the protest.

The event will include a panel discussion by experts, including Glenn Richter, one of the founders of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry in 1964; Peter M. Sichel, a senior officer in the CIA during the Cold War from 1946 to 1959 who worked in Berlin, Washington and as American Consul in Hong Kong; Karl Grossman, an investigative journalist who specialized in Soviet media coverage of the movement, is a columnist for this newspaper, and who will serve as the moderator; Gal Beckerman, a reporter at The Forward, and author of the book “When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Gone” about the rescue of Soviet Jews; and Yakov Gorodetsky, a “refusenik” denied permission to leave who was helped by Ms. Hoffman.

Among the film records on display will be a DVD produced by Mr. Richter of activists who worked with Ms. Hoffman; short clips of ex-prisoners, activists including the famous activist Rabbi Avi Weiss; and a movie about the “refuseniks” produced by an Israeli filmmaker. The event will be filmed for inclusion in the permanent archive. The Town of East Hampton will announce a resolution honoring Lillian Hoffman in conjunction with the exhibit.

There will be Russian and Jewish music performed by the violinist Yevgenia Strenger, who is the concert master of the New York City Opera, together with the classical guitarist Nadav Lev, and a wine reception hosted by Ms. Bialek and her husband, Al Bialek. There is no admission charge and the event is open to everyone. The Jewish Center of the Hamptons is at 44 Woods Lane in East Hampton. Call 631-324-9858 or visit jcoh.org for more information.