- Part Of
- Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region fonds
- Committee for Soviet Jewry series
- Protest activities sub-series
- Level
- Sub-series
- Fonds
- 17
- Series
- 3-5
- Material Format
- textual record
- graphic material
- Date
- 1967-1988
- Physical Description
- 70 cm of textual records
- 1238 photographs : b&w ; 20 x 25 cm or smaller
- Admin History/Bio
- Activities undertaken by the Committee for Soviet Jewry in Ontario and its affiliated partner organizations included political lobbying, telephone and letter-writing campaigns, product boycotting, symposiums, public rallies, petitions, marches and demonstrations. Among the highest profile activities were the annual Simcha Torah rallies in October and the annual commemorations of the execution of twenty-four Soviet Jewish writers and intellectuals, which had occurred on August 12, 1952 at Moscow's Liubianka prison. As well as organizing public protest activities, the Committee for Soviet Jewry established, in the 1980s, the Ida Nudel Humanitarian Award which emphasized the humanitarian work of a number of prominent Canadian women. Other non-protest activities included bar/ bat mitzvah twinning, family and prisoner sponsorships, and holiday greetings, all programmes that tied the daily lives of Soviet Jews to their Canadian counterparts.
- Scope and Content
- Sub-series consists of records documenting the wide range of above-listed protest activities in which the CJC and various affiliated organizations participated. The files include numerous photographs of mass rallies and group demonstrations, planning notes, correspondence, event notices and other promotional materials.
- Subjects
- Demonstrations
- Arrangement
- Records of protest activities in this sub-series have been organized chronologically and by event. Indicated date ranges at the file level are of the documents themselves and are not necessarily indicative of the dates of specific events, such as rallies or marches, though such dates are noted in the file description where known.
- Source
- Archival Descriptions
- Part Of
- Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region fonds
- Committee for Soviet Jewry series
- Refusnik cases sub-series
- Individual Refusnik cases sub-sub series
- Level
- File
- Fonds
- 17
- Series
- 3-6-1
- File
- 18
- Material Format
- textual record
- Date
- 1977-1983
- Physical Description
- 1 folder of textual records
- Admin History/Bio
- Iosif Begun was a mathematics and engineering teacher born in 1932 in Moscow who taught himself Hebrew and worked as a Hebrew teacher. He was first denied permission to emigrate in 1971 and was subsequently dismissed from his job as a researcher at the Moscow Central Research Institute. While working as a Hebrew teacher Begun was arrested in 1977 for parasitism, for "avoiding socially useful work and living on unearned income". He was exiled to Magadan in Siberia and following appeals and hunger strikes was recharged in 1983 for anti-Soviet agitation. His case received a lot of attention because of his role in building a grassroots Jewish culture in the Soviet Union and his attempts to have Hebrew recognized as a national language, protected under Soviet law. In 1988 Begun was released and granted permission to emigrate to Israel with his son Boris's family, his wife Inna and his mother-in-law, Dvoira Lazar.
- Source
- Archival Descriptions