American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry

American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry: A Call to Conscience offers insight into the complexities of interreligious activism, and into the driving forces of the largely successful campaign for Soviet Jewry that left such a significant imprint on the lives of Jews and others across the world.

* American Jewish History *

American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry is an interesting, well-written, and thoroughly researched study that fills an important gap in the scholarship of the Soviet Jewry movement and at the same time adds to our understanding of the broader issue of Christian-Jewish relations in America.

* H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online *

A comprehensive treatment of Christian involvement in the effort to secure freedom for Russian Jews. This volume sheds new understandings of social activism in an interreligious context. At a time when some are beginning to doubt the effectiveness of interfaith collaboration, the taskforce story restores hope in the strength of such coalition building in the struggle for freedom and human dignity.

-- Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D., Catholic Theological Union

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... Thousands of lives were saved and improved by the efforts of these brave Christians and Jews, and Lazin's book rightly gives them credit and honors their memories.

* Journal of Ecumenical Studies *

Fred Lazin's latest volume on the Soviet Jewry Movement reminds us of the Christians who courageously contributed to the struggle. American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry has finally found its historian.

-- Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University

"Professor Fred Lazin skillfully recounts the often overlooked but significant role that thousands of Christians played in the Soviet Jewry liberation movement. His well-researched book is both scholarly and highly readable, and it tells an important story about the power of constructive interreligious efforts in an historic battle for human rights."

-- Rabbi A. James Rudin, American Jewish Committee's Senior Interreligious Adv