States and Transnational Actors: Whos

Influencing Whom? A Case Study in Jewish

Diaspora Politics during the Cold War

PETER H AGEL
Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, Germany
PAULINE PERETZ
Universite Paris I-Pantheon-Sorbonne, France

Transnational actors are often assumed to be autonomous in their

attempts to influence states. But whenever both share common
interests, opportunities for mutual influences exist and states can try to
use transnational actors to further their own objectives. Whereas the
theoretical discussion in IR has largely overlooked this possibility, it is
no stranger to scholars of diasporas and nationalism. Informed by this
literature, we apply our notion of state-influenced non-governmental
organizations to the field of transnational diaspora politics with its
complex relationships between diasporas and their homeland and host
states. Our historical case study demonstrates how Israel, via its secret
office Nativ, significantly influenced the Jewish diaspora and other
transnational actors in the mobilization for Soviet Jewish emigration
during the Cold War. States are thus not only targets of transnational
actors they can also influence and even initiate transnational
movements. In our conclusion, we discuss why such reciprocal
relationships should be generally taken into account in the study of
transnational relations.
KEY WORDS diaspora politics human rights Israel NGOs
Soviet Jews transnational relations

Introduction
During the last decade, transnational actors have re-emerged as an important
subject of International Relations (IR) theory and their impact has been
European Journal of International Relations Copyright 2005
SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research, Vol. 11(4): 467493
[DOI: 10.1177/1354066105057893]

European Journal of International Relations 11(4)

recognized as an explanatory variable for a variety of international developments (della Porta et al., 1999; Higgot et al., 2000a; Keck and Sikkink,
1998; Khagram et al., 2002; Smith and Johnston, 2002; Risse-Kappen,
1995a). This new focus is largely trying to avoid the old controversy of a
state-dominated versus a society-dominated perspective on world politics.
Instead, it puts questions about the interactions between transnational
actors, states and international organizations at the centre of analysis (RisseKappen, 1995b; Klotz, 2002). However, most research privileges transnational actors as autonomous, treating the relationship between them and
states as one-dimensional. Transnational actors, be they profit-oriented
enterprises or non-profit civil society organizations, are studied in their
efforts to influence state actors in order to reach their material or normative
goals. Consequently, models of the interactions between transnational and
state actors (della Porta and Kriesi, 1999: 5; Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 13)
usually do not foresee the reverse relationship state actors influencing
transnational actors in order to further their own interests.
This neglect seems to be due to at least three reasons. First, almost all
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) present themselves as independent from states.1 Second, a lot of research in the field still seems to be guided
by the society versus states framework, wherein sympathies frequently side
with social actors and their role as normative vanguards (Florini, 2000;
Smith et al., 1997). Third, this is reinforced by a strong reliance on social
movement theory, which explicitly theorizes social movements as contentious politics, as social action directed against state politics (della Porta et
al., 1999; McAdam et al., 2001; Smith and Johnston, 2002; Tarrow, 2001).
Yet, manifold opportunities for reciprocal relationships between states and
transnational actors exist, especially whenever they share common interests.
States can then try to influence transnational actors in order to realize their
foreign policy objectives. In this article, we will investigate this possibility,
and if the phrasing is not not overused, one could describe our aim as
bringing the state back into transnational relations.2
Our argument derives from a case study in Jewish diaspora politics during
the Cold War. The plight of Jews in the Soviet Union and their right to
emigrate emerged as an international human rights concern after World War
II. In the early 1960s, non-Jewish human rights activists and Jewish
organizations in various countries started putting the issue on official
political agendas. Transnational links were created to exchange scarce
information about developments inside the Soviet Union and to enrol
support for the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate. The US, being both the
most powerful state and host of the largest Jewish population, became the
centre of activism. Between 1972 and 1974, the issue entered the American
policy process, leading to the adoption of the JacksonVanik amendment
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that linked the extension of US economic advantages to the Soviet Union to
the liberalization of its emigration policy.3 This was a major foreign policy
change, running counter to Nixons detente.
At first sight, this process can be read as an instance of successful non-state
transnational politics.4 But our research, based on original historical sources,
finds that a secret office created by the Israeli government, code-named
Nativ, decisively influenced large parts of this activism. Animated by the
Zionist goal of achieving Soviet Jews immigration to Israel, but careful not
to antagonize the Soviet Union, Nativ was responsible for covert action in
many Western countries, initiating and supporting transnational activism for
Soviet Jews right to emigrate. While it had no direct impact on the actions
of grassroots organizations, Nativ was a key player behind much of the
actions that emanated from Jewish establishment5 organizations in many
countries.
Audie Klotz recently observed that much of the work on transnational
actors in world politics takes the nature of these agents for granted, leaving
unanswered questions about differences between types of non-state actors
and relationships between them (Klotz, 2002: 50). Our case study takes up
this challenge and goes beyond it by revealing the ambivalent nature of, and
the diverse relationships between, non-state and state actors in the transnational activism to help Soviet Jews. It is an interesting case, because at its
core lie human rights issues, which are often regarded as the domain of
transnational activism against state policies par excellence (Keck and Sikkink,
1998; Risse et al., 1999). It is a relevant case, because it concerns an
important foreign policy issue in the context of Cold War detente. Of
course, it is also a special case in the sense that the constellation of actors
involved is quite unique.
Notwithstanding this caveat, which applies to any case study, our article
demonstrates the potential reciprocity of relationships between transnational
actors and states. Section one reviews the current treatment of transnational
actors in IR and presents a framework for analysis that incorporates
reciprocity with the notion of state-influenced non-governmental organizations. Whereas the theoretical discussion in IR has largely overlooked this
possibility, it is no stranger to scholars of diasporas and nationalism
(Brubaker, 1996; Shain, 1999; Shain and Barth, 2003; Sheffer, 1986,
2003). Informed by this literature, in section two we apply our framework to
the field of transnational diaspora politics with its reciprocal interactions
between diasporas and their homeland and host states. Section three then
develops our historical case study, which shows in detail how Israel
influenced its diaspora and other transnational actors in the process to aid
Soviet Jews. Finally, the conclusion summarizes our findings, indicates
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similar examples outside diaspora politics and discusses the general implications for future research on transnational actors.

1. States and Transnational Actors in World Politics

While constituting an extremely heterogeneous group, three major categories of transnational actors have received special attention. Business actors
are seen as having relevant influences on international economic relations
(Risse-Kappen, 1995a; Higgot et al., 2000a). Epistemic communities are
noticed as contributing to international cooperation wherever expert
knowledge is needed (Adler, 1992; Haas, 1992). Normative activists are
observed in their efforts to establish and spread international norms (Keck
and Sikkink, 1998; Khagram et al., 2002). Though all these transnational
actors are goal-oriented, they differ with regard to their respective motivations instrumental goals drive business actors, shared causal ideas unite
epistemic communities, and shared principled ideas motivate normative
activists (Abbott and Snidal, 2002; Keck and Sikkink, 1998: 30).
In the analysis of transnational actors roles in world politics, two
perspectives dominate. A first perspective examines how transnational actors
establish private international rules to execute non-state governance for
transnational issues, circumventing the need for intergovernmental regimes
(Cutler et al., 1999; Ronit and Schneider, 2001; Teubner, 1997). Instances
of this role exist especially in the regulation of international business affairs,
but remain less common than international governance provided by and
through states. Therefore, secondly, the more prominent role of transnational actors in world politics is seen in attempts to shape international
governance by influencing states foreign policies, inter-state negotiations
and the international organizations set up by states (Keck and Sikkink, 1998;
Klotz, 2002; Willetts, 1996). Directed at public officials and politicians,
protests, agenda-setting and lobbying by transnational actors can achieve
changes in state perceptions and interests that lead to international policies
closer in line with transnational actors aims. What unites both perspectives
is a dichotomy between transnational actors and states in which the
relationship between them is unilateral. Transnational actors are treated as
autonomous actors that stand apart from states, either trying to influence or
to circumvent them.
This focus probably captures the majority of real world relationships
between states and transnational actors, as many empirical case studies
supporting the theoretical arguments show (Florini, 2000; Klotz, 2002).
But it neglects the possibility that states use transnational actors for their
own interests.6 Though Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink foresee the
option that government officials may be part of what they call transnational
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Hagel and Peretz: States and Transnational Actors

advocacy networks, they conclude that NGOs will usually play the central
role (1998: 9). Donatella della Porta and Hanspeter Kriesi also mention the
possibility of external support for social movements by foreign governments
(1999: 11), but without integrating it into their general framework.
However, instances of a reciprocal relationship can be expected to exist for
many international issues, especially whenever the interests of transnational
actors and states overlap. Both can then cooperate to achieve common goals,
and both can try to influence each other to further their own interests.
As NGOs have become relevant players in world politics, this issue has
been problematized in discussions about so-called GONGOs (Governmentally Organized NGOs), GRINGOs (Governmentally Regulated and Initiated NGOs) and MANGOs (Manipulated NGOs) (Higgot et al., 2000b;
Hulme and Edwards, 1997). GONGOs and GRINGOs need not be of
concern for modelling transnational relations. When an NGO is just an
extended private arm of public authority, it can be treated as international
activity by states. The case of MANGOs is more complicated and goes to
this articles heart of the matter where does manipulation start, and how
does it work? The assessment of manipulation being a qualitative judgement
not devoid of polemics, it is more useful to conceptualize the relationship
between transnational actors and states along a continuum. On one side are
pure civil society organizations that operate transnationally without any
participation of state actors. On the other side are GONGOs and GRINGOs
as state agencies with a private legal standing. In between, any kind of
mutual influences are possible, and NGOs turn into what have been called
MANGOs or we propose this as a more neutral and comprehensive term
SINGOs (State-Influenced NGOs; see Figure 1).
To be appealing and to gain influence, state actors have to offer
something. This can be resources information, funding or political power
and it can also be a framework of meaning that reaches beyond
particularistic state interests. If interests between states and transnational
actors coincide, cooperation can be conducted openly, as loose interest
coalitions, within advocacy networks or as publicprivate partnerships. For
example, the US government, US-based multinational corporations and the
transnational NGO Transparency International all wanted an international
legal instrument against business-diluting corruption and together pushed
for the adoption of the OECD Anti-Corruption Convention (Abbott and
Snidal, 2002). Yet, whereas their interests are usually ultimate goals for
NGOs, the same interests are sometimes only partial or instrumental goals
for states. States can join forces with NGOs in order to fight child labour or
rain forest exploitation. Whereas NGOs consider such practices as bad per
se, states might primarily attach trade interests to them. A government
might support an NGO because it shares its humanitarian mission in a
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Figure 1
Framework for Analysis of Transnational Actors
TRANSNATIONAL ACTORS
pure civil society

private state agencies

NGOs

SINGOs

GONGOs/GRINGOs

influencing
instrumental
use of value
interests

reciprocally
influencing

shaping the
framework of
meaning

directing

STATE ACTORS

foreign country, but also for other overarching foreign policy reasons
(Baitenmann, 1990; Cohen, 2003). Thus, a first mechanism for state
influence on transnational actors consists of using value interests to achieve
non-value goals.7 A second, more sophisticated mechanism is to influence
the normative framework of meaning in a policy area, so that transnational
activism takes place in a normative context that better suits states interests.
Contemporary examples can be seen in states attempts at reshaping the
normative framework of international development by incorporating new
concepts, e.g. conflict prevention or good governance (Duffield, 2001).
With both mechanisms, states go beyond mere cooperation on the grounds
of common interests, and influence transnational actors to reach their own
interests. Such reciprocal relationships between states and transnational
actors can appear in many policy constellations and hence need to be taken
into account in the study of world politics.

2. Transnational Diaspora Politics

A field in which reciprocal relationships are especially salient is diaspora
politics. The (re-)drawing of international borders and transnational migration movements creates complex relationships between the emigration or
homeland state, the diaspora dispersed in several countries, and the
immigration or host state (Cohen, 1997; Shain and Barth, 2003; Sheffer,
1986, 2003). Able to build networks of political activism across borders,
diasporas are potential key players in the relations between homeland and
host state, and can be influenced by both. The collusion of interests between
diasporas and states may take many directions, touching both domestic and
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Hagel and Peretz: States and Transnational Actors

foreign policies (Esman, 1986: 340ff.; Sheffer, 2003: 180201). Yossi Shain
and Aharon Barth distinguish between diasporas active and passive roles in
such transnational interactions (Shain and Barth, 2003: 452ff.). In their
passive role, diasporas become part of the foreign policy objectives of
usually homeland states without really being an actor themselves. Main
instances of this role are nation-states ambitions to interfere in other states
domestic or foreign policies on the ground of taking care of their diaspora.
In Central and Eastern Europe, such interactions have been widespread at
least since the 19th century (Brubaker, 1996; Mandelbaum, 2000). As Shain
and Barth rightly conclude, analysis of these cases belongs [. . .] to the
standard IR scholarship dealing with foreign policy and international
behavior (Shain and Barth, 2003: 453).
For truly transnational politics, diasporas need to assume an active role in
the relations between homelands and host states. Diasporas can try to
directly influence homeland politics from abroad, e.g. by financing specific
causes or spreading their vision of national identity and politics. An early
example is the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which, with its major base in
the US, organized mobilization to free Ireland from British domination
since the second half of the 19th century (Hanagan, 2002). Another option
for diasporas is to indirectly influence homelands by lobbying host states in
order to affect their foreign policy towards homelands (Shain, 1999; Smith,
2000). The foreign policy changes lobbied for can include increases in
economic aid and military support for the homeland, or the recognition of
the homeland as an independent state. Both the Jewish and Palestinian
diasporas efforts at affecting the course of the IsraelPalestine conflict are
prominent cases in point. Frequently, direct and indirect diaspora influences
on the homeland coincide. Thus, in the above example, the Irish-Americans
successfully managed to enlist US support in addition to their own financial
and ideological transfers to their homeland.
As long as diasporas act autonomously in their efforts to influence
homeland politics and host state foreign policies, they constitute a subset of
transnational actors that conforms to the standard perspective. But things
get complicated as soon as homelands or host states approach their
diasporas with own interests (Sheffer, 2003: 180201). Often, homeland
interests will only concern the diaspora itself. Developing countries, in
particular, have an interest in ensuring flows of money and skilled labour
from the diaspora back into the homeland. For these purposes, many
emigration states have created special offices to foster material and cultural
links with their diaspora (Gutierrez, 1999). However, when the homeland
wants the diaspora to intervene on its behalf with the host state, the
relationship becomes delicate. Throughout history, diasporas have been
accused of being a fifth column of their homeland in host states, especially
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in times of crisis and war, when diasporas dual loyalty has been questioned
(Esman, 1986: 341f; Shain, 1999: 155; Sheffer, 2003: 21938). But being
there more or less by choice, diaspora loyalties towards the host state will
tend to be strong. Even if they lie more at home, the homeland cannot
exercise much more than ideological pressure, whereas the host state can use
all the disciplinary mechanisms a state possesses against people residing on
its territory.
Opportunities for a reciprocal relationship appear whenever homeland or
host states share interests with diasporas. A host countrys government that
wants regime change in a foreign country with authoritarian leadership
might try to draw on the political refugees of that country to mobilize
transnational opposition among the diaspora against the homeland government. Relations between the US and Cuba or Iraq show many elements of
such a constellation. The issue of minority rights for diasporas is another
field in which homeland and diaspora share interests in the design of the
host states regime for minorities. Since the 1990s, for example, the status
and rights of its diasporas have been a key foreign policy objective for
Hungary (Kovrig, 2000). In our case study, the web of entanglements
between diasporas, homeland and host states exhausts almost the whole
range of possible interactions, demonstrating the need for a critical view on
transnational actors autonomy.

3. Transnational Activism to Help Soviet Jews

The black years of Stalinist anti-Semitism already belonged to the past in the
late 1950s, but Soviet Jewry with its nearly 3 million members still suffered,
both as a national minority and as a religious group (Decter, 1963). Not
only was Jewish religious practice suppressed during the second part of
Khrushchevs mandate, synagogues and yeshivas were closed but also
Jewish culture the teaching of Yiddish and Jewish history was banned,
the memory of the Shoah fought and anti-Semitic literature spread.
Simultaneously, Jews were discriminated against numeri clausi in
university and state functions were adopted and Jews were convicted
disproportionally for economic crimes. This anti-Semitism calmed down
momentarily after 1964 with Brezhnev coming into power, but started
again even more brutally three years later when the Israeli victory in the Six
Day War gave rise to a violent anti-Zionist campaign that lasted at least until
1971 (Govrin, 1998; Pinkus and Frankel, 1984). If Jews could not
integrate into Soviet society, they could not emigrate either, as emigration
was forbidden for every Soviet citizen.
Except for the fate of those put on trial in 195253, the plight of Soviet
Jews was generally not known abroad. One reason was that until the
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Leningrad trials of 1970,8 Soviet authorities were extremely careful not to
provoke any event that could make the headlines in the international press.
Another reason was that Jews, as all Soviet citizens, had no relations with the
outside world. Contacts between Soviet Jews and world Jewry had been cut
off by the Kremlin during the 1930s. Some information was nevertheless
coming out via diplomats, foreign correspondents and, after the mid-1960s,
tourists, but it definitely remained scarce until the early 1970s. To those who
knew what it really was, the situation of Soviet Jews required help and
international mobilization.
Issue Emergence and Transnational Mobilization
In the late 1950s, the Soviet Jewish issue emerged as an international human
rights concern inside and beyond the Jewish diaspora. In various countries,
three types of actors famous public figures, progressive politicians and
Jewish organizations raised their voices on behalf of Soviet Jews.
Intellectuals like Raymond Aron and Man`es Sperber in France,9 and Jose
Luis Romero in Argentina, denounced Moscows policy vis-a-vis Jews (Roi,
1991: 110). In April 1963, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote a
letter to Khrushchev condemning the overrepresentation of Jews among
people sentenced to death for economic offences.10 Three years later, the
French Jewish survivor and writer, Elie Wiesel, came back from the Soviet
Union with an essay, The Jews of Silence, that exposed the repression of Jews
and portrayed them, against all odds, as still attached to Judaism (Wiesel,
1994). Conferences of intellectuals dealing with Soviet Jewry were organized in many countries 1961 in Italy, 1963 in Great Britain and Latin
America, 1964 in Belgium and 1965 in Scandinavia (Govrin, 1998:
21213). Most ambitious was the Conference on the Status of Soviet Jews,
which took place in Washington and adopted a declaration calling on the
Soviet Union to stop discrimination against Soviet Jews.11
At the same time, progressive politicians started confronting Soviet leaders
with the plight of Soviet Jews. During Khrushchevs 1956 visit to Great
Britain, the leaders of the two main parties approached him with questions
on the treatment of the Jewish minority (Levanon, 1999: 75). A few years
later, he had to answer similar queries coming from Lester Pearson, the
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and from Scandinavian Prime
Ministers (Roi, 1991: 107). Some European communist leaders also voiced
condemnations of the Kremlins Jewish policy in the wake of the Soviet
Communist Partys XXth Congress. For example, in 1966, a leader of the
Italian Communist Party denounced the discriminatory treatment of Jews
by Soviet authorities in a preface to a book devoted to the subject (Morozov,
1999: doc. 10).
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With some delay, Jewish diaspora organizations in various countries also
became active on behalf of Soviet Jews. After a first move in the United
States during Khrushchevs visit to Washington in 1959, significant mobilization only started during a new peak of Soviet anti-Semitism in 196263.
In Canada, the Jewish Labour Committees representatives managed to
meet the Soviet ambassador and complained about Moscows treatment of
its Jewish citizens (Morozov, 1999: doc. 7). In the United States, several
establishment organizations, mostly those that were anticommunist or
Zionist, voiced their criticism to Soviet officials and at the United Nations
(UN). The American Jewish diaspora was also the first to create a singleissue organization entirely devoted to Soviet Jewry. Its aim was to trigger
communal mobilization and to sensitize government officials and Congress
to the situation of Soviet Jewry (Orbach, 1979).
A Driving Force: Israels Office Nativ
Two questions arise when one tries to understand the simultaneity and the
similarity in this mobilization of seemingly unrelated actors. How did they
become aware of the plight of Soviet Jews, and what was their source of
information? Why did all these actions follow the same pattern? The answers
lie in the activities of a secret office code-named Nativ that Israel had
created in 1952 and that directly reported to the Prime Ministers Office
(Levanon, 1995; Kedmi, 2002; Melman, 2003).12 Although it had already
abandoned its policy of non-alignment, Israel did not want to threaten its
fragile relationship with the Soviet Union by raising the question of Jewish
emigration. Therefore, the government decided to have two arms dealing
with the Soviet Union the diplomatic delegation pursuing Israels official
state interest, and Nativ as a parallel organ. Though it was still utopian at the
time, Nativs goal was to ingather the exiles from the Soviet Union, which
housed the second largest Jewish diaspora, in order to contribute to the
accomplishment of the Zionist goal and to populate the new Jewish land. As
Baruch Gur, former Nativ emissary to Washington and later its vice-director,
explains From the very beginning, [. . .] the idea was to bring Soviet
Jews into Israel. It was from the start a Zionist campaign.13 Nativ set up a
small-scale clandestine operation relying on emissaries based in the Israeli
embassy in Moscow, trying to get in contact with Soviet Jews. It wanted to
encourage their identification with Israel and to trigger their wish to
emigrate once it became possible. Results were very limited before the
emissaries left the Soviet Union when the SovietIsraeli diplomatic relationship broke after the Six Day War in 1967. But Nativ had not waited for that
rupture to expand its activities.
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In 1955, Nativ had launched an operation called Bar with the aim of
gathering international support for the emigration of Soviet Jews in
countries with important Jewish communities (Levanon, 1995, 1999). To
reach this goal, it had devised a strategy to set up a transnational campaign
that would raise the issue of Soviet Jewry as a human rights concern. Nativ
could then channel this mobilization into the demand for the respect of
emigration rights. At the outset, international conditions were favourable. In
the aftermath of the Soviet Communist Partys XXth Congress, the Kremlin
had become sensitive to its image abroad and was willing to enter into
pacific coexistence with the West. After 1967, Nativs mission was
facilitated by the consequences of the Six Day War reviving Zionism in
the diaspora, the new international aura of Israel and growing anti-Semitism
in the Soviet Union. To all the countries it had selected, Nativ sent
emissaries who worked from within the local Israeli embassy or consulate.
Officially, these were diplomats specialized in Soviet affairs, but their real
task was to spread information on Soviet Jews and to provoke public action
on their behalf. In several countries, Nativ also secured the assistance of a
local Jewish intellectual coming from the non-communist Left and who was
well grounded in the political and academic scene, to disseminate literature
provided by Nativ and to raise consciousness in these circles. The links
between the Israeli office and these intellectuals, which created effective
brokerage mechanisms, remained long concealed (Sheleg, 1992).
Nativs first targets were progressive intellectual figures and politicians,
whom emissaries were trying to engage in transnational advocacy networks
to publicize the situation of Soviet Jews. Most of them simply shared the
goal of helping Soviet Jews on the basis of human rights concerns without
knowing anything about Nativ. In September 1960, for example, the Israeli
emissary in Paris, Meir Rosenne, organized the first international conference
on the situation of Soviet Jews, to which he invited 40 prominent
intellectuals, Jews and non-Jews from 14 different countries. The outcome
was a call on the Soviet Union to respect the religious and cultural rights of
Soviet Jews.14 Similarly, in December 1963, the Israeli office co-ordinated
the writing of a collective letter condemning the repression of Jewish
culture, addressed to Khrushchev and signed by Nobel prize winners,
pacifists and writers.15
The involvement of politicians was more difficult to achieve, with most of
them regarding their activities as anchored in their national political system.
Still, Nativ could count on transnational political organizations of which
Mapa, the Israeli governing party, was a member, such as the Socialist
International. During its eighth Congress in 1963, for example, the
International condemned Soviet anti-Semitism and advocated the reunification of families. Nativ also tried to convince statesmen to bring the issue into
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international arenas such as the Council of Europe and, more often, the UN.
From 1961 onwards, representatives of, among other countries, Australia,
Canada and the US delivered speeches on the Soviet Jewry issue at the Third
Commission and at the Subcommission on the prevention of discrimination
and the protection of minorities, on the basis of articles 13(2) and 18 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Roi, 1991: 16578).16
Non-Jewish allies having been found, ensuring a broad support base,
Nativ next approached the diaspora to activate its latent solidarity with
Soviet Jews. The slowly emerging memory of the Shoah and the diasporas
accompanying feeling of guilt for not having been able to prevent it
reinforced the appeal of Nativs aims. In the US, the Jewish establishments
wish to present a clear anti-Communist profile further eased Nativs task in
the beginning. Its emissaries enticed several national Jewish establishment
organizations to create institutions specifically devoted to Soviet Jewry, such
as the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry (AJCSJ) in 1964, the
National Council for Soviet Jewry in the United Kingdom and the Canadian
Committee for Soviet Jewry in 1971. Interviewed by the American Jewish
Committee, Yoram Dinstein, a former emissary of Nativ to New York, stated
in 1989 The AJCSJ was essentially our creation.17 Diplomatic documents also show that in 1965, Golda Meir, then Minister of Foreign Affairs,
intervened herself to express Israels backing of the AJCSJ and to ask the
American Jewish establishment to give higher priority to the Soviet Jewish
issue.18 In all the countries where it was active, Nativ provided what Keck
and Sikkink call the common frame of meaning (Keck and Sikkink, 1998:
7). It persuaded each Jewish establishment organization to abandon the
respect of cultural and religious rights for Soviet Jews as their main objective
and to make emigration rights their first priority.19 Nativ succeeded by
having a representative attending most of the meetings dealing with Soviet
Jewry and by channelling selected information on Soviet Jews, which the
organizations could not have obtained otherwise.
Once the common frame of meaning had been adopted by Jewish
organizations in various countries, Nativ induced them to work together in
a transnational manner after the Leningrad trials. The most visible step in
that direction was the convening, by Nativ, of the first World Conference on
Soviet Jewry, which took place in Brussels, in February 1971. It gathered
Israeli politicians, international Jewish leaders, and 760 delegates from 38
countries, representing organizations that had been working with Nativ
during the previous years. In the US, Nativs emissaries attended all
preparatory meetings for the conference, making clear what their preferred
options were. Zvi Netzer, the head of Bar in Tel-Aviv, controlled most of
the organizational details, and all the background documents had been
prepared by academics working in close contact with Nativ. Another proof of
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the Israeli offices strong influence was the declaration adopted by the
conference, which put most emphasis on emigration. Also, the conference
called for closer collaboration among Jewish organizations.20 Under the
aegis of Nativ, transnational cooperation between national Jewish establishment organizations was institutionalized, allowing for information exchanges and harmonization of strategies.
Through Nativ and its emissaries who could count on Jews sense of
kinship and non-Jews attachment to human rights Israel provided the
impetus for the transnational mobilization on behalf of Soviet Jewry. Going
beyond diaspora politics, it not only relied on Jewish organizations, but also
formed a coalition of international public figures to condemn the Kremlins
treatment of Soviet Jewry. This proved to be especially clever, since it
gathered in advance the allies that Jewish organizations would later need
during the policy-shaping phase. On the continuum we have drawn, all these
transnational actors fit without doubt much better into the SINGO category
than into the normal NGO category. Israel provided only information and
advice, and the transnational actors sometimes resisted instructions coming
from Nativ. Still, Israel significantly influenced them to mobilize for Soviet
Jews emigration, Nativs Zionist goal.
Grassroots Independence
It would be wrong, however, to think that the transnational campaign on
behalf of Soviet Jewry was only Nativ-driven. Conforming to the standard
perspective on transnational actors, it was also due to civil society action by
grassroots NGOs situated on the left end of our continuum. In that respect,
this mobilization offers an excellent example of the differences between
types of non-state actors that can exist within one campaign. In many
countries, Jewish activists who stood in opposition to the Jewish establishment also wanted to aid Soviet Jews. They were primarily motivated by guilt
for not having been able to rescue Jews from the Shoah, and a will to take
another chance to help a persecuted part of the diaspora.21 In their
backgrounds and methods, grassroots activists strongly differed from the
establishment, which feared the intrusion of these newcomers into diaspora
politics. In fact, Nativs collaboration with the establishment became one of
the main reasons why the grassroots refused to work with it.
Already in the late 1950s, some individuals had created grassroots
organizations devoted to Soviet Jewry. In 1958, Maoz was founded in Israel
to fill what was perceived as an absolute lack of concern Nativs action
being secret (Roi, 1991: 2313). In 196364, grassroots organizations
sprang up in the US, such as the Cleveland Council on Soviet AntiSemitism, and the Student Struggle for Soviet Jews, joined by local councils
479

European Journal of International Relations 11(4)

for Soviet Jewry that federated into the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry
(UCSJ) in 1971. Later, similar groups were formed in Israel the Action
Committee of Newcomers from the Soviet Union; in the United Kingdom
the Women 35s; and in Canada the Toronto Council for Soviet Jews.
All these organizations operated on a voluntary basis with very limited
financial resources and promoted action through non-establishment means,
e.g. interruptions of Soviet cultural events or boycotts of firms doing
business with the USSR (Orbach, 1980: 78).
Though these organizations were aware of each others activities, they
only started working together as a transnational advocacy network in 1969.
The trigger was, in August, a petition written by 18 Georgian Jewish
families, addressed to the UN Human Rights Commission. It revealed to the
West the existence of Soviet Zionist groups that had been formed in the
aftermath of the Six Day War and opened opportunities for the creation of
channels between Soviet Jews and Western activists. What Keck and Sikkink
call the boomerang pattern started to take effect at that point and, as they
emphasize, the central role of information explains the drive to create
networks (1998: 12ff., 18ff.). Soviet activists had no way of influencing their
own government, but they could count on international allies to put
pressure on the Soviet Union from outside. This boomerang could only
work if Soviet Jews were capable of transmitting messages to Western
activists. For activists who had no access to the information processed by
Nativ, the costs of getting information were very high a telephone call to
the USSR was still an expensive and hazardous operation, the reliability of
the mail low, and skills in Russian rare. Consequently, the quest for contacts
and up-to-date news triggered cooperation between the grassroots.
Two networks operated simultaneously one linking Western activists
among themselves, and one connecting them with Soviet Jews. Within the
first network, grassroots activists gained awareness of actions taken by other
groups and access to information on Soviet emigration policy, as well as
names and addresses of activists and refuseniks. A very good example is the
Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitisms cooperation with grassroots
leaders in Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom who were regularly
calling the Soviet Union.22 These frequent contacts led to mutual inspiration
and similar styles of activism, but compared to the institutionalized
collaboration of the establishment organizations, the grassroots networks in
the West remained loose and random. The second network was even more
fragile. Its purposes were to provide Western activists with the credibility
they needed to speak on behalf of Soviet Jews, and to enable the latter to
express their expectations towards the West, mainly to put a greater
emphasis on their right to emigrate. Due to exchanges in this network,
American activists in particular could generate information that was reliable,
480

Hagel and Peretz: States and Transnational Actors

transmit it to political actors and engage in what Keck and Sikkink call
information politics (1998: 16). The networks created by the grassroots in
parallel to those of Nativ allowed them to strengthen their local activities,
but their mobilization was never as effective as the establishments.
Agenda-Setting and Policy-Shaping in the United States
Once the transnational campaign had installed the Soviet Jewish emigration
issue as an international concern, it took a decisive political turn in the US
that led to a major change in American foreign policy. Right from the
beginning, Nativ had considered the US as a special actor, because it was
the only state that could potentially affect the Soviet Unions domestic
policies. Also, the significance of the American Jewish community called for
a key American role it was the most numerous 5 to 6 million Jews
the best organized, and the most powerful. Pluralist by nature, the
American political system was relatively open to ethnic groups influence,
and the US had a tradition of humanitarian intervention on behalf of Jews
(Smith, 2000).
For these reasons, Nativs intervention in the United States was the most
sophisticated version of all that had been put into place in other countries.
With two emissaries one in New York dealing with Jewish organizations,
one in Washington establishing contacts inside the Administration and
Congress and with the help of Jewish intellectual Moshe Decter, Nativ
was well prepared to carry out its mission. It enrolled wide support high
level liberals, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Justices William Douglas and
Arthur Goldberg; Civil Rights figures like Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther
King, Jr; and members of Congress, some Jewish Abraham Ribicoff
(Republican-Connecticut) and Jacob Javits (Democrat-New York) some
coming from a constituency with a large Jewish base most senators and
representatives from New York and California some who were old friends
of Israel such as Senator Henry Jackson (Democrat-Washington)
(Levanon, 1995: 195210). Nativ also managed to influence the AJCSJ/
NCSJ like no other Jewish SINGO in the diaspora. The American
conditions were just as ideal for pure civil society NGOs, which also had
their share in shaping American societys perception of the Soviet Jewry
issue, but mainly on a local level. Due to this broad-based mobilization,
which intensified during and after the Leningrad trials in December 1970,
the Soviet Jewish situation was gaining in popularity as a human rights
concern. The increasing number of articles published on the issue in the
New York Times after 1969 demonstrates this impact (see Figure 2).
The mobilization succeeded in putting the issue on the US foreign policy
agenda. Establishment and grassroots Jewish organizations tried, through
481

European Journal of International Relations 11(4)

Figure 2
Number of Articles on Soviet Jews Published in the New York Times*
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974
USSR
Anti-Semitism

USSR Politics
(articles on Soviet Jews)

USSR,
Immigration

* The classification follows the subdivisions of the New York Times Index. USSR, Immigration
refers to Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union and Soviet Jewish immigration into the
US.

national and transnational action, to convince American public opinion and

politicians to pressure the White House. The Executive was then to compel
the Kremlin to respect its human rights obligations vis-a-vis Jews. They
differed in their methods, their (in-)dependence from Nativ and their
political clout. In comparison to the establishments actions, the grassroots
attempts at influencing political actors had limited effects, because they were
not being taken as seriously. Until the early 1970s, the agenda-setting
obtained only minor results. The American delegation at the UN raised the
issue several times, and members of Congress introduced several resolutions
and bills trying to pressure the Kremlin to comply with international legal
norms, but none of these actions succeeded.23
With the first SovietAmerican detente-summit in May 1972, the
American movement entered a fully political phase. Great progress had been
made through detente negotiations on arms limitation, the resolution of
the ArabIsraeli conflict and trade relations were taking the right direction,
482

Hagel and Peretz: States and Transnational Actors

at the same time as the Basic Principles were adopted. The Kremlin needed
to get out of its economic isolation, and Washington, still recovering from
the Vietnam War and noticing the Soviet Unions narrowing of the missile
gap, was ready for rapprochement (Garthoff, 1994: 27ff.). Since the
international condemnation of the Soviet regime that followed the Leningrad trials in 1971, the Kremlin had shown its understanding that Soviet
Jewish emigration had become a necessary concession to pursue detente
with the West.24 While emigration had remained very low until then,
Moscow now opened its doors and let more than 30,000 Jews leave the
country in a year. In this context, the adoption, in August 1972, of an
education tax on would-be emigrants appeared as regression and made
rapprochement unacceptable to all human rights defenders. Nixon and
Kissinger agreed to raise the issue with the Soviets,25 but they refused to link
detente to Soviet internal affairs. They feared that such a linkage would
threaten their foreign policy and were convinced that linkage should be used
only with regard to international issues.
A few members of Congress some of whom had been approached by
Nativ and Jewish organizations had another idea of what linkage should
do. They proposed linking the extension of economic privileges credit
guarantees and most favoured nation status to the liberalization of Soviet
emigration policy. Grassroots activists contributed to the formulation of the
linkage proposal, which landed on Senator Jacksons desk.26 It matched his
Cold War liberal agenda at a time when he was running as the Democrat
presidential candidate it opposed Nixons detente, it would portray him
as the defender of human rights and it would surely bring him the support
of American Jews and Labour (Kaufman, 2000). Jackson therefore introduced the linkage as an amendment to the EastWest Trade Reform Act on
4 October 1972, and later to the Trade Reform Act that included the
ratification of the Trade Agreement with the Soviets. It united detentes
opponents, human rights defenders, progressive liberals and protectionists
opposed to trade with the Kremlin (Stern, 1979). Jewish organizations
establishment SINGOs and grassroots NGOs that had previously
contributed to the framing of this issue were very influential in the lobbying
process that led to the adoption of the amendment in December 1974. At
the local level, by organizing letter-writing campaigns and meetings with
representatives; at the national level, by persuading individual members of
Congress to become co-sponsors or to stop opposing the amendment.
Establishment organizations, which were counter-lobbied by Nixon who
saw the amendment as a major threat to detente, were successful in resisting
his pressure (Peretz, 2003). Also, both types of organization played an
important role in conveying the support of Jewish organizations from other
483

European Journal of International Relations 11(4)

countries, just like Soviet activists, with whom they were maintaining an
ongoing liaison the boomerang was fully functioning.
Nativs role in the adoption of the JacksonVanik amendment was limited.
Most important, the linkage idea had not originated in its office. It appeared
on the congressional agenda approximately a year before the Yom Kippur
War, a most sensitive time for Israel, whose first priority had become to
obtain Washingtons assistance. Despite Nativs firm backing of the amendment, the Israeli foreign ministry hesitated to support JacksonVanik,
because it ran counter to Nixons foreign policy and could hence threaten
the American aid Israel badly needed. Finally, Prime Minister Golda Meir
decided that Israel would not try to convince Jewish establishment leaders to
drop their support for the amendment (Levanon, 1995: 397401).27 From
a historical perspective, however, Nativ had already fulfilled its goal. In about
15 years, the activities of its emissaries had created the context awareness
of the Soviet Jews plight and empathy for them and the conditions
issue framing, network-building, agenda-setting that were necessary for
shaping a policy that could help Soviet Jews to emigrate. Its men had
prepared the ground that led to the American demand for Moscow to
respect Jews emigration rights, and to the creation of a political instrument
that could have leverage on the Kremlin.28 Nativ was thus responsible for
indirectly influencing the foreign policy of a country host to the largest
Jewish diaspora vis-a-vis a state that housed the second largest part of the
diaspora. It had accomplished this long term-goal by fostering a fullyfledged transnational mobilization on behalf of Soviet Jews.

Conclusion
Our case study shows that states are not only targets of transnational
activism they can also influence and even initiate transnational movements, which supports our argument for introducing the category of stateinfluenced NGOs (SINGOs) into the study of transnational relations. Part
of the worldwide mobilization for Soviet Jewish emigration is in line with
the standard perspective on transnational actors. Jewish grassroots organizations established a small-scale cross-border network to help Jews leave the
USSR. In the US, they had the idea of linking emigration with trade and
lobbied for the JacksonVanik amendment that would introduce this linkage
into trade relations with Moscow. But their activism alone would not have
sufficed to make a political difference. The engagement of more established
actors with more political weight was necessary for the campaign to achieve
the adoption of JacksonVanik, which constituted a major foreign policy
change during detente. This mobilization emanated from Israels secret
office, Nativ, which had pursued a long-term strategy to put the Soviet
484

Hagel and Peretz: States and Transnational Actors

Jewry issue on the international political agenda, to organize transnational
support and to make emigration the principal demand.
To exercise influence on transnational actors, states have to offer
something. This can be resources or a framework of meaning that reaches
beyond particularistic state interests. In our case, it was both. Nativ had the
information about Soviet discrimination against Jews and commanded
personnel to spread awareness of it. And it could frame its interest as a
universal human rights concern that was able to attract a wide coalition of
transnational allies. Jewish establishment organizations in many countries
became engaged because Nativ activated solidarity among the diaspora.
Would establishment organizations not have raised their voice without Nativ
just as well? As a counterfactual, this question can only be answered with
maybe. But their diaspora activism would surely have happened later, in a
less transnational fashion, and probably without making emigration the
priority issue. This last point is essential because appeals to the Kremlin to
end discrimination and to respect the cultural and religious rights of Soviet
Jews would have been other possible focal points of the campaign. As
Baruch Gur emphasizes Nativ could tolerate the diversity of voices, but
they had to have a common denominator: to accept the role of Israel and
aliyah [literally ascent to Israel] as a goal; to talk about Jewish culture in
the Soviet Union, but without considering it too seriously.29 Nativs
influences on the diasporas value interests and the common framework of
meaning were decisive to achieve Israels non-value interest of gathering the
Soviet diaspora in the new state of the ancient homeland.
Similar constellations can exist in many transnational relations, which is
why we contend that the notion of SINGOs generally needs to be taken into
account. Diaspora politics are a primary field for reciprocal relationships
between states and transnational actors because of the variety of interests
both homeland and host states can have towards their diasporas. But they
are certainly not the only such field in world politics. In our case, Israels
influence went well beyond the diaspora when Nativ orchestrated its efforts
to have public figures and progressive politicians join the transnational
campaign, most of whom had no idea about Nativ and its mission.
Whenever transnational actors goals overlap with states foreign policy
objectives, opportunities for collaboration arise, particularly if states offer
resources for achieving common goals. But while their objectives are usually
ultimate goals for NGOs, they are sometimes only instrumental goals for
states, or at least states can attach other interests to them, like installing
regional security and stability, opening up export markets, or mobilizing
resistance against an unwelcome foreign regime (Cohen, 2003; Hulme and
Edwards, 1997).
485

European Journal of International Relations 11(4)

With the ideological and geopolitical struggles between communism and
liberalism, 20th-century history is rich in examples of states influencing
transnational actors on the basis of shared values and goals. After the
Revolution, the USSR used the Comintern to spread its version of communism abroad via the control of national communist parties and satellite
organizations, such as unions, youth movements and intellectual groups.
Consequently, the evolution of communist organizations in other countries
reflected both the rivalries inside the Kremlin and Moscows foreign policy
objectives. Until 1928, while being bolshevized, the Comintern imposed a
radical restructuring upon them; under Stalin, their autonomy was emasculated and they were pushed to adopt the class vs class tactic; and the volteface towards the Popular Fronts and anti-fascist unity in 1934 was due to the
Cominterns new leadership and Moscows quest for collective security
agreements (Broue, 1997; McDermott and Agnew, 1996).
After World War II, impressed by the USSRs transnational manoeuvres,
the US drew inspiration from the Cominterns practices and used the CIA to
promote its views of a liberal and federalist Western Europe among societal
groups and organizations. The USs secret support to the European
Movement (Aldrich, 2001), its efforts to make European trade unions and
the British Left less socialist and more Atlantist (Wilford, 2003) and its
backing of the Congress on Cultural Freedom (Scott-Smith, 2001) are well
documented. In all these cases, the CIA channelled funds through American
intermediaries and helped to create new organizations, select their leadership
and generate mass support for their ideas. Yet, the CIA was never a puppetmaster [US] state agencies [. . .] did not control the private sphere
but directed it in the pursuit of its strategic vision (Lucas, 2003: 60).
In the expanding area of transnational humanitarian activism, often
supposed to be politically neutral, states can also influence NGOs by
connecting aid with other foreign policy goals. For refugee and relief work
during the Afghan war in the 1980s, Helga Baitenmann has shown in detail
how most NGOs working cross-border, and most advocacy NGOs were
conscious agents of political interests (1990: 82) Pakistan and the US, in
particular, supported them in sustaining the anti-Soviet Afghan forces. In
the post-Cold War environment, questions about how states make NGOs
humanitarian aid part of their strategic calculations remain just as relevant,
e.g. in conflicts in Kosovo, Rwanda or Sudan. Being the donors that fund
substantial parts of NGOs humanitarian operations, states increasingly want
to make sure that these also contribute to broader development and security
aims (Cohen, 2003; Duffield, 2001).
The apparent independence of some of the major transnational NGOs like
Amnesty International or Greenpeace might be responsible for the widespread academic assumption of transnational actors autonomy. Our case
486

Hagel and Peretz: States and Transnational Actors

study in diaspora politics and the aforementioned considerations about other
transnational relations demonstrate that this cannot always be taken for
granted. Since states can build upon common objectives and use their
resources to influence transnational actors, the latters autonomy can only be
a hypothesis that demands careful examination (Tarrow, 2001: 16). Between
the operations of GONGOs and pure civil society activism lie a wide range
of reciprocal influences among states and transnational actors that can be
captured within the category of SINGOs. Exploring this field, future
research may further differentiate how and to what extent state influence
happens, particularly with regard to the distinct uses of covert operations
and open collaboration. The mechanisms we identified states instrumental use of value interests and their strategic shaping of the common
framework of meaning are likely to be employed in other transnational
relations, too, with probably less need for secrecy than in our Jewish
diaspora case. Considering the creativity states have shown in influencing
domestic actors, subsequent research will certainly expand the variety of
mechanisms at work vis-a-vis transnational actors. In particular, the material
interdependencies that emerge out of state-sponsored funding for transnational actors services present a rich field for more studies on SINGOs.
Notes
We thank Walter Mattli for very valuable advice, three anonymous reviewers and the
editors of EJIR for insightful and beneficial comments, and the participants of the
Journees Histoire et Science Politique in March 2004 in Paris for helpful
suggestions on earlier versions of this article.
1. Therefore, collaboration between state actors and NGOs might often be of an
informal or even secret nature. In our case study, only in-depth research in
archives and via interviews permitted the discovery of the interaction between
state actors and NGOs.
2. The definition of transnational relations as regular interactions across national
boundaries when at least one actor is a non-state agent or does not operate on
behalf of a national government or an intergovernmental organization (RisseKappen, 1995b: 3) allows for the involvement of state actors. But, as our case
study shows, it is not always clear how autonomous non-state actors are.
3. At the time, this was the amendments main objective. Its phrasing, however, is
more general in order to apply to any non-market economy. It was later applied
to Rumania, Bulgaria, China and Vietnam, and is still in effect today.
4. No comprehensive study exists on this issue. Paula Stern (1979) explains the
adoption of the JacksonVanik amendment as the sole result of congressional
mobilization, highly underestimating the role of Jewish organizations and totally
ignoring that of Israel. J.J. Goldberg (1996) depicts it as the result of Jewish
mobilization, but goes too far when he sees it as a founding moment for the
Jewish lobby. He mentions the influence of Israel in the creation of the American

487

European Journal of International Relations 11(4)

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.
10.
11.
12.

13.
14.
15.
16.

17.

Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry, but fails to understand that it is only one
part of a larger international campaign designed by Nativ. Howard Sachar
(1985) succeeds better in showing the international ambitions of the operation
designed by Israel, but is not able to give a satisfying overview of Nativs
actions.
The term establishment designates the Jewish community organizations
directed by a small and self-perpetuating leadership drawn mainly from the
Jewish elite.
We concentrate on the interactions between transnational normative activists
and states. However, our remarks probably also hold true for other transnational
actors and their roles in establishing private governance and influencing
international organizations. For analysis of how states can influence private
governance, see Drezner (2004).
Our understanding of state influence on NGOs resembles what Payne (2001:
446) discusses as strategic framing. To be effective, such cognitive mechanisms
need to be combined with relational mechanisms like brokerage (McAdam et al.,
2001: 25ff.). In our case, this happened when Nativ established links with and
among Jewish diaspora organizations and human rights activists, and coopted
some diaspora activists, in order to frame the issue of Soviet Jewish emigration
according to the Israeli states interests. For the general analysis of social
mechanisms, see Hedstrom and Swedberg (1998).
These trials imposed death sentences upon Jewish activists who had tried to
hijack a plane in Leningrad to leave the Soviet Union. The harshness of these
sentences gave rise to an international condemnation of the Kremlin.
Interview with Meir Rosenne (Nativ emissary to Paris and New York, later Israeli
ambassador to France and the US), Jerusalem, 17 October 2002.
130/4326/7, Israel State Archives (ISA).
Moshe Decter, 5/2, SSSJ archives, Yeshiva University.
Also interview with Nechemia Levanon (Nativ emissary to Moscow and
Washington, and head of Nativ, 19721982), Kfar Blum, 24 October 2002. All
information about Nativ in this article is firmly rooted in interviews with former
Nativ personnel, archives of American Jewish organizations and documents of
the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We probably underestimate Nativs real
scope of action, because its own archives are still classified.
Interview with Baruch Gur, Tel-Aviv, 21 October 2002.
Conseil Representatif des Juifs de France, Conference internationale sur la
situation des Juifs en Union sovietique, Paris, 1960.
130/4326/7, ISA.
Article 13(2): Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own,
and to return to his country; Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his
religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in
public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship
and observance.
Transcript of an interview with Yoram Dinstein, Soviet Jewry movement in

488

Hagel and Peretz: States and Transnational Actors

18.
19.
20.
21.

22.
23.

24.

25.

26.
27.
28.

29.

America, New York Public Library and American Jewish Committee, Oral
History Collection, 1989. See also Peretz (2004). The AJCSJ was reorganized
and renamed National Conference on Soviet Jewry in 1971.
Telegram from Avidar to Moshe Bitan, re: meeting between Golda Meir and
the CPMAJO, 8 October 1965, 93.8/6550/12, ISA.
Interview with Jerry Goodman (former executive director of the NCSJ), New
York, 25 April 2002.
Brussels Conference on Soviet Jewry, box 44, NCSJ collection, American
Jewish Historical Society.
An important reason for people to create new grassroots organizations was that
they held the establishment responsible for failing to rescue European Jews from
the Shoah.
Interview with Lou Rosenblum (former head of the CCSA and later of the
UCSJ), Cleveland, 18 June 2003.
Among them were the Senate resolution on full religious freedom in 1963, the
Soviet Jew relief Act of 1971, and the Bill to amend the Export Administration
Act of 1969 in order to promote freedom of emigration in May 1972.
The latest research on the issue in Soviet archives shows that the Kremlin did not
have a coherent policy line (Morozov, 1999). Most of the time, it reacted to
external pressures, be they American, Israeli or Arabic. Two own interests were
emigration as a way to solve internal difficulties (to get rid of activists and
unassimilated minorities, to create openings in selected areas of housing and
professions for the growing Russian middle-class, to get currency), and
emigration as a means to have leverage on the international scene (to further
detente, to influence both Israel and Arab states).
The Nixon Presidential Materials (housed at the National Records and Archives
in College Park, Maryland) show that Nixon did not raise the issue of Soviet
Jewish emigration during the first Moscow Summit in May 1972 despite strong
domestic pressure, but that he could not oppose this pressure any longer after
the imposition of the education tax by the Soviets (National Security Council,
Country files-Europe, boxes 710, 719724 and Country files Europe-USSR,
boxes 67, 7172, 7677).
Interview with Lou Rosenblum, Cleveland, 18 June 2003, and Rees bill,
CCSA archives, Western Reserve Historical Society.
Also interview with Levanon, Kfar Blum, 24 October 2002.
In the end, this leverage failed when the Soviet Union retreated from the trade
negotiations and Soviet Jewish emigration decreased. On the complex reasons of
JacksonVaniks failure to reach its objective, see Peretz (2002). This, however,
does not diminish the activists policy-shaping accomplishment.
Interview with Baruch Gur, Tel-Aviv, 21 October 2002.

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