"I Don't Know Whom to Thank": The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's Secret Aid to Soviet Jewry

This article focuses on a little-known episode: the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's (JDC) package program on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, from its inception through the Six Day War in 1967. The article reveals JDC clandestine activity on behalf of Soviet Jewry, in cooperation with the Israeli government, when the JDC was officially banned from working there. This package program was an expression of Western Cold War policy to support discriminated-against Soviet ethnic and religious minorities. I explore the dimensions and dynamics of the package program, its share of the total JDC East European aid and its unique style of administration, its outreach and impact, and the response of the beneficiaries. Soviet policy regarding Western aid to its citizens was often guided by pragmatic rather than ideological considerations; therefore, the stream of packages was never entirely stopped. This article reveals that both Israeli and "establishment" American Jewish organizations' activities on behalf of Soviet Jewry were considerably greater than American grassroots organizations claim. The story is also an encouraging example of mutual involvement of the three largest Jewish communities in the world, even when one of them was behind the Iron Curtain.