Search results

Alla Levy, with her husband and two sons, was the first of the families from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to be resettled in the United States by Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry. She recalls the highs and lows of their life in the Soviet Union where she and her husband, both well-educated and economically stable, experienced increasing discrimination against Jews. She began to realize that for their sons, educational and economic opportunities would be limited. The family began to try to find ways to obtain visas to leave, and she talks about their experiences in the context of the ongoing political events in the world. She also discusses the experiences of family members and other Jews from Dushanbe during and after World War II, at home, at the front and in concentration camps. With help from BASJ her family arrived in the United States. She details the familiy's initial difficulties in finding a place for themselves here, their adjustments to new careers, new friends, interactions with government agencies, new cultural expectations, and finally, being able to participate openly in Judaism. She talks about how the BASJ helped in supporting their efforts through this difficult, but ultimately triumphant, process. In her words, "This is my home now, and I consider myself American".

Boris Bachayev and his family immigrated to the United States from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, in the Soviet Union, with the help of Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry. He discusses both the lack of religious and other freedoms in the Soviet Union and antisemitism that he experienced there. He contrasts life there with life in the United States. He also describes the process of adapting to American culture and the close ties that his family formed with the American family that helped them with that process. He reflects on the differences among several branches of American Judaism and describes being the founder of a Bukharian Jewish synagogue in Denver.

Barbara Gould, the first Resettlement and Volunteer Coordinator for Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry (BASJ), recalls her experiences in this project, which brought Jews from the former Soviet Union to Boulder. She discusses how BASJ met the challenges consequent to integrating people from a different culture to this one and how the goal of helping New Americans become independent economically and socially was achieved with judicious support from the BASJ staff and many volunteers. She also describes many of the intricacies of the immigrant experience.

Kathryn Bernheimer discusses her work with Boulder Action for Soview Jewry, including work on the board of directors, being a mentor for an immigrant family, and her role in creating fundraisers for the organization. She talks about not only the cultural and economic adjustments that were necessary for the Russian Jewish immigrants whom BASJ helped resettle, but also about the influence that the immigrants had on her own developing Jewish identity. Other sections of the interview consider her former job as film and theater critic for the Daily Camera newspaper, books she has written about movies, and other jobs she has held.

Sara Goldberg, volunteer coordinator for Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry (BASJ), talks about how upwards of 125 volunteers at a time, filling many different roles, were vital in carrying out the BASJ project; how they were recruited, trained, and matched with the appropriate family or job within the organization. She recalls the ways in which successful relationships between families and volunteers were nurtured, sometimes in the face of difficult social or emotional challenges requiring that special resources be identified and provided. She analyzes how and why BASJ was able, in the long term, to be so successful in helping immigrant families become independent and productive in this culture in spite of, and in some cases because of, the relatively short time available, limited resources, and small staff.

Bill Nagel talks about the experience of helping a Soviet Jewish immigrant family to resettle in the Boulder area in the early 1990s through Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry, and the deep friendship that sprung up between the two families. Among the topics touched on are Bukharan Jewish culture, successful adjustments to and appreciation of American life, the importance of encouraging self-sufficiency for immigrant families, and the ways in which immigrants enrich American culture.

In the summer of 1990 Donna Werner and her husband, Randy, were among the first volunteers with Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry (BASJ) to host a Russian immigrant family. The mission of BASJ was to provide human rights advocacy and resettlement for Soviet Jewish refugees, known as New Americans, who had faced antisemitism in Russia. Werner discusses BASJ's training program for volunteers, her efforts to develop relationships with family members, the breadth of cultural differences, and the often challenging process of helping integrate the family to life in the United States.

Mimi Ito worked as an English as a Second Language (ESL) trainer of volunteer tutors for Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry (BASJ). She recalls her experiences in this position, also discussing the role of her late mother, Harriet Moskovit, who became a tutor for one of the New Americans. Mimi outlines the training programs that were developed for the tutors and talks in detail about how teaching English extended to facilitating acculturation of the New Americans, and resulted in friendships being formed that lasted long after the BASJ ended its formal program. She evaluates this project as demonstrating how a small group of dedicated volunteers could enrich their own lives as well as those of the New Americans with whom they worked.

Painter Olga Plam emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States with her husband and son in 1977, after three years of trying to obtain an exit visa. She vividly describes the persecution experienced by Jews in the Soviet Union, which banned religious observance and did not consider Jews to be Russians, a persecution that increased in intensity for those who were trying to leave. She describes the resettlement process in the United States, including four years spent living at the Mountain Research Station, learning English and about American culture through the kindness of new American friends, and how she went about regaining a sense of Jewish tradition. She also relates the personal and political efforts made by herself and others in the United States to obtain an exit visa for her father, Naum Meiman, a prominent mathematician - a process that took 13 years.

In this interview Rebecca Bradley discusses her involvement in the efforts of Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry. Among other related topics, she describes the two trips she took to the former Soviet Union, the many connections she helped forge that allowed many Soviet citizens to emigrate to the US, as well as her unique perspective as an American Jew, and Russian-language speaker.

Shirley Weisz discusses her work designing English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum for a variety of immigrant groups, including Cambodian, Hmong, Mexican, and Jewish Russian. In particular, she discusses such work for immigrants who came to Boulder through the work of the group Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry (BASJ) and her role as supervisor of ESL tutors for the organization. She describes the process of tailoring ESL teaching to the specific cultural practices that each immigrant needed to learn, and she explains some of the practicies and parameters that result in successful second-language teaching and learning.

Jan Hoegh worked with the group Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry (BASJ), helping resettle immigrants from the former Soviet Union, mainly from Tajikistan, to Boulder. She helped to gather furniture for apartments for the immigrants, picked them up at the airport, and found medical professionals who would donate their services to the newly arrived residents. She also helped immigrants learn English and adjust to American culture, in the process of which she came to know and appreciate the richness of their native culture and found her own professional focus - to become a teacher. She speaks about the experience of culutral upheaval that is involved in the immigration process and also about the gift of working with both the immigrants and the Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry members, both of which, she says, exposed her to "the best of humanity".