Issues in U.S. Immigration

Soviet Jewish immigrants

by Steve D. Boilard

Identification: Jewish immigrants to North America who emigrated from the Soviet Union before its breakup during the early 1990's

Immigration Issues: Demographics; European immigrants; Jewish immigrants; Refugees

Significance: After suffering through a long history of oppression under the Russian czars and Soviet rulers, Jews living in the Soviet Union pressed for the right to emigrate. Many who were allowed to leave came to the United States, where they found it difficult to assimilate with other Jews.

When the Bolsheviks assumed power in Russia in 1917, they promised to end the periodic pogroms (massacres) and frequent discrimination that Russian Jews had experienced under the czars. However, the Soviet government soon engaged in widespread, though perhaps less overt, forms of discrimination and persecution against the country's Jewish population. In addition, because the Soviet Union's official communist ideology included a commitment to atheism, Jews, along with other religious groups, were essentially barred from practicing their religion. Houses of worship were closed or destroyed, and religious leaders were imprisoned.

During the era of détente during the 1970's, the Soviet government permitted a significant increase in Jewish emigration. This was partly caused by the passage in the U.S. Congress of the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which tied American-Soviet trade to an increase in the Soviet Union's Jewish emigration permits. Although many Soviet Jews emigrated to Israel, a large portion of these emigrants eventually settled in the United States. Jewish American groups had lobbied the federal government both to pressure the Soviet government to release Jews and to permit more Soviet Jews to settle in the United States.

Although the immigration campaign was highly successful, Soviet Jewish immigrants did not always integrate with the American Jewish community as well as had been hoped. The immigrants were frequently more secular, having grown up in an officially atheistic state. They also tended to be poor and eager to make use of resources made available by American Jewish groups. Politically, many Soviet Jewish immigrants were more conservative than the mainstream American Jewish groups. Also, many of the immigrants did not speak English. A number of American Jewish leaders expressed disappointment about their inability to incorporate and assimilate the new immigrants.

Many refugees from the Soviet Union who could not obtain Soviet passports, traveled under League of Nations passports such as this one, which was issued shortly after Joseph Stalin took power in the Soviet Union.

iusi_p0726.jpg

(Library of Congress)

A second wave of Soviet Jewish emigration took place during the late 1980's and early 1990's, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev liberalized his country's emigration laws. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 in particular created a renewed impetus for Soviet Jews (and others) to leave their country. Many Soviet Jews were attracted to the United States by concerted campaigns by Jewish American groups. The number of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union increased from about 200 in 1986 to a peak of 185,000 in 1990. A total of more than 700,000 Soviet Jews immigrated to the United States between 1987 and 1997.

The fact that many Soviet Jewish immigrants do not look, speak, or behave like mainstream American Jews has underscored an important principle of racial and ethnic relations. Frequently, cultural and societal differences—rather than purely racial, ethnic, or religious differences—have led to friction between groups. Similarly, the mere sharing of ethnic or racial backgrounds does not ensure intergroup harmony.

Further Reading

1 

Altshuler, Stuart. The Exodus of the Soviet Jews. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.

2 

Frankel, Edith Rogovin. Old Lives and New Soviet Immigrants in Israel and America. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2012.

3 

Shasha, Dennis Elliott, and Marina Shron. Red Blues: Voices from the Last Wave of Russian Immigrants. New York: Holmes & Meier, 2002.

4 

Wertsman, Vladimir, ed. The Russians in America: A Chronology and Fact Book. Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, 1977.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Boilard, Steve D. "Soviet Jewish Immigrants." Issues in U.S. Immigration, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=IUSI_0199.
APA 7th
Boilard, S. D. (2015). Soviet Jewish immigrants. In C. Bankston III (Ed.), Issues in U.S. Immigration. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Boilard, Steve D. "Soviet Jewish Immigrants." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Issues in U.S. Immigration. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.