Reviewed by:

• American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry: A Call to Conscience by Fred A. Lazin
• Marjorie N. Feld (bio)

For many affiliated American Jews of my generation, the cause of Soviet Jewry left a significant mark on our youth. At my bat mitzvah, I was "twinned" with a girl in the Soviet Union who, I was told, could not practice her religion publicly. Three years later, in 1987, I joined 250,000 others at my first demonstration in Washington, DC: The March to Free Soviet Jewry. My own hazy memories of these events match the dominant historiographical outlines of the movement and its white, Ashkenazic Jewish leadership. In his new book American Christians and the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry, Fred A. Lazin offers a competing or, perhaps, complementary, portrait: a history of the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry (the "Task Force"), a group dedicated to Soviet Jewry and headed by Sister Ann Gillen of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. Lazin's study illuminates the politics of interreligious cooperation and activism while revising our understanding of the Soviet Jewry movement.

Lazin sets the stage for the 1972 founding of the Task Force by beginning with the "constructive consequences" of Vatican II, in particular the 1965 Nostra Aetate document that drastically altered relationships between Catholics and Jews. In the years following, nuns began to address broader social problems outside of the Catholic Church, just as American Jewish leaders sought support from Christians for the cause of Soviet Jewry. First sponsored by the National Catholic Council for Interracial Justice (NCCIJ) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Task Force gradually fell under AJC leadership with the goal "that it would serve as the national organization through which concerned Christians may act on behalf of the Soviet Jewish community" (38). Grounded in prodigious archival research, this book chronicles, in intricate detail, the multifaceted work undertaken by Sister Gillen across the United States and in the Soviet Union, at United Nations conferences, and at the World Conferences for Soviet Jewry. Under the careful and strict supervision of the AJC, and using the language of human and civil rights, Sister Gillen drew from her own Christian networks in assembling conferences, vigils, meetings, and demonstrations for Soviet Jewry. She contributed to a campaign that mobilized millions of people, Jewish and Christian, world leaders and laypeople alike, and offered a unifying cause for American Jews in the final years of the Cold War.

Lazin writes that some Jewish communal leaders spoke of "spiritual genocide" and resisted efforts to broaden the campaign to work for other [End Page 641] (Christian) groups denied religious expression in the Soviet Union (70). He suggests that Israeli leaders led or reinforced this resistance because of their own nation's investment in Soviet Jewry's freedom to emigrate. Indeed, in the very first sentence of the book, Lazin notes that "Israeli leaders immediately faced an existential threat to the new Jewish State's existence—a population insufficient to ensure both the survival of the State and its Jewish majority" (1). The Task Force, he writes, knowingly or unknowingly served this purpose as it drew Christian allies to the cause of Soviet Jewry and of the free emigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. Even Sister Gillen, he tells us, "may or may not have been aware of the role of the [Israeli] Liaison Bureau"—a "clandestine operation focused on Soviet Jewry in the office of the Israeli prime minister"—in the work of the Task Force's campaigns (65, 64).

Perhaps tied to the directives of Israeli leadership and to new geopolitical contexts, the tension over advocating for other religious groups in the Soviet Union intensified in the late 1970s. In response, Sister Gillen, joined by AJC leaders, set up a National Interreligious Task Force on Human Rights, which "shifted the focus of advocacy to one of universal human rights" (145). In these years, Sister Gillen allied with Catholics and evangelical Protestants to draw attention to...

审核人：

• 美国基督徒与国家宗教间特别行动小组（苏联犹太人：对良心的呼唤） Fred A. Lazin
• Marjorie N.Feld（生物）

对于我们这一代的许多附属的美国犹太人而言，苏联犹太人的事业在我们的青年时代留下了重要的印记。在我的蝙蝠礼上，我被苏联的一个女孩“缠住”了，被告知，她不能公开信奉她的宗教。三年后的1987年，我与25万其他人一起参加了在华盛顿特区举行的第一次示威游行：“解放苏联犹太人游行”。我对这些事件的朦胧记忆与该运动的主要史学轮廓及其阿什肯纳兹白色犹太领导人的运动相吻合。在他的新书《美国基督教徒和苏联犹太人全国宗教特别工作组》中，弗雷德·A·拉津（Fred A. Lazin）提供了一个相互竞争或补充的肖像：苏联犹太人全国宗教特别工作组（简称“工作队”）的历史，该小组致力于苏联犹太人，由该学会的安·吉伦姐妹主持。儿童耶稣的雕像。拉津的研究阐明了宗教间合作与行动主义的政治色彩，同时又修改了我们对苏联犹太运动的理解。

拉津首先从梵蒂冈二世的“建设性后果”开始，尤其是1965年的诺斯特·埃泰特（Nostra Aetate），为1972年成立特遣部队奠定了基础。该文件彻底改变了天主教徒与犹太人之间的关系。在随后的几年中，修女开始解决天主教会之外的更广泛的社会问题，就像美国犹太领导人为苏维埃犹太人事业寻求基督徒的支持一样。该工作队最初由全国跨种族司法天主教委员会（NCCIJ）和美国犹太人委员会（AJC）赞助，后来逐渐落入AJC的领导之下，目标是“它将作为国家组织，让有关基督徒可以代表其行事苏联犹太人社区”（38）。本书以伟大的档案研究为基础，详细记录了吉伦修女在美国和苏联在联合国会议上所做的多方面工作，在苏联犹太人世界会议上。在AJC的认真和严格监督下，吉伦姐妹使用人权和公民权利的语言，从她自己的基督教网络中吸取了参加苏联犹太人的集会，守夜，集会和示威游行的机会。她为这项运动做出了贡献，动员了数百万人，包括犹太人和基督教徒，世界领导人和非专业人士，并在冷战的最后几年为美国犹太人提供了统一的事业。

拉津写道，一些犹太社区领袖谈到“精神上的种族灭绝”，并拒绝为扩大竞选活动而努力为其他[End Page 641]（基督徒）团体工作，他们否认了苏联的宗教表达（70）。他建议以色列领导人领导或加强这种抵抗，因为他们自己国家对苏联犹太人的移民自由进行了投资。确实，拉津在这本书的第一句话中指出：“以色列领导人立即面临着对新犹太国的存在的生存威胁-人口不足以确保该国及其犹太多数群体的生存”（1）。专责小组，他写道，有意或无意地为这个目的，因为它吸引了基督教盟友苏联犹太人的原因和犹太人自由移民到以色列的经历。他告诉我们，即使是吉伦姐妹，“在以色列的工作中，也许也可能不知道[以色列]联络局的作用”-“秘密行动针对以色列总理办公室的苏联犹太人”。专案小组的战役（65，64）。

也许与以色列领导层的指示以及新的地缘政治背景有关，在1970年代后期加剧了在提倡苏联其他宗教团体方面的紧张气氛。作为回应，吉伦修女在AJC领导人的陪同下成立了国家人权跨宗教工作队，“将倡导的重点转移到了一项普遍人权上”（145）。这些年来，吉伦姐妹与天主教徒和福音派新教徒结盟，引起人们对...的关注。