In June 1956, a delegation of American Orthodox rabbis traveled to the Soviet Union, marking the first significant contact between U.S. Jews and the Soviet Jewish community in nearly four decades. The rabbis' mission was to bring hope to Soviet Jewry and learn first-hand of their oppression. Among the five travelers was Rabbi Herschel Schacter, a former U.S. Army chaplain who had ministered to the survivors in Buchenwald. Narrated by Rebecca Naomi Jones and featuring Dr. Rafael Medoff, founding Director of the David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and author of The Rabbi of Buchenwald: The Life and Times of Herschel Schacter.
Episode Image: Pamphlet published by the Journal American containing trip reports from the delegation of American Orthodox Rabbis in 1956. From the Subject Files Collection in the Archive of the American Soviet Jewry Movement at AJHS, I-424.