Judy Patkin
Born in Englewood, New Jersey, Judy Patkin has lived for most of her life in the greater Boston area. In the early 1970s, she met a Soviet Jewish emigre who was trying to help his friends leave the country. That encounter led to the founding of Action for Soviet Jewry, a group that supported refuseniks socially and economically. Patkin and others in the organization also established and maintained contacts with individual activists and social-action groups around the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Patkin and her colleagues changed the name of their organization to Action for Post Soviet Jewry and altered its mission. The group now supports impoverished Jews who remain in the former Soviet Union (FSU).
Judy Patkin talks about meeting refuseniks, hearing their stories, and what she brought with her overseas. Judy continues to discuss her visits to the former Soviet Union [FSU], the development of cities, and current needs. She describes her first experience interacting with a refusenik. Judy explains the beginnings of her involvement with the Soviet Jewry movement. She talks about protests when the Russian ballet came to Boston, the movement in Sudbury, MA, and the birth of the Action for Post-Soviet Jewry. Judy discusses her Jewish identity and what it means to her to be a better Jew. She describes the Action for Post-Soviet Jewry, their work, and current conditions, and reveals the realities of some of the work that she and her organization have done in the FSU. Judy illustrates the way in which she interacted with the American government and the Jackson Amendment and explains how her activism has made her a better person, one of the most emotionally trying experiences of her work, and health care in the FSU. Judy opens up about when her interest in the Soviet Jewry movement blossomed and how her children altered her trajectory.
