18 | JUNE 8 • 2023 

A

s the daughter of 
Soviet Jewish immi-
grants and first in my 
family to be born in the United 
States, I’ve long been fascinated 
with the Soviet Jewish immi-
gration story.
How did an estimated nearly 
2 million Jews and their rela-
tives emigrate from the Soviet 
Union since 1970 — as a slow 
trickle and then en masse 
— and manage to start new 
lives in the U.S., Canada and 
Australia, among other coun-
tries?
The why is well-known. 
Antisemitism and limited edu-
cational and career opportuni-
ties for Soviet Jews left many 
wanting a better life for them-
selves or their children. Yet the 
process of actually leaving the 
USSR, and the steps that fol-
lowed, can often be a mystery 

unless you’re lucky enough to 
have relatives who can tell the 
story in detail.
While I managed to establish 
most of my family’s immigra-
tion story through extensive 
interviews (and endless ques-
tions) that as a journalist I 
was able to ask my parents, I 
still had many pockets of the 
storyline that just didn’t have 
enough information.
Luckily, information housed 
in the JDC Archives, the 
archives of the American Jewish 
Joint Distribution Committee, a 
Jewish relief organization, were 
able to answer many of those 
lingering questions for me.

FILLING THE BLANKS
As one of several Jewish organi-
zations involved in relief efforts 
for the rescue of Soviet Jews 
from 1970 onwards, and in the 

many decades that preceded 
that, JDC’s extensive archives 
hold photographs, a names 
index and more from this criti-
cal time period.
(Still, I’m just naming one 
example of what the archives 
include — there are records 
from all areas of JDC’s work, 
which operates in 70 countries 
around the globe.)
While some information 
is public and searchable in 
the JDC archives database, 
there are also private transmi-
grant case files on Soviet Jews 
assisted by JDC available to 
family members only. These 
files contain information from 
Vienna and Rome, two stops 
on the Soviet Jewish pipeline 
that served as important tran-
sit points for the immigration 
process.
Since I was able to find my 

family in the names database, 
I reached out to JDC archivist 
Misha Mitsel, a Ukraine native 
and Soviet Jew assisted by JDC 
himself, to inquire what infor-
mation JDC might have on my 
family.
As it turns out, JDC had 
transmigrant case files on 
each bucket of my fami-
ly — my father’s family, my 
mother’s family and then my 
great-grandparents, who emi-
grated separately — and I was 
able to purchase the files.
Typically, these files cost $50 
a piece, but Abby Lester, JDC’s 
director of the global archives, 
says the organization will work 
with you on a fair price. If one 
file is smaller, for example, and 
only has two pages, they won’t 
charge you $50.
Each case file I received 
was vastly different from the 

OUR COMMUNITY

Tracing my Family Tree

JDC Archives hold treasure trove of 
family history information for Soviet Jews.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Families welcome 
their Soviet relatives 
to Detroit in this 
historical photo. 

JFS

