Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Soviet Jewry activist sees fight unfinished

New Jersey Jewish News

For Larry Lerner, there’s a clear connection between a lonely Russian child hoping to find a home with adoptive parents in the United States in 2013, and a doggedly determined refusenik in the 1980s, dreaming of freedom in Israel.

Lerner, who lives in Warren, sees them as part of the same push-and-pull effort that engaged American Jews in the decades-long Free Soviet Jewry movement.

“You can’t get people in this country to support the fight for human rights these days,” the retired attorney told NJ Jewish News in a recent interview. “But this kind of fight is never over. You have to keep at it, monitoring what’s going on, and working to raise awareness.”

And keeping at it is what he does, as president, since 2009, of the Union of Councils for Jews in the former Soviet Union (UCSJ). One of the most important organizations in the heady struggle for Soviet Jewish emigration, UCSJ now hopes to re-engage the American-Jewish community in the broader struggle for justice and human rights in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union.

According to the Human Rights Watch annual report, 2012 was “the worst year for human rights in Russia in recent memory,” with Vladimir Putin’s government imposing new laws to limit public assembly, restrict access to the Internet, increase fines for protesters, and recriminalize libel. Nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign funding must register as “foreign agents.”