Jews in Eastern Europe, edited by Emanuel Litvinoff, No. 6, London, December 1960.

Those who remember the early days of the Soviet Jewry campaign in Britain in the 1960s, will remember copies of the monthly periodical, Jews in Eastern Europe, being distributed by the Universities Committee for Soviet Jewry and other organizations.  These were financed by Israel Sieff and Philip Klutznick and printed by the Narod Press in Whitechapel.  This is a slightly earlier example, from 1960.

Emanuel Litvinoff was born in the East End of London, the second son of Jewish immigrants who had left Odessa. His father went back to Russia before Emanuel was two, and he never returned, leaving Emanuel’s mother, Rosa, to support her children by dressmaking. She later remarried and had more children, so Emanuel grew up in a large family. His autobiography, Journey Through a Small Planet is an account of growing up destitute between the wars.

Starting during the Second World War, Litvinoff started to write reviews, poems and short stories. He took a job on the Zionist Review (although he was not a Zionist), and became deputy editor on the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review.

Litvinoff’s voice was one raised in protest against the fate of the Jews. His editorship of this  monthly newsletter Jews in Eastern Europe, which gave details of the atrocities being perpetuated against the Jews of the Soviet Union, made a serious contribution to the legislation that eventually allowed Jewish people to leave the USSR for Israel.

Included in this issue is the record of the 1960 Paris conference of intellectuals on Soviet Jewry, which is reproduced below.  Notable celebrities of the time who attended included Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Wolf Mankowitz, Muriel Spark, Peter Vansittart, Martin Buber and Professor Lionel Trilling.