The Wreckage

<p>The American movement for Soviet Jewry was composed of a number of organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and ranging from grassroots organizations to larger, internationally established nonprofits. Established...

<p >One of the driving forces behind the American Soviet Jewry freedom movement were college students. In 1964, the activist Jacob Birnbaum arrived in New York City, and soon became inspired by the Student Nonviolent...

<p >In the summer of 1970, Soviet Jewish dissidents Eduard Kuznetsov and Mark Dymshits organized a group of 16 refuseniks to take over a small, 12-seater airplane and escape from the USSR. Dubbed "Operation Wedding,"...

<p >As hostilities behind the Iron Curtain worsened, a large number of Soviet Jews began to apply for exit visas, most commonly to Israel. Most of these applications came from Jews living in territories in the Western...

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...

<p>During this bonus episode, taped live at the Angelika Film Center in downtown Manhattan in a send-up to the Hollywood Ten, writer and critic Julie Salamon returns to The Wreckage to host New York Times...

<p >HUAC's continued targeting of activists spread to Jewish Americans and others at the forefront of the anti-Vietnam War movement. In 1967 - a year that would become one of the deadliest for U.S. military casualties...

<p >By 1957, Joseph McCarthy was dead and HUAC's power and influence was on the decline, with former President Harry Truman calling it "the most un-American thing in the country today." Increasingly, organizations and...

<p >In the spring of 1954, the blustering anticommunist crusader, Senator Joseph McCarthy, set his sights on a new target: the United States Army, alleging Communist infiltration of the Army Signal Corps lab at Fort...

<p >On April 5, 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sentenced to death under the Espionage Act of 1917. The couple was accused of spying for the Soviet Union and providing classified information about nuclear weapons...

<p >College professors and other educators were among those targeted by anti-communists, but the search for Communist Party members in the U.S. education system began much earlier. The so-called "Red-ucators" were among...

<p>In November 1947, ten Hollywood writers and directors were cited for contempt of court for their refusal to testify before HUAC. Criminal charges were issued against the group that would become known as "the...

<p >The film, television, and theater industries were represented by some of the largest unions in the United States, and in the late 1940s, with the full cooperation of Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan...

<p >In 1938, as fascism continued to spread across Europe and Asia, the Dies Committee was formed to investigate "subversive activities" within the United States. The committee, headed by Texas Democrat Martin Dies, was...

<p>World War II and the Holocaust were turning points for American Jews, shaping Jewish American identity, memory, and culture for generations. In this bonus episode, taped live with a studio audience at Sound Lounge in...