Why recognizing the Bergson Group matters

Rafael Medof – Jewish Standard
Many mainstream Jewish leaders likewise were uncomfortable with the Bergson rescue campaign. They were afraid that loud Jewish activism might provoke anti-Semitism. Some Jewish leaders were worried, too, that the media-savvy Bergson was stealing the limelight.

Another factor contributed to the changing attitudes toward Bergson: the legitimization of Jewish activism. The Bergson tactics that some Jewish leaders deplored in the 1940s were adopted by the mainstream Soviet Jewry protest movement of the 1960s and 1970s.