documents on israeli-soviet relations, 1954-1967: part 1: 1954-1957

This book, spanning the years 1954-1956, is the first in a four-part collection of documents from the archives of the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israel State Archives portraying relations between the Soviet Union and the State of Israel.

Most of the documents are communications composed by successive Soviet ambassadors in Israel and Israeli ambassadors in Moscow and their respective staffs. They illustrate the way Soviet ideology placed Israel irreparably in the enemy, western camp in the Cold War. Moscow’s attempt to manipulate Israel into a seemingly neutral position in the international arena was therefore a ploy, the failure of which was a foregone conclusion. Israel’s efforts to normalise relations between the two states were by turns genuine and unserious and similarly doomed to fail, both because of ongoing Soviet arms supplies to Egypt and Syria - which Israel perceived as a major threat to its security - and because the Israeli government and public felt a commitment to the well-being of the Soviet Jewish minority that they saw as deprived of basic rights.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of Soviet foreign policy, Israel’s formative years, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Soviet Jewry, and it will be a must for university libraries.

Yaacov Ro’i, professor of history emeritus at Tel Aviv University, wrote his PhD thesis on Israeli-Soviet relations; it was published as Soviet Decision Making in Practice: The USSR and Israel, 1947-1954 (1980). He also headed the team of academic editors of this book’s predecessor covering the years 1941-1953 (2000).

Yehoshua Freundlich was State Archivist, 2006-2012 and is presently retired. His PhD thesis from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was entitled ＂Zionist diplomacy prior to the establishment of Israel.＂ He was for many years editor and compiler of diplomatic papers of Israel in the Israel State Archives.

Boris Morozov, Research Fellow at the Cummings Center for Russian and East European Studies, specializes in Soviet Jewish history and Israeli-Soviet relations. He authored Documents on Soviet Jewish Emigration (1999), co-authored Exiled to Palestine: The Emigration of Zionist Convicts from the Soviet Union, 1924-1934 (2006), and co-edited The Soviet Union and the June 1967 Six Day War (2008).