{{short description|American activist for Israeli causes (1921–2007)}} '''Moshe Decter''' (October 14, 1921 – June 28, 2007) was a New York intellectual, and a prominent activist for Israel and Jewish causes.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/nyregion/05decter.html|title=Moshe Decter, 85, Advocate for Soviet Jews, Dies|last=Martin|first=Douglas|date=2007-07-05|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-08-26}}</ref> His articles in The New Leader and Foreign Affairs first brought the persecution of Soviet Jews to the attention of journalism and policy elites as well as ordinary citizens in the 1950s and 1960s.
Decter also co-wrote with James Rorty a book entitled "McCarthy and the Communists" in 1954 - one of the first major attacks against Republican Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.
He established and directed the Jewish Minorities Research bureau,<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Struggle for Soviet Jewry in American Politics: Israel versus the American Jewish Establishment|last=Lazin|first=Fred|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2005|location=Lanham, Md|pages=27}}</ref> served as executive secretary of the Conference on the Status of Soviet Jews and was director of research of the American Jewish Congress.<ref name=":0" /> He worked for Nativ or officially for Lishkat Hakesher or The Liaison Bureau, an Israeli liaison organization that maintained contact with Jews living in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War and encouraged ''aliyah'', or immigration to Israel.<ref>{{Cite book|title=When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry|last=Beckerman|first=G.|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|year=2010|location=Boston, MA, and New York, NY|pages=75–76}}</ref> After the collapse of the U.S.S.R., he worked as an editor of the ''Near East Report'' and served as an adviser to the Israeli Embassy in Washington.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://forward.com/news/obituaries/11136/moshe-decter-85-activist-for-soviet-jewry-00126/|title=Moshe Decter, 85, Activist for Soviet Jewry|access-date=2016-08-26}}</ref>
He was the father of Joshua Decter from his second marriage to the late Paula Decter; and he was the father of Naomi Decter and the late Rachel Decter, from his first marriage in the 1950s to the late Midge Rosenthal (who retained the Decter surname after their divorce).
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Decter, Moshe}} Category:1921 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Jewish American community activists Category:American community activists Category:Place of birth missing Category:Place of death missing Category:20th-century American Jews Category:21st-century American Jews Category:Soviet Jewry movement activists
{{US-activist-stub}} Category:American Jewish Congress members