Alexander Smukler

Alexander Smukler (born 1960) is a Soviet-born American businessman, who is the chairman of the board of Agroterminal LTD and the chairman of the board of Century 21: Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. He is a former managing partner of Ariel Investment Group, which develops commercial enterprises and civil engineering projects in Russia.

Smukler is a former refusenik who advocated for the rights of Jews in the former Soviet Union. He left the Soviet Union in 1991 and moved to the United States, where he became a prominent member of the American Jewish community and continued his activism on behalf of Jews from the former Soviet Union. The family history is the subject of a book called The Tsar’s Drummer: A Story of Courage and Resilience, published in 2019.

Smukler began studying Hebrew in the late 1970s. He completed undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Moscow University of Technology in civil construction.

Activism in the Soviet Union Alexander Smukler (left) presents a samizdat copy of Exodus in Russian to author Leon Uris. Moscow, November 1989. In the 1980s, Smukler participated in underground samizdat networks, expanding the variety of reading material available to Soviet Jews. He applied for an exit visa in 1985. Smukler supported his family by giving chess lessons.

In 1987, Smukler told The New York Times that the policies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave some hope that the Soviet Union would become more democratic. Mashka meeting in Moscow in 1989. Alexander Smukler is seated in the center. Smukler was the founder of Vaad, the first independent Jewish movement in the Soviet Union. Vaad was an umbrella organization of Jewish cultural groups.

Smukler was the executive director of B’nai B’rith of the USSR and the Jewish Information Center of Moscow.

He left the Soviet Union in 1991.

Activism in the United States In 2004, Smukler was elected vice president of the National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry (NCSEJ). In 2020, Smukler said he was surprised that the Conference of Presidents elected Dianne Lob as incoming chair. Smukler said that Lob had "a clear record of partnering with anti-Israel organizations like J Street, IfNotNow, CAIR and others."

Smukler is the president and founder of the American Foundation for Orphans Abroad.

Smukler is an art collector with a substantial collection of Russian–Jewish art.