Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said President Reagan raised the plight of the Soviet Jewry in every meeting the two held.

The disclosure came Thursday at an event held by the American Jewish Historical Society at the Rainbow Room in New York City, organizers said. At the event, Gorbachev and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz recalled the emigration of Soviet Jews in the 1980s and 1990s in a discussion moderated by Charlie Rose...