Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry

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The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, also known by its acronym SSSJ, was founded in 1964 by Jacob Birnbaum to be a spearhead of the US movement for rights of the Soviet Jewry.

[edit] History

In 1964 Jacob Birnbaum moved to New York City and on 27 April of that year he convened a New York metropolitan student meeting at Columbia University. The meeting was an emotional one. The theme was that the Holocaust should be taken as a warning and the civil rights movement as a model for grassroots action. Within four days some 1,000 students rallied in front of the Soviet U.N. Mission. He called the new group "Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry" and his first office operated out of his bedroom. In its recent timeline of 350 years of American Jewish history, the Center for Jewish History marked 1 May, 1964 as the beginning of the public movement for Soviet Jewry.

[edit] See also

History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union

[edit] References

• Columbia's Forgotten Human Rights Beacon, The Current, Winter 2007
• Yakov Birnbaum's Freedom Ride
• JACOB BIRNBAUM and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry Part 1
• JACOB BIRNBAUM and the Struggle for Soviet Jewry Part 2
• Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist: An American Story
• The American Movement to Aid Soviet Jews
• They Did Not Dwell Alone: Jewish Immigration from the Soviet Union, 1967-1990