Life and career Jacob Birnbaum

1 life , career

1.1 life
1.2 after war
1.3 fight soviet jewry

life , career
early life

yaakov birnbaum born in hamburg, germany. grandfather nathan birnbaum, writer , jewish nationalist coined word zionism. father solomon birnbaum, yiddish scholar.in 1938 , 1939 yaakov went school refugee children brought out central europe @ last moment in kindertransport organized rabbi dr. solomon schonfeld. later studied modern european history @ university of london.

during world war ii birnbaums aware of plight of european jews under nazi occupation , agonized on inability out, relatives.

after war

as war ended in 1945, birnbaum moved france 1946 1951 helped survivors of nazi concentration camps , soviet labor camps - jews poland, ussr, czechoslovakia, hungary. later worked north african jews fleeing algerian civil war.

fight soviet jewry

with experience of nazism , soviet communism, birnbaum felt all-out effort should made american jewry combat kremlin s oppression of soviet jews. inspired organization of student nonviolent coordinating committee, birnbaum decided create national student movement act spearhead mobilize grassroots transform washington protector , rescuer of soviet jewry. in 1964 moved new york city. on 27 april 1964 convened new york metropolitan student meeting @ columbia university aim of creating protest on 1 may, traditionally holiday soviet union. 200 students yeshiva university, jewish theological seminary, queens college , columbia university attended. meeting emotional one. theme holocaust should taken warning , civil rights movement model grassroots action. within 4 days 1,000 students rallied in front of soviet u.n. mission. called new group student struggle soviet jewry (sssj) (a play on marxist term class struggle ) , first office operated out of bedroom. in recent timeline of 350 years of american jewish history, center jewish history marked 1 may 1964 beginning of public movement soviet jewry.

the 1960s saw rise of student protest movements. student nonviolent coordinating committee, inspiration sssj, shed non-violent image, , other groups arose based on civil disobedience. recognizing potential hazard of courting donors wanted avoid student activism, birnbaum irving greenberg , mel stein created non-profit center soviet jewry in 1965 in hope have more appeal donors.

birnbaum sacrificed sssj, leading ascetic life, going far washing clothes in bathtub save money avoiding laundry.

birnbaum s efforts raise general awareness of plight of soviet jewry beyond jewish community lasted years. major goal accomplished when on 6 december 1987—a day before summit meeting before ronald reagan , mikhail gorbachev—the national coalition supporting soviet jewry (ncsj) held gathering of 250,000 people, including statements human rights leaders, american presidential candidates, morris b. abram (ncsj president), , message president ronald reagan. birnbaum given negligible attention @ event, embittered him rest of life.

former soviet refusenik , israeli politician natan sharansky said jacob first start struggle. brought hundreds of thousands of jews out join him in great struggle soviet jewry, made modern exodus real. movement started birnbaum led liberalization of soviet emigration policies, resulting in eventual emigration of on 1.5 million soviet jews.