H. Res. 137 
In the House of Representatives, U. S., 
June 18, 2007. 
Whereas Jacob Birnbaum was born on December 10, 1926, 
and December 10 is International Human Rights Day; 
Whereas Birnbaum performed relief work with victims of 
Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism from 1946 through 1951, 
then worked with the disintegrating Jewish communities 
of North Africa in the mid-1950s and early 1960s; 
Whereas, in 1964, Birnbaum moved to New York and found-
ed the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) on 
April 27 of that year; 
Whereas four days later Birnbaum organized approximately 
1,000 students who marched for four hours in front of 
the Mission to the United Nations of the Soviet Union 
on May 1, 1964, to begin the direct action public struggle 
for Soviet Jewry; 
Whereas the SSSJ utilized nonviolent methods, including 
marches, rallies, publication of extensive educational ma-
terials, and meetings with government officials, to orga-
nize and activate students to take direct action in the 
cause of freeing Soviet Jews trapped behind the Iron 
Curtain, utilizing the slogan ‘‘Let My People Go’’; 
Whereas, on April 4, 1965, Birnbaum organized the Jericho 
March, in which students encircled the Soviet Mission
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and sounded shofars from all around the building and 
proceeded to rally at the United Nations; 
Whereas, on April 12, 1965, petitions were presented at the 
United Nations’s Isaiah Wall; 
Whereas Birnbaum organized a Jericho Ride to Washington, 
DC, on May 20, 1965, where he and the first SSSJ 
chairman Rabbi Shlomo Riskin met with senior Soviet 
diplomat Anatoly Myshkov, and thereafter the students 
circled the Embassy of the Soviet Union to the sound of 
shofars, then moved on to the Department of State for 
a vigorous discussion, and finally arrived in Lafayette 
Park in front of the White House for a rally addressed 
by Members of Congress and the reading of an Appeal 
to Conscience; 
Whereas Birnbaum and his student steering committee orga-
nized approximately thirty events in SSSJ’s first two 
years to awaken the Jewish community in New York and 
beyond to the plight of Soviet Jews; 
Whereas Birnbaum’s important New York marches and ral-
lies in the 1960s were the instrumental precursors of the 
great Solidarity events of the 1970s organized by the 
Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry under the 
direction of Malcolm Hoenlein, the founding director; 
Whereas Birnbaum has testified before committees of the 
House of Representatives and the Senate and the Hel-
sinki Commission; 
Whereas Birnbaum advocated utilizing economic leverage at 
a Congressional hearing as early as May 1965; 
Whereas Birnbaum worked closely in the early 1970s with 
Senator Henry Jackson, who introduced legislation link-
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ing United States trade benefits and capital flow to the 
Soviet Union with increased Soviet emigration; 
Whereas Birnbaum was one of the most persistent of those 
individuals who fought for passage of the Jackson-Vanik 
amendment to allow Soviet Jews and other East Euro-
pean Jews to escape oppression and religious, cultural, 
and communal extinction in the Soviet bloc; 
Whereas Birnbaum conducted a number of campaigns with 
Presidents and Congress for the protection of Soviet Jew-
ish underground self-education groups and organized a 
delegation of the Synagogue Council of America to meet 
with the Deputy Secretary of State in 1985; 
Whereas Birnbaum received the Prophet in Our Time Award 
in 1974 on the tenth anniversary of the SSSJ; 
Whereas Birnbaum received the Yeshiva University Commu-
nity Service Award in 1988 and the Freedom Award in 
2004 from the Manhattan Beach Jewish Center; 
Whereas Birnbaum was honored in 2004 by the Conference 
of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations 
on the 40th anniversary of the initiation of the Soviet 
Jewry movement; 
Whereas during the 1990s Birnbaum was engaged in a num-
ber of interventions in the former Soviet republics of 
Central Asia, especially Uzbekistan; and 
Whereas Birnbaum continues to assist institutions for the 
Jewish education of former Soviet Jews as part of his 
‘‘Let My People Know’’ campaign: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives honors the 
life and six decades of public service of Jacob Birnbaum and
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especially his commitment to freeing Soviet Jews from reli-
gious, cultural, and communal extinction. 
Attest: 
Clerk.