[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 20, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S43]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING MICAH H. NAFTALIN

 Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, as chairman of the Helsinki 
Commission, I wish to pay tribute to Micah Naftalin who served as 
national director of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews until his 
death in late December. Micah worked tirelessly as a leader in the 
grassroots activist movement in the U.S. on behalf of Soviet Jews 
denied their fundamental freedoms and human rights, including their 
right to leave the U.S.S.R. His passionate advocacy included close work 
with the Helsinki Commission over the years, with a particular focus on 
the cases of individual refuseniks, Jews denied permission by the 
Soviet authorities to exercise their right to emigrate.
  Micah brought a unique zeal to his work on behalf of struggling 
Soviet Jewry and helped pave the way for an exodus of Jews from the 
Soviet Union. From the push to enact the Jackson-Vanik amendment in the 
early 1970s and vigils outside of the Soviet Embassy to the 1987 
Freedom Sunday mass rally on the National Mall under the banner, ``Let 
My People Go,'' Micah was there. He saw the reforms ushered in by 
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as an opening that might lead to relief 
for Jews and others denied their basic human rights in that country. 
Besides emigration concerns, he also closely monitored manifestations 
of anti-Semitism in the U.S.S.R. and the plight of political prisoners.
  With the easing of restrictions on emigration and the eventual 
breakup of the Soviet Union, Micah continued his human rights advocacy, 
contributing to efforts to monitor developments throughout Russia's 
regions as well as in newly independent countries, including Ukraine 
and Belarus. In 1993, he served as a public member on the U.S. 
delegation to the Implementation Meeting on Human Dimension Issues. 
Micah testified before the Helsinki Commission on numerous occasions 
drawing on his decades of experience as an activist fervently dedicated 
to advancing human rights on behalf of others. His voice will be sorely 
missed. On behalf of the Commission, I offer his family our heartfelt 
condolences.

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