The U.S. House of Representatives commemorated the Soviet Jewry activist movement.
A resolution passed by acclamation Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of the “mass movement for Soviet Jewish freedom.” It recognized a number of U.S. groups established in the 1960s and 1970s that led protests on behalf of Soviet Jews and recalled the 20th anniversary of the Freedom Sunday Rally for Soviet Jewry on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
The movement and the rally, which drew an estimated 250,000 people, embody “the American principle of citizen activism for the greater good,” the nonbinding resolution says.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) initiated the resolution last week.
NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states and Eurasia, which led a 40th anniversary tour of former Soviet states this month, lobbied extensively for the resolution. NCSJ, formerly the National Council for Soviet Jewry, was instrumental in the struggle to free Soviet Jews.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) is planning to introduce a similar resolution in the U.S. Senate.
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