Jacob (Yaakov) Birnbaum (10 December 1926 – 9 April 2014, aged 87) was the German-born founder of Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) and other human rights organizations.
[3] In 1938 and 1939 Yaakov went to school with refugee children who were brought out from Central Europe at the last moment in a Kindertransport organized by Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld.
On 27 April 1964 he convened a New York metropolitan student meeting at Columbia University with the aim of creating a protest on 1 May, traditionally a holiday for the Soviet Union.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the inspiration for SSSJ, eventually shed its non-violent image, and other groups arose based on civil disobedience.
A major goal was accomplished when on 6 December 1987—a day before a summit meeting before Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev—the National Coalition Supporting Soviet Jewry (NCSJ) held a gathering of 250,000 people, including statements from human rights leaders, American presidential candidates, Morris B. Abram (NCSJ president), and a message from President Ronald Reagan.
This brought hundreds of thousands of Jews out to join him in the great struggle for Soviet Jewry, which made modern Exodus real.
[7] For the occasion of his 80th birthday, December 10, 2006 (Human Rights Day), the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR137 in 2007 "Honoring the life and six decades of public service of Jacob Birnbaum and especially his commitment to freeing Soviet Jews from religious, cultural, and communal extinction.