Jerome Joseph "Jerry" Shestack (February 11, 1923 – August 18, 2011) was a Philadelphia lawyer and human rights advocate active in Democratic Party politics who served as president of the American Bar Association (ABA) from 1997 to 1998.

[5] His kosher dietary habits kept him from worse injury, as he avoided the pork meal that day and thus was not on the mess deck which suffered the worst of the damage.

[6]) He became first deputy city solicitor in Philadelphia in 1951 where he helped end segregation in swimming pools, bowling alleys, and other public places.

[8] In 1951 he married Marciarose Schleifer, who in 1971 on KYW-TV became the first woman to anchor a prime-time TV newscast in a major city.

[6] An active Democrat, Shestack worked for Adlai Stevenson and wrote speeches for Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Sargent Shriver, and Senator Ed Muskie.

[10] Throughout his attention to human rights, he focused upon cases that involved racial minorities, women, political prisoners, and indigents without legal representation.

[6] His appointment as ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights occurred on December 10, 1979, when he replaced the resigning Edward Mezvinsky.

[1] As ambassador he sought to bring focus upon the poor treatment given political dissidents such as Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union as well as upon the thousands who were "disappeared" during the Argentine Dirty War.

[2] He was a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council and Chairman of that institution's Committee on Conscience.

[10] His most prized personal possession was a book inscribed to him by Martin Luther King Jr.[3] In 2006, he received the American Bar Association Medal,[10] that organization's highest honor.

[15] In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Shestack "a committed public servant and a dogged defender of human rights," adding, "as president of the American Bar Association, and in the years following, he set the standard for how civil society leaders can promote human rights.