Leadership

Team Group

Executive Committee

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Debbie Kardon

Executive Director, Action for Post-Soviet Jewry; Chair, Action for Ukraine. Leadership roles at Jewish non-profits as a change agent and organizational leader.
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Doug Cahn

Principal, The Cahn Group, LLC. Former: Vice President, Human Right Programs, Reebok International Ltd.; Senior Congressional staff member, Human Rights Information Center of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (Madrid).
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Leo Slepak

An investment banker, investor, and business developer with more than 30 years of experience in global entrepreneurship. In his youth was at the center of Moscow’s refusenik activism; in subsequent years led efforts in the West on behalf of his parents in Soviet exile.
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Miriam Rosenblum

Career in nonprofit leadership. Former: Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, Cincinnati Council for Soviet Jews, Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism, MIT Hillel, JCRC (Cincinnati). Current: Brain Educators. Co-creator: First U.S. historical marker recognizing Soviet Jewry movement.
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Morey Schapira

Former leadership: Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, Student Struggle for Soviet Jews, Boston Action for Soviet Jewry, Medical Mobilization for Soviet Jews. Co-creator: Let My People Go. High Tech Executive.
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Simon Klarfeld

Ex Officio, Executive Director, SJMEP. Educator, nonprofit manager, program designer, curriculum developer. Soviet Jewry Movement work in London, Leningrad, SF Bay Area, and Kyiv. Fluent in Russian and dabbles in Hebrew.

Board of Directors

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David Z. Pinsky

Partner, Covington’s international arbitration and litigation practices with focus on former Soviet Union. Lecturer, Columbia Law School. Board service: NY’s UJA-Federation FSU Division, Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst. Emigrated from USSR (Kyiv) 1979 at the age of two.
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Eti Ganin

Jewish communal leader. Former: Materials Scientist and Engineer. IBM & GE. Activist & refusenik in Kishinev & Leningrad; Proud beneficiary of movement for Soviet Jewish liberation that started in Cleveland.
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Jessica Katz

Columbia Univ School of Architecture & Planning. Former: City of New York Chief Housing Officer; Citizens Housing & Planning Council. Once called "The Littlest Refusenik" she emigrated from the USSR in 1977.
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Rabbi Enid Lader

Congregational rabbi, Jewish educator, Interfaith relations. Board service: Academy for Jewish Religion, Greater Cleveland Bd of Rabbis (Chair), AJR Assoc of Rabbis & Cantors (Chair), First US historical marker recognizing Soviet Jewry movement (Co-creator).
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Wendy Eisen

Longtime community leader and Soviet Jewry activist. She served as chairman of the Montreal 35s, the Toronto 35s, and the Ontario and national Soviet Jewry committees of the Canadian Jewish Congress. She is the author of “Count Us In: The Struggle to Free Soviet Jews – A Canadian Perspective”
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Zev Yaroslavsky

Director, Los Angeles Initiative, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Former: County Supervisor, County of Los Angeles; Council Member, City of Los Angeles; CA Students for Soviet Jews, Southern CA Council for Soviet Jews; Union of Council for Soviet Jews.

Advisory Council

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Adele Sandberg

South Florida Council for Soviet Jewry leadership; Jewish communal leader.
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Alexander Smuckler

Soviet-born activist and community leader shaped by Moscow's refusenik era. Central figure in production and distribution of Jewish samizdat and dissident materials; samizdat collection archived at the Wende Museum, Los Angeles. Post-emigration: continued advocacy and philanthropic support for Jews in and from the FSU, including documentation of refusenik history and primary-source collections.
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Anat Zalmanson-Kuznetzov

Filmmaker. Director of “Operation Wedding,” 2016, documentary of the 1970 "Leningrad Hijacking;” Winner of 21 awards at film festivals around the world. Creator, "Let My People Go” educational program.
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Barry Shrage

President of Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) of Greater Boston, 1987-2018; Professor, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, Brandeis University, 2018-present.
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Danny Grossman

Former Diplomat, Entrepreneur, and Foundation Leader. Jewish Community Federation of S.F. & Bay Area (2015-21); Wild Planet (1993-2011), US Dept of State Foreign Service Officer with focus on human rights (1983-89).
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David Harris

National Coordinator, Freedom Sunday; key organizer, Soviet Jewry movement. CEO, American Jewish Committee (25 years). Author: In the Trenches: Selected Speeches and Writings of an American Jewish Activist, 1979–1999.
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David Waksberg

Retired Jewish educator and nonprofit executive. Activism rooted in grassroots Soviet Jewry organizing — active with Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry as a teen and young adult. Former Executive Director, Bay Area Council for Soviet Jews. Founding board member, SJMEP.
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Dina Beilin

A leading Moscow refusenik leader, coordinator of refusenik records.
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Dr. Michael Beizer

Historian of Russian-Soviet Jewry, former refusenik, and activist in Leningrad. Retired research fellow at Hebrew University. Author of multiple books on Soviet Jewry. Executive Director of “Remember and Save” archive of the Aliyah Movement in the USSR.
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Enid Wurtman

Jerusalem-based activist originally from Philadelphia, Enid helped sustain and resettle Soviet refuseniks. She raised awareness, funds, and hope—supporting thousands as they made aliyah and built new lives in Israel.
SJMEP

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