Editing Bayard Rustin (section)

=== Soviet Jewry movement ===
{{Main|Soviet Jewry Movement}}
The plight of Jews in the Soviet Union reminded Rustin of the struggles that blacks faced in the United States. Soviet Jews faced many of the same forms of discrimination in employment, education, and housing, while also being prisoners within their own country by being denied the chance to emigrate by Soviet authorities.<ref>Podair, Jerald E. (2009), "Bayard Rustin: American Dreamer" (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield). {{ISBN|074254513X}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=February 2022}} After seeing the injustice that Soviet Jews faced, Rustin became a leading voice in advocating for the movement of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel. He worked closely with Senator Henry Jackson of Washington, who introduced legislation that tied trade relations with the Soviet Union to their treatment of Jews.<ref name="Podair 2009 p99">Podair 2009, p. 99.</ref> In 1966 he chaired the historic Ad hoc Commission on Rights of Soviet Jews organized by the Conference on the Status of Soviet Jews, leading a panel of six jurors in the commission's public tribunal on Jewish life in the Soviet Union. Members of the panel included [[Telford Taylor]], the Nuremberg war trial prosecutor and Columbia University professor of law, Dr. John C. Bennett, president of the Union Theological Seminary; Reverend George B. Ford, pastor emeritus of the Corpus Christi Church; Samuel Fishman representing United Automobile Workers; and Norman Thomas, veteran Socialist leader.<ref name="JTA 1966-12-05">{{Cite web|url=http://www.jta.org/1966/12/05/archive/commission-to-present-findings-on-soviet-jewry-to-u-n|title=Commission to Present Findings on Soviet Jewry to U.N.|date=December 5, 1966|website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|access-date=July 15, 2016}}</ref> The commission collected testimonies from Soviet Jews and compiled them into a report that was delivered to the secretary-general of the United Nations. The report urged the international community to demand that the Soviet authorities allow Jews to practice their religion, preserve their culture, and emigrate from the USSR at their will.<ref name="JTA 1966-12-05" /> The testimonies from Soviet Jews were published by [[Moshe Decter]], the executive secretary of the Conference on the Status of Soviet Jews, in a book—''Redemption! Jewish freedom letters from Russia'', with a foreword by Rustin.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Redemption! Jewish freedom letters from Russia|last=Decter|first=Moshe|publisher=American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry|year=1966|location=New York|pages=2–3}}</ref> Through the 1970s and 1980s Rustin wrote several articles on the subject of Soviet Jewry and appeared at Soviet Jewry movement rallies, demonstrations, vigils, and conferences, in the United States and abroad.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King, Jr. & the Jewish Community|last=Shneier|first=Marc|publisher=Jewish Lights|year=2008|isbn=978-1580232739|location=New York|pages=117}}</ref> He co-sponsored the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry. Rustin allied with Senator [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan]], an outspoken advocate for Soviet Jewry, and worked closely with Senator [[Henry M. Jackson|Henry Jackson]], informing the [[Jackson–Vanik amendment]], vital legislation that restricted United States trade with the Soviet Union in relation to its treatment of Jews.<ref name="Podair 2009 p99" />