USA: Si Frumkin, Prominent Jewish Activist, Dead at 78

. LOS ANGELES, California / Arutz Sheva - Israel National News / May 25, 2009 By Richard A. Macales Si Frumkin, one of America's most prominent and outspoken activists on behalf of Soviet Jewry, died in Los Angeles on May 15. He was 78. The cause of death was cancer. For more than 40 years, Frumkin was a familiar face on national television, radio, and newspapers as a passionate and articulate spokesman for the freedom of Jews in the former Soviet Union. He penned articles that appeared regularly in the Los Angeles Times and the Anglo-Jewish press. The last article he wrote appeared on the op-ed column of Israel National News, dated March 23, 2009. Titled "My Death Sentence," the article focused on the dangers of world-wide anti-Semitism not witnessed by him since the Holocaust. Keeping his illness quiet, only the headline gave a clue as to his dual message. His final article was a trademark of Frumkin's powerful writing and speaking style. He was a familiar personality to the biggest names in the news media and political figures, as well as the public-at-large, yet modest about his private family life. A survivor of Dachau, Frumkin was born Simas Frumkinas in Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania. As a child he first experienced the horrors of Soviet occupation of his home town in 1940, followed by the Nazi invasion exactly one year later. These traumatic events were prominently mentioned in his public appearances which were successful in garnering the crucial political support of the American Jews and Gentiles to rally politicos such as Ronald Reagan and Henry Jackson around the cause of Soviet Jewry. Frumkin's fluency in Russian enabled him to monitor the activities of the Soviet government through the Russian press and shortwave radio. He also maintained close contact with Soviet Jews who emigrated to the West and refusniks still living in the USSR. They enabled him to gather crucial information that helped formulate American Soviet policy. This made Frumkin a much sought-after expert on not only Soviet Jewry but the Cold War, as well. He also worked to help Ethiopian Jews, impoverished Holocaust survivors and Jonathan Pollard. Most recently, Frumkin was involved with the Israel Christian Nexus, an organization of Jews and evangelical Christians that support Israel's right to exist. He accomplished all of this while running a successful fabric business in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles where he lived most of his life after emigrating from Europe shortly after the end World War II. Source: Israel News