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Dr. Michael Simons is the founding director of Yale University School of Medicine’s Cardiovascular Research Center and Yale’s R.W. Berliner Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology. His extensive professional background includes authoring numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and medical textbooks, as well as lecturing around the world. Born in the former Soviet Union, Dr. Michael Simons is a naturalized United States citizen who emigrated in the 1970s as one of the Russian Jews welcomed to the country under the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.
An amendment to the Trade Act of 1974, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment was signed into law by Pres. Gerald R. Ford the following year. It was designed to address the human rights situation in the Soviet Union, which had all but forbidden the emigration of its Jewish citizens. The “refuseniks” were subject to routine persecution in their homeland.
After Sen. Jacob Javits of New York proposed tying trade with the Soviet Union to the issue of Jewish emigration, Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, along with Reps. Charles Vanik and Wilbur Mills, put their names to the Congressional bill. As passed, the amendment stated that any non-market economy nation would need to permit free emigration across its borders in exchange for enjoying a normalized trading relationship with the United States.
In 1975, only about 13,000 Soviet Jews were able to emigrate. Four years later, more than 50,000 successfully left for new lives in the West and Israel, where they continue to contribute their education, dedication, and talents.
Dr. Michael Simons's Blog 