In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, the editorial team at JBN will profile some lesser-known Jewish American figures who may fly under the radar for some but have contributed significantly to the country’s history and culture.

Today, we will look at the founders of Jewish American Heritage Month.

Born in 1930 in Wichita, Kansas, to a Jewish immigrant father from Ukraine, Arlen Specter grew up to become a distinguished lawyer and politician. In 1965, he was appointed as a special assistant attorney to the Warren Commission, investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Specter served as the district attorney of Philadelphia for two terms before being elected to the US Senate in 1980. He would go on to serve five terms until his death in 2012. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Specter was a strong proponent of the movement to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate freely, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s, and backed a strong alliance between the United States and Israel.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a formidable Jewish American politician, has been a member of the US House of Representatives since 2005, representing Florida’s 23rd congressional district. She has championed the cause of American Jews and Israel, co-sponsoring the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act in 2016, which aims to help the Department of Education combat antisemitism on college campuses.

Both of them introduced a resolution in 2005 to designate May as Jewish American Heritage Month. The resolution passed unanimously in both the House and Senate in 2006, officially establishing the month-long celebration of Jewish American achievements in the United States.