Rabbi Dr. Baruch (Bernard) Aaron Poupko, (February 5, 1917 – April 14, 2010) born in Velizh, Russia, (a town north of Mogilev) to Rabbi Eliezer and Pesha Poupko, was an American scholar, author, and lecturer. After receiving ordination from Joseph Soloveitchik at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in 1941 he served as Rabbi and Senior Rabbi of Shaare Torah of Pittsburgh, PA (1942–2004), President of the Rabbinical Council of Pittsburgh (1949–1999) and was one of the founders of the Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh. He was one of the first Jewish leaders to advocate international efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews during the early 1950s, and wrote the award-winning Yiddish book In the Shadow of the Kremlin, as well as many articles about Soviet Jewry. His doctoral thesis, completed at the University of Pittsburgh, "traces the history and status of Jewish religious adult education, analyzing the various emphases in curriculum of the three major religious ideologies." (American Jewish Year Book Vol. 66 (1965) 281) Poupko edited and co-edited 38 sermon volumes of the Rabbinical Council of America, including the scholarly Anglo-Hebrew volume Eidenu in memory of the founder and first president of Yeshiva University (YU), Dr. Bernard Revel, the volumes in honor of rabbis Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog and Joseph Soloveitchik, of the centennial of YU, and of Dr. Norman Lamm's 20th anniversary as President of YU. Poupko served as the National Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of America and as the National President of the Religious Zionists of America. He lived in Seattle, WA with his daughter, Rivy Poupko Kletenik, and son-in-law, Moshe Kletenik. He is the grandfather of Chaim Poupko, senior rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood New Jersey. He died on April 14, 2010 in Seattle WA. Career Rabbi Baruch A. "Bernard" Poupko spent most of his career focused on the situation of Soviet Jews. He himself was a refugee who fled persecution in Russia. Work for Jewish culture Eliezer Poupko was the chief Rabbi in the community who was also an activist who sent the letters describing the conditions for the jews to the Rabbinic leaders in the United States and England. There are some soviet authorities that have intercepted the letters and arrested the elder Poupko and then convicted them following a trial in the year 1930. Although he was sentenced to two years of hard labour in Siberia, his sentence was reduced to