Jewish advocate Talisman dies at 77

Mark E. Talisman, a leader, supporter and advocate of Jewish organizations and causes as well as a founder of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, died July 11 at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 77.

He had heart ailments, said his wife, Jill Talisman.

Talisman spent much of his early career as chief of staff to Rep. Charles Vanik, D-Ohio, and his most notable impact in Congress was in helping draft legislation aimed at removing official emigration barriers for Jews in the former Soviet Union.

Sen. Henry Jackson, D-Wash., a Cold War hawk, co-sponsored what became known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment in 1974, and they attached it to a trade reform bill that linked the Soviet Union’s trade status to whether it freely allowed Jewish emigration. The Soviet Union relaxed emigration barriers for several years, during which Jewish emigration increased.

In a 2002 Washington Post editorial, Michael McFaul, Russia scholar and future U.S. ambassador to Russia, called it “one of the most successful foreign policy ideas initiated by Congress during the Cold War. The Jackson-Vanik amendment was a moral act. It explicitly linked the Soviet Union’s trading status to levels of Jewish emigration.”

After leaving Vanik’s office in the mid-1970s, Talisman became Washington office director of the Council of Jewish Federations, which represented Jewish organizations in dealings with Congress and the executive branch. In that capacity, he helped obtain grants to resettle Soviet Jews in the United States and Israel.

Talisman also served on a presidential commission in the late 1970s that recommended the creation of a national memorial to the Holocaust. After Congress mandated creation of a Holocaust museum, he served from 1980 to 1986 on the Holocaust Museum Memorial Council as vice chairman to Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.

Mark Elliott Talisman was born in Cleveland on July 16, 1941. His father ran a gas station, and his mother was a secretary. He graduated from Harvard University in 1963, then joined Vanik’s staff as administrative assistant.

Survivors include his wife, Jill Dworkin Talisman; two children, Jessica Talisman of Arlington, Va., and Raphael Talisman of Hyattsville, Md.; and three grandchildren.