Micah H. Naftalin, 76, a lifelong Washington, D.C. resident, a summer resident of 30 years on Lighthouse Road in Aquinnah, and a relentless religious and human rights activist for the past 20 years, died at his home on Dec. 23, 2009, following a long and courageous battle against end-stage renal disease that resulted in cardiac failure.

Mr. Naftalin served since 1987 as the national director of the Union of Councils for Jews in the former Soviet Union. As such, he also served as publisher of the councils’ worldwide Web site that provides reports, action alerts and daily news coverage on anti-Semitism, fascism and human rights in the former Soviet Union. Under Mr. Naftalin’s planning and operational leadership, the monitoring by the Union of Councils has been the principal source of primary data on religious discrimination and, especially, anti-Semitic and xenophobic hate crimes and propaganda across the former Soviet Union, with special emphasis on the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Naftalin was an aide to former Cong. Carl Elliott of Alabama, with whom he advocated successfully on behalf of the National Defense Education Act supporting vocational education, and with whom he later practiced law.

In pursuit of his growing passion for religious and human rights, Mr. Naftalin had established close consultative relationships with the White House, Congress, the State Department and the media. He briefed them regularly on incidents, trends and policy issues related to the status of Jews, anti-Semitism and the general human rights situation in the former Soviet Union. He represented the Union of Councils at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as at other international human rights conventions throughout Europe and North America. In 1995, Mr. Naftalin represented the United States government as an official public member of the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe as well as at other international human rights conventions throughout Europe and North America.

In 1990, in Moscow, Mr. Naftalin presided over the founding of the Russian-American Bureau of Human Rights, the first Western human rights organization ever registered in the Soviet Union. Since then, Mr. Naftalin managed the establishment of six additional human rights and rule of law monitoring bureaus in Tbilisi, Lviv, Minsk, Almaty, Bishkek and Riga.

In the 1980s, at its height during the era of the Soviet Jewry Movement, the Union of Councils and its more than 40 local councils in cities across the United States had a total membership in excess of 100,000.

Previous to his tenacious efforts in support of the struggle of Jews in the former Soviet Union and of human rights for all, Mr. Naftalin served as chief counsel and deputy director of the U.S. House of Representives’ Select Committee on Government Research and as a senior policy analyst with the National Academy of Sciences. In these roles he was a prominent opinion leader in the emerging field of science and technology policy analysis.

In 1982, he joined Chairman Elie Weisel on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, where he was appointed deputy director and, later, acting director. On his watch, the selection of the museum site adjacent to the Washington Mall, early planning of the museum program, and fundraising under his suggested title, A Campaign To Remember, were all accomplished. Mr. Naftalin served in that capacity for five years.

Recently, Mr. Naftalin was appointed vice-president of Dialysis Patient Citizens, a nonprofit patient organization dedicated to improving dialysis patents’ quality of life by developing awareness of dialysis issues, advocating for dialysis patients, improving the partnership between patients and caregivers, and promoting favorable public policy.

Mr. Naftalin is a graduate of Bethesda Chevy Chase High School (1951); attended the University of Maryland (1951-52) and graduated from Brandeis University (1955) with a bachelor of arts degree, majoring in music for which he had a lifelong passion and remarkable talent; and a Juris Doctor degree from the George Washington School of Law (1960). Prior to entering law school, Mr. Naftalin served in the U.S. Army, in Korea (1955-57), as an enlisted man. Mr. Naftalin is a former president of the Chevy Chase (Md.) Elementary School and a former vice-president of Tifereth Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C.

His wife, Beth S. Naftalin, a retired psychotherapist, whom he married in 1959, survives Mr. Naftalin. He is also survived by their adult children: Marilyn Weaver and Suzanne (David) Rand, both of Washington, D.C., and by his grandchildren: Noah Weaver, Sydney Weaver and Ellie Rand. A son, Ethan, predeceased Mr. Naftalin in 2004 at the age of 39, and a brother, Alan, of Washington, D.C., predeceased him earlier in 2009.