Born in Englewood, New Jersey, Judy Patkin has lived for most of her life in the greater Boston area. In the early 1970s, she met a Soviet Jewish emigre who was trying to help his friends leave the country. That encounter led to the founding of Action for Soviet Jewry, a group that supported refuseniks socially and economically. Patkin and others in the organization also established and maintained contacts with individual activists and social-action groups around the world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Patkin and her colleagues changed the name of their organization to Action for Post Soviet Jewry and altered its mission. The group now supports impoverished Jews who remain in the former Soviet Union (FSU).