Congressman Tom Lantos--Holocaust Survivor and Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs--Died 2/11/08

Washington, DC, February 11, 2008 — Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo, San Francisco), 80, passed away this morning due to complications from cancer at Bethesda Naval Medical Center.

Elected to office in 1980, Lantos was Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and one of the country's leading champions of human rights. His commitment to this issue was forged when, as a young man, he lost nearly his entire family in the Holocaust.

Today he was surrounded by his wife, two daughters, and many of his 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

After being diagnosed with esophageal cancer in late December, Lantos announced on January 2 that he would not seek reelection. He said at the time, "It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress. I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."

The only survivor of the Shoah ever elected to Congress, Tom Lantos was in his 14th term. His Democratic colleagues elected him chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in January 2007. He was also a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Throughout his adult life Lantos sought to be a voice for human rights and civil liberties. He and Annette Lantos, his childhood sweetheart and wife of nearly 58 years were, as Lantos put it, "full partners both in Congress and in life," and they continued their work right up to his final days. Tom Lantos was the founding co-chairman of the 24-year-old Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which Annette directed as a volunteer since its inception. He also founded the Congressional Friends of Animals Caucus.

Annette said that her husband's life was "defined by courage, optimism, and unwavering dedication to his principles and to his family."

The date for a public memorial service has not yet been set.

New Take on the Holocaust

This year, Grammy award winning Israeli violinist Miri Ben-Ari andIsraeli rap/hip-hop star Kobi "Subliminal" Shimoni have co-produced a hip-hop music video expressing their sentiments on the Shoah. It is called "God Almighty When Will it End."

It is non-traditional and--for many--disturbing. In Israel, CD/Video was distributed by the thousands to students in schools, by recommendation, approval and blessing of -- amongst others --Professor Yehuda Bauer (Israel's leading historian on the Holocaust) and Rabbi BennyLau (son of Holocaust survivor and former Israeli Chief Rabbi Yisrael M eirLau). As highly traditional people, they both praised this genuine effort to make the message of the Holocaust relevant to a disconnected younger generation.

As the generation of survivors pass away and new generations grow up without the personal contact to these truth-tellers, it is important to examine new ways to transmit the Holocaust. Even if this is not the way I would have chosen, it is worth examination. May we continue to grapple with the memory of the Six Million victims and its impact on our humanity.

Rabbi Bruce

Much of the above text comes from an email distributed by Rabbi Daniel Bouskila of Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel (Los Angeles)

As usual, there has been a number of blog posts about this including two (here and here) on jewschool.

Virginia Tech: Senseless Tragedy and Selfless Herorism

The tragedy at Virginia Tech is almost beyond words. It shows the devastating consequences of complicated modern communication, ineffective gun control, and senseless violence.
My first thoughts were for Sue Kurtz, my Hillel colleague at Virginia Tech, and her family. Thankfully, they are safe--at least physically. I remember a conversation we had at a conference in November about how to bring Kosher food to their university located far from a Jewish community. Beyond her, my only connection to Virginia Tech is an alumna, Mara Seidel--a fellow Wilmingtonian and UMASS Hillel's JCSC Fellow.

Virginia Tech Hillel Director Sue Kurtz's speech at yesterday's Virginia Tech convocation.
Message from Hillel about Virginia Tech

Now, we are organizing a memorial vigil/service at Smith for this afternoon. For campuses around the country, it has brought disaster and crisis planning to its rightful place of attention (most campuses have been working on this because of an expected flu pandemic). At our Amherst staff meeting, we discussed how to balance the needs of Religious Advisors who only work at Amherst 1/3 time (and share the rest with Smith).

Below is the story of one courageous professor--survivor of the Holocaust and Soviet labor camp who lost his life after saving those of his students.
He demonstrates that the human capacity for evil (or sickness) allows for emergence of heroic acts of kindness. Let us follow Liviu Librescu's example and fill the world with acts of loving kindness.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the community of Virginia Tech (students, staff, faculty, parents, neighbors, alumnae, and more). May the memories of those whose lives were destroyed be for a blessing.

Rabbi Bruce

From the Times of London:
Liviu Librescu
One victim of the Virginia massacre left an incomparable legacy

The last person to see Professor Liviu Librescu alive appears to have been
Alec Calhoun, a student at Virginia Tech who turned as he prepared to leap
from a high classroom window to see the elderly academic holding shut the
classroom door. The student jumped, and lived. Minutes later, the professor
was shot dead.

There is no meaningful distinction between one relative's grief and
another's sorrow as the bereaved converge on Blacksburg from as near as
Roanoke and as far as India. But it is worth reflecting on the significance
of Professor Librescu's life of quiet heroism, which encompassed the
Holocaust, a career of internationally admired teaching and research, and a
final act of sacrifice that saved at least nine other lives.

The son of Romanian Jewish parents, he was sent to a Soviet labour camp as a
boy after his father was deported by the Nazis. He was repatriated to
communist Romania only to be forced out of academia there for his Israeli
sympathies. A personal intervention by Menachem Begin enabled him to
emigrate with his wife to Israel, from where he visited the US on a
sabbatical in 1986, and chose to stay. The appalling ironies of his murder
by a crazed student after a life of such fortitude and generosity will not
be lost on anyone who hears his story.

Yet neither should those who mourn him forget the role that America played
in his life. As for so many other survivors of the mid-20th century's
genocidal convulsions, the US was for this inspiring teacher both a beacon
of hope and a welcoming new home. Founded on the idea of liberty, it also
made, for him, a reality of that idea. Let those he saved now make the most
of it.