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Exemplar of Jewish values By Michael Berenbaum Tags: Tom Lantos Tom Lantos, the Democratic congressman from California, the lone Holocaust survivor serving in the House of Representatives, died on Monday. Lantos was born in Budapest in 1928 to a highly assimilated local family. He was 16 when the Germans invaded, in March 1944. He was arrested and sent to a labor camp, but escaped, and because he was tall, blond and blue-eyed, he was able to serve as a messenger with the underground. Tom found shelter in a safe house under the sponsorship of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who was operating with the American War Refugee Board. His mother was not so fortunate: She was deported and never heard from again. Lantos arrived in the United States on an academic scholarship. He once described his passage: Onboard, "there was a big basket of oranges and one of bananas," he recalled. "I wanted to do the right thing so I asked this sailor: 'Should I take an orange or a banana?' And he said: 'Man, you eat all the goddamn oranges and all the goddamn bananas you want.' Then I knew I was in paradise." He married his childhood sweetheart and fellow Holocaust survivor Annette Tillemann, who had been sheltered in the Portuguese Embassy in Budapest. A Jew by birth, she is a Mormon by faith and raised her daughters that way. She was his full partner, working side by side with her husband on human rights causes, especially Jewish ones. Advertisement He completed his B.A. and M.A. at the University of Washington and his Ph.D. in economics at Berkeley, and taught for years at San Francisco State University. An advisor at various times to U.S. senators Frank Church, Mike Gravel and Joseph Biden, he himself was elected as representative from California's 12th congressional district in 1980, a very lonely Democrat who prevailed despite the Reagan landslide. His gratitude toward Raoul Wallenberg led him to propose as his first bill in Congress honorary U.S. citizenship for his savior, an honor previously given only to Winston Churchill. And while there was still hope that Wallenberg was still alive - the Swedish diplomat, born in 1912, disappeared into the Soviet gulag in 1945 - no lead was too remote, no meeting was too insignificant to warrant Tom and Annette's time. I worked with Lantos on this issue, as well as on the rights of Soviet Jewry and on Holocaust-related issues, including the establishment of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, from 1979 onward. Lantos came to Congress when the moral stature of the survivor was publicly accepted. No longer considered refugees or newcomers, immigrants or foreigners, they had established a place for themselves in America, and their role as witnesses had gained moral currency and respect. Lantos embraced his responsibilities as a Holocaust survivor, supporting Jewish causes including Israel - powerfully but not uncritically - and Soviet Jewry, and also more universal causes as the combating of genocide and mass murder. Charismatic, elegant and eloquent, he possessed a gravitas that is rare in the House of Representatives. He exemplified Jewish social values and Jewish political values. Unceasingly decent, he would act quietly on behalf of constituents, colleagues and friends. I have seen him mentor young staff and truly shape their lives. There are Jews who will be uncomfortable with Tom Lantos being described as an exemplar of Jewish values. Just after he announced his retirement last month, and again this week, after his death, I received several calls from reporters for Jewish media who were unsure how to handle the Mormon question. After all, his wife converted to Mormonism and his children were raised in that faith. In his official biography, Congressman Lantos listed his religion as Jewish, and in his public life wore the mantel with pride and with great dignity. He kept his personal faith personal; his religious observance private. His career in public life is a direct refutation of the fear so deeply embedded in Jewish history that assimilated or former Jews are automatically suspect - the fear that they might have internalized a self-hatred of the Jew within them. It also violates the comfortable modus vivendi of post-Emancipation Jews: "Be a Jew in your home and a man in the street." Whatever Tom was in the privacy of his home, in his public life he was manifestly, inescapably and proudly Jewish. Sociologists of modernity have pointed out that boundaries that were once rigid and difficult to cross are now porous, and much more difficult to pinpoint. Thus, in American politics there has been a debate over how "black" Senator Barack Obama is, while there could be no such discussion regarding Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. In France, Cardinal Lustiger, the late Yiddish-speaking, Jewish-born archbishop of Paris, breached the boundary lines and spoke comfortably of himself as both Jewish and Catholic, much to the chagrin and almost as often to the confusion of French Jews and Roman Catholics alike. Tom Lantos embraced his public role as a Jew and most especially as a Holocaust survivor. It brought added weight to a very serious man and drew attention to his role as a champion of human rights, and founder of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Land of milk and honey Israeli model Bar Refaeli poses for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition. Finding fault Shas MK blames gays for recent earthquakes in the region.   1.   Tom Lantos 12:09  |  Romi Hanse 16/02/08   2.   Lantos 19:16  |  Cherice 16/02/08   3.   proud to be an american 20:26  |  hollingsworth 16/02/08   4.   RIP and God Bless Him 23:47  |  Isaac 18/02/08

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