Brian Greenspun joins tributes to worthy men

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, Feb. 17, 2008 | 2 a.m.

The city of brotherly and sisterly love.

No, I am not talking about Philadelphia. Here’s the surprise: It is Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, the city that seems to take pride in its rancorous partisanship, pettiness and petulance.

Except for this past week. This week it was a city that showed it could love.

I found that love in two places. The first was a dinner for the Yitzhak Rabin Center featuring the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and the second was the Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol during a memorial service for Congressman Tom Lantos of California, who died Monday. At the two events, I found that love and caring and commitment are not missing from our nation’s capital — they are just hard to find beneath all the bickering.

The Rabin Center honored James P. Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The honor was derived from Jim’s leadership efforts in putting the Teamsters front and center behind the growth and security of Israel, as well as a recognition of Jim’s late father, James R. Hoffa, for his efforts on behalf of Israel in the early days of its existence.

I was privileged to receive a leadership award recognizing my father, Hank Greenspun, whose efforts on behalf of Israel are well-known and whose relationship with the senior Hoffa helped encourage the labor leader’s longtime support for our country’s only democratic ally in that part of the world.

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To begin with, I go to a great number of charitable events centered on Jewish causes. It is what I do, what I like to do and what I am compelled by the Torah to do. If I noticed anything unusual about the dinner Wednesday night in Washington, it was that among the many hundreds of Teamsters and other labor leaders and members in that huge room, there was not a person who complained about his seat or food or the people he was sitting with!

It was as well-organized a dinner as I have ever been to and it was full of enthusiastic people who were very happy to be there. Once I realized that very few of those people came to the dinner to see me, it didn’t take too long to figure out why it was such a great crowd.

The dinner speaker was former President Bill Clinton who, as we all know, was a very close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, the man whose vision for peace with the Palestinians might have been realized but for an assassin’s bullet. The Teamsters loved Clinton when he was in the White House and love him still today.

The other reason for the outstanding evening was Jim Hoffa. I have seen labor leaders work hand in hand with their members and peers, but I don’t think I have seen such a genuine affection from men and women who aren’t known to show such temperament directed toward a leader like Jimmy. It was pure, it was sincere and it was genuine. And it was loaded with respect. When he and others spoke from the podium, you could hear a pin drop.

The love I found in that event was a love of country — of our Middle East ally, Israel, which embodies the struggles, successes and optimism that define the hopes and aspirations of labor organizations like the Teamsters, and, of course, the United States, the one country where more dreams are realized than anywhere else on the planet. There was a genuine respect for the leadership of Jim Hoffa and an understanding that society’s rules have to be the same for everyone if society’s promise is to be achieved.

At its core, that evening to support the Rabin Center was a recognition of the life of Yitzhak Rabin and his commitment to a peace with Israel’s neighbors that encompassed a determination to fight for what was just and a willingness to do for others what was also just.

I told a story about the early days of Israel’s struggle for independence, when helping the Jews in a meaningful way could have landed any American in prison for years. I told of two men who seemingly had no reason to step out of their own lives to help people they didn’t know and had no relationship with.

Both Frank Sinatra and James R. Hoffa risked their own freedom and futures helping people like my father ship weapons to Israel so the Jews would have something to fight with against the five invading Arab armies in 1948. They took that risk because it was for the right reasons. It was a just cause. Whatever else they did in their lives or were thought to have done could never have eclipsed the good they did for people who needed their help.

It was a wonderfully warm and meaningful night — courtesy of the Teamsters.

•••

The next morning, the outpouring of love for a man who loved his fellow man without qualification was on full display at the U.S. Capitol. At a memorial service for Tom Lantos, whom many called — and rightly so — the conscience of the House of Representatives, the lineup of speakers was the stuff of which legends are made.

Tom was a Hungarian survivor of the Holocaust — the only survivor ever to serve in Congress — whose determination to pursue justice on behalf of people in need all over the world is a story of courage and steadfastness that is unmatched.

With practically his entire family exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust, Tom and his childhood friend and wife of 58 years, Annette, set out to speak the words and do the deeds of justice for all those who could not speak or could not be heard. They were determined to never let what happened to the Jews at the hands of Hitler in World War II happen on this Earth again. To anyone.

As each of the people who spoke at his service and everyone in that Statuary Hall of Congress knew, Tom Lantos was an indefatigable champion for people everywhere who needed someone to love them enough to care.

If there is any doubt about the respect Tom had earned during his life in his chosen country, here are some of the people who spoke for and about him — Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. His entire family was present, including his two daughters and their 17 children.

The room was an exemplar of love — for Tom Lantos and for the millions of people on this planet who will never know the helping hand they got from a California congressman who, at the end of his life, “was a very happy man.” It was filled with song, filled with memories and filled with the incredible words of Wiesel, who read from his diary the feelings he experienced upon learning of Tom’s death. We would all cherish even the thought of such brilliance written about us.

The highlight for me, though, was Bono, of the band U2. Bono worked with Lantos on numerous humanitarian causes around the world. My guess is that when Bono came up short with his “ask,” Tom encouraged a doubling or redoubling of effort and resources so that the people in need wouldn’t be.

The service had a decidedly Hungarian tone to it, as did Tom’s accent a half-century after he adopted his new country. His friends made jokes and told stories about the importance of Hungary in Tom’s life, even though it was the country that sent his family to the ovens. That he could love it — and not hate it for eternity — was a most telling part of what made Tom run.

After Bono spoke, he told the crowded room that he was going to sing a song from that well-known Hungarian folk singer “Jan Von Lennon.” With that he sang “All You Need Is Love,” and the mourners all joined in.

It was not the usual sight at the Capitol nor a normal occurrence in an overly partisan Washington. But it was, as was the Teamster-filled dinner the night before, a sight to behold. To behold and to cherish. And to realize it can happen again. All you need is love.