Farewell To A King

Remembering
King Hussein

Arnold Michlin, co-founder of
the American Arab and Jewish
Friends, co-founder of the
Muslim-Jewish-Christian Trialog
"It [the funeral] was absolute
drama of the highest order, unbe-
lievable that Assad would come
--- Shamir, Netanyahu, Peres,
Sharon -- it was an unbelievable
parade of people who you would
not expect to find at the same
time. Now it's a terrible thing to
say, but he could do more in
dying than he did even in living,
because people of opposing inter-
ests came. I can't help but believe
that something good has to come
from that ability to see each other.
They're not all going to run away
on the next plane."

Rabbi Paul
Yeclwab,
Temple Israel
"We clearly
, start-
ed off as enemies,
but like President
Sadat, of blessed
memory, he
seemed to groW beyond that bit-
terness and in his later years was a
catalyst of peace, so we can do
nothing but be saddened by his
death."

Rabbi Sherman Wine,
Binningham Temple
" The thing I remember most was
his brave action in coming to
Washington to shake Rabin's hand,
and to make peace with Israel."

Frederick Frank, chapter presi-
dent, American Jewish
Committee
"In his courageous embrace ofireal
peace with Israel, King Hussein led
Jordan toward a new Middle East,
which Arab and Jew would not
only reconcile, but would join
hands to counter ominous forces
that stalk the region. There have
been only two Arab leaders —
Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King
Hussein --- who came to under-
stand Israel and the Jewish people
and, as a consequence, shattered
the psychological barrier, demon-
strating that mutual peace was gen-
uinely possible.

2/12
1999
10 Detroit Jewish News

Friendship With American Jewry

Jordan's monarch forged special ties through attention to leaders as individuals.

JULIA GOLDMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York
n 1964, Theodore Mann and
other members of the American
Jewish Congress were arrested for
picketing the Jordanian pavilion
at the World's Fair in New York.
Two decades later Mann and a
small group of AJCongress officers
met with King Hussein in Amman for
the first official visit by an American
Jewish organization to Jordan.
"It was entirely friendly, social and
friendly," Mann recalled of that meet-
ing. "However, it was peace that we
were talking about. It was clear to us
that he desperately wanted it, and it
was clear to him that so did we."
In the years since then — until
Hussein's death Sunday at the age of
63 after a prolonged battle with can-
cer — the Hashemite ruler met with
representatives of dozens of Jewish
organizations -to promote Middle East
peace and to bolster U.S. political
and economic support for Jordan. He
received awards from numerous
Jewish organizations such as the
Simon Wiesenthal Center and the
Anti-Defamation League.
Today, Mann and other North
American Jewish leaders remember
Hussein with respect and true affection.
"One of the reasons I, and I think
so many other people, have come to

I

love the king," Mann said, "is because
he's an illustration — just as Sadat was
— that there are some people who are
able to change deeply held views.
"It's only when one believes that that
one can have any hope for the future."
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat
was assassinated in 1981, after signing
the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
Hussein, who had ordered his
troops to fight against Israeli forces in
1967, eventually forged a similar
treaty with the Jewish state in 1994.
In written statements and personal
reminiscences, American Jewish lead-
ers noted Hussein's friendship with
former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, his partner in peace, whom he
had eulogized as "brother."
Some cited his arrival from treat-
ment at the Mayo Clinic in
Minnesota at the Wye River
Plantation in Maryland in October as
an example of Hussein's humanity
and courage, Many observers view his
participation in the Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations as having contributed
significantly to their resolution.
The king's secret meetings with
Israeli leaders have become increas-
ingly well known. Less well known is
that in his campaign for regional
peace, Hussein also reached out to the
North American Jewish community.
"He had a keen interest in
American Jewry," said Malcolm
Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman
of the Conference of Presidents of

Major American Jewish
Organizations, an umbrella group of
55 Jewish organizations.
Hussein's ambassadors to the
United States maintained ongoing
communication with Jewish commu-
nity leaders, Hoenlein said, recogniz-
ing "that American Jewry is an active
community in the political process,
and obviously has close ties to Israel."
Part of what made the Jewish lead-
ers so willing to cooperate with
Hussein, it seems, was his warmth and
personal charm. During a Presidents
Conference mission to Jordan several
years ago, Hoenlein recalled, the king
and Queen Noor invited the group to
a reception at the palace in Amman.
"He bantered with everybody. He
took each person aside individually,"
Hoenlein said. "Hussein had an "incred-
ible ability to focus on people and a sin-
cerity which I think was genuine."
When Grossman and his 14-year-
old son, Ben, visited Jordan in 1994
on a United Jewish Appeal mission,
they accepted the king's invitation to
lunch and missed the group tour of
the ancient city of Petra.
At the end of their 45-minute
meeting with the royal couple,
Grossman remembered, the king
approached the teen-ager and said, "I
understand your friends left for Petra
many hours ago" and then arranged
for his American guests to fly to the
site by Royal Jordanian Air Force
helicopter for a private sunset tour.

Photo by the Associated Press/Greg Gibson

wmligrazi.

• . ., .6. n 460 - . Ma i 11
,

As President Clinton
applauded, King Hussein,
left, and. Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin,
right, shook hands after
signing a declaration
ending 46years of
hostilities between the
two countries on the
south lawn of the White
House, July 25, 1994.

