EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
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plot at Clover Hill Memorial Park in Birmingham. He was born in
Pittsburgh and had the means to live anywhere, but Max never
wavered in his love for Detroit, to which he came in 1930 from
Ohio to join his father William's oil recycling business.
"The request for Max to be buried at Mt. Herzl stands as ample
testimony to what he has meant to the State of Israel and to the
Jewish people around the world," said one of the eight eulogizers,
Rabbi Harold Loss of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.
It was Theodor Herzl's vision that led to the creation of a Jewish
state in the ashes of the Holocaust. And it was Max Fisher's influ-
ence that kept the state on the diaspora's front burner.
Never one to grant stature lightly, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon opened his Cabinet meeting on Sunday with "an expression
of condolences to Max Fisher's family, the Jewish Agency and the
American Jewish community."
Max was the founding chairman of the Jewish Agency and
understood the necessity not only to inspire aliyah, which spurred
the influx of 1 million Russian Jews and thousands from Arab lands
and Ethiopia, but also to teach Jews who stayed in the diaspora
what it meant to be Jewish. Max was a secular Jew who received a
meager Jewish education in Salem, Ohio, where he grew up. But he
was well aware of his Jewish identity living in that small, gentile
town.
For Max, Jerusalem, as the embodiment of Israel, became central
to who we are as a people.
Radiating Optimism
Flashing back to my visit with Max, I wondered if he thought
Israel, at war since its founding in 1948, could ever enjoy a last-
ing peace. "Oh, sure," he said with such certainty that it took me
by surprise.
In the course of history, he said, 50 some years is not long.
"I'll tell you what I once told George Schultz, the secretary of
state under President Reagan: 'You know, peace is like entering a
long tunnel. When you first get in the tunnel, it's dark. And you
move along and move along, and finally you see a dim light. And at
the end of that dim light, you start seeing some hope — then a
period of hope and peace."
He talked about how Iraq and Iran fought an eight-year war in the
1980s, but never signed a peace treaty. And he talked about how
Germany and Japan, bitter U.S. enemies during World War II,
"turned out to be great friends of ours."
"Israelis are tough," he said. "It may take five years, or 10 years,
but they'll fight this thing through. They have one strong partner in
the United States."
I wasn't about to challenge the insight of someone who rallied sup-
port for Israel in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973.
He made perfect sense.
Max lamented the resurgence of Jew-hating in Europe and dis-
missed the European Union as an enigma for its rebuke of Israel.
With a wink and a nod, he urged American Jews to support
Israelis more liberally, even if we disagreed with aspects of the
Sharon administration.
"A strong Israel gives strength to the Jewish people, it really does,"
Max said. "The future for all of us is helped by the alliance that we
have and the mutual support that we give."
Infighting haunts Israel. But the state remains a beacon for Jews
in distress. "That's why I say Israel is so necessary," said Max, who
rose above Israel's political and religious squabbles to do something
about the plight of persecuted Jews.
Max had been part of Israel's inner circle since the day the state
was formed. Few Detroiters remember that he led Project Renewal
of the 1980s, a campaign of the Jewish Agency and world Jewry in
response to Prime Minister Menachem Begin's call to rehabilitate
disadvantaged Israeli neighborhoods. Detroit Jewry bonded with the
Israeli towns of Ramie and Yavneh. That partnership continues
through the Max. M. Fisher Community Center in Ramie and the
William Davidson Community Center in Yavneh, although no longer
through funding.
Oval Office Access
Biographer Peter Golden tells how Max called in his chips as a
Republican supporter to remind President Nixon that it was in the
foreign policy interests of the United States to re-supply Israel with
military equipment to counter the aligned Soviet-fortified offensives
that Egypt and Syria launched on Yom Kippur 1973.
"Under no circumstances were we going to allow a Soviet airlift to
Israel's enemies lead to an Israeli defeat," President Richard Nixon is
quoted in Golden's 1992 book Quiet Diplomat "Part of the reason we
assisted Israel was personal. I felt very sympathetic to Golda Meir, to
Yitzhak Rabin and to others."
So Golden theorizes that Max's pitch to the president to begin
the U.S. fortifications airlift may well have been a moot point.
"Yet what stands as historically significant is that Fisher was able
to talk directly to the president at such a moment and the
manner in which he presented his case," Golden wrote. "Both
indicate Fisher's unique contribution to the political life of
Jewish America."
At that moment that I was with Max in his den, nothing else mat-
tered for me as he mustered the strength to tell me to stand with
Israel because hope indeed matters.
"As terrible as things are, we can't give up," he told me. "We have
to continue the struggle. The Jewish people have fought for thousands
of years for a homeland. Now we have one. It's ours to sustain."
Is it any wonder that Max, with tefillin and tallit, chose the
Western Wall in Jerusalem to celebrate his bar mitzvah at age 75 in
1984 amid family and friends? He kissed the stones, shed a few
tears, and then was called to the Torah, reciting the transliterated
Hebrew prayers from an index card, according to his biographer.
Wrote Golden: "Then looking up, he said, 'This is the most fortunate
day of my life. -
Despite failing health, Max championed Mideast peace.
"He was still working on this quietly behind the scenes in the
past few months," A. Alfred Taubman, the Bloomfield Hills shopping
center magnate, told the JN about his friend for 50 years. "He spent
most of his life trying to help Israel — always pushing the parties
to settle their differences, always prodding our government to main-
tain its assistance."
In her eulogy, Max's oldest daughter, Jane Sherman of Franklin,
eloquently described how her father, as Jewish Agency chairman,
would hold forth with Jews of all persuasions from Suite 329 of the
King David Hotel, working to secure a Zionist foundation in an
embattled region.
Jane earned her Zionist spurs after her father sent her and her
husband, Larry, on a United Jewish Appeal young leadership mission
to Israel in 1962, when she was 21. She bonded with the young
country instantly and wanted to be part of it. On her own merit, she
rose through the advocacy ranks to become current co-chair of the
Jewish Agency's Israel Committee and chair of the United Israel
Appeal. She's also on the executive committee of the Detroit
Federation.
But she's proud to say the man she called "Daddy" right up to
the end set a shining example.
"We have a better and stronger Jewish world than we had 30
years ago because of him," she said.
For the sake of our people, we must stand together to assure
that Max Fisher's remarkable legacy endures. IVF
Optimist, Visionary
"We have all been the
beneficiaries of Max
Fisher's bold and inno-
vative planning and his
good deeds. Max has
been often referred to as
the quiet diplomat —
and that he has been —
but make no mistake,
ALAN E.
he was a man that was
SCHWARTZ
determined and pas-
sionate in his pursuits
and ready to _peak out when the moment
required
'Many will recall the unhappy event
shortly after the 1967 Detroit riots when
members of the African American commu- -
nity who had peacefully assembled at Neth!.
Beth EI Church were arrested and inzpris-
oned: It was Max Fisher who publicly and
bravely spoke out in defense of these citizens
and quieted the tensions that were forming
. throughout the city.
"I can tell you as his fiiend of 50 years
that the wonderfid things we have all
heard about Max Fisher are so. He did
counsel with presidents and heads of state
and with governors and mayors, but with
equal grace he was accessible to and met
with persons of all stations of life.
"Max was an optimist and a visionary
who plannedfor a better future for our
communities and did so with an uncanny
judgment of what, when and how such
things might be made to happen. He had a
unique sense oftiming,- he would somehow
sense the right moment for bold initiatives
to be fashioned and to occur. If ground
were to be broken, it was to Max that we
would go for advice and leadership.
"He brought optimism to challenges
born from his unshaken confidence in the
digni t y of all people. He would see the
brightness of the ft-awe while others were
consumed only with the darkness of the
moment.
"He sought at all times to find the
means to protect and strengthen the collec-
tive capacity of all of our people to care for
one another. He was the mentor of many
younger persons, counseling and encourag-
ing them to be active participants in the
significant affairs of our community
"Max Fisher traveled throughout the
world His accomplishments are legendary
but he neverforgotftom whence he came.
He always remembered and respected his
roots, which were firmly planted in the soil
of Detroit."
Alan E. Schwartz, a Detroit attorney
gave one of the eulogies.
3/10
2005
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