FOR THE AGES

Max M. Fisher, 1908-2005

Deanof

American Jewry

Fisher with Israeli children while on a United
Jewish Appeal mission, 1958

Max Fisher subscribed to the
notion that "Israel exists so
Jews may exist."

PETER GOLDEN
Jewish Renaissance Media

M

ax M. Fisher had a wonderful
collection of photographs —
thousands of pictures, some
dating back to the early 1900s, of family
and friends, and of course the presidents,
prime ministers, secretaries of state, sena-
tors, governors, mayors and assorted indus-
trialists, philanthropists and political figures
the Franklin resident had befriended over
his long career.
Many of the photos were inscribed with
greetings and expressions of gratitude.
Every Republican president since Dwight

Max M. Fisher, 2003

3/10
2005

30

D. Eisenhower and some Democratic occu-
pants of the Oval Office are in the collec-
tion — and all Israeli prime ministers
beginning with David Ben-Gurion, who,
when Fisher presented him with a gift for
his 80th birthday, whispered, "You should
come live here."
Somewhere in this archive, you will find a
black-and-white photograph that was taken
in October 1954, an informal shot of five
men and one woman standing on a hill
overgrown with scrub brush. Fisher is
standing to the side, his eyes narrowed
against the sun, a tall man dressed in a suit
and tie whose broad shoulders recalled his
service on the gridiron at Ohio State
University in the 1920s. Along the right
edge of the photo, there is a sign in Hebrew
and English that reads: "Danger. Frontier
Ahead. No Passage."
The frontier was Jordan, and this was
Fisher's initial visit to Israel. He had come
on the first United Jewish Appeal study mis-
sion, and though over the next five decades
he would return countless times, the 1954
visit never left him.
The founding of Israel was a stunning
reality to Fisher, but growing up in the small
town of Salem, Ohio, with few Jewish
neighbors, his mother, Mollie, had seen to it
that the dream was never far from his mind.
An immigrant from a Russian shtetl (village),
Mollie used to drop coins into her blue-and-
white Jewish National Fund box and encour-
aged Max and his sisters to do the same,
thus teaching her children not only about
the pioneers who were struggling to build a
Jewish homeland, but also about the moral
requirement of charity, a lesson that was not
lost on her son.
Yet in 1954, as Fisher toured Israel, he
was horrified by the living conditions. Across
the arid hills, he saw 200,000 Jewish immi-
grants huddled under makeshift tents,
reminding him of the shantytowns that had
sprung up across America in the
Depression. There were few jobs, scant
medical care, food and water always
seemed in short supply, and there was no
peace for Israelis with their Arab neighbors.
The other members of the United Jewish
Appeal mission elected Fisher to represent
their group at a talk with Israeli leaders. At

this point in his business career, Fisher had
become one of the most successful inde-
pendent oilmen in the United States, recog-
nized for his ability to find creative solutions
to knotty problems. So upon meeting Finance
Minister Levi Eshkol, Fisher suggested what
he viewed as a logical stopgap measure for
solving some of the fledgling country's eco-
nomic woes.
"Because you're short on money," Fisher
asked, "wouldn't it make sense for Israel to
shut down immigration for a while?"
Eshkol's reply was instantaneous. "Every
Jew in Israel remembers how Six Million fel-
low Jews died under Hitler because they
had no place to go. Even if you don't give us
another dime, no Jew is ever going to add
to that Six Million. Israel may go under, but
one thing we'll never do: We will never close
the gates. There has to be an Israel so there
can be one place in the whole world where
Jews may come in — any Jew in any con-
dition — as a matter of right." Then Eshkol
added: "Israel exists so Jews may exist."
In retrospect, Fisher said that Eshkol, who
would later serve as prime minister, taught
him "the greatest lesson I would ever learn
about Zionism."
Still, the overarching challenges faced by
the Jewish state went beyond the financial
to the political — the place Israel would
have in the world.
Eleven years would pass before Fisher
would figure out how he could help with
that problem.

Growing Influence

By 1965, Fisher had merged his Aurora
Gasoline Co. with Ohio Oil. With the freedom
to pursue other interests, he had become a
renowned philanthropist, supporting both
Jewish and nonsectarian causes, and
entered Republican Party politics, helping
George W. Romney win the governorship of
Michigan. In October 1965, as general
chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, he
traveled to Gettysburg, Pa., to ask former
President Eisenhower to attend a ceremony
marking the 20th anniversary of the libera-
tion of the German concentration camps
and to accept an award for his part in res-
cuing the remnants of Europe's Jews.
After leaving the presidency, Eisenhower
retired to the bucolic joys of his farm and
passed the hours on the glass-enclosed sun
porch, where he could read or paint or, on