As then-national board chair of the ADL, Denver’s Barry Curtiss-Lusher knew Abe Foxman well. On the day of Foxman’s funeral in New York (May 12), Curtiss-Lusher shared these thoughts with the IJN’s Steve Mark:
It’s been a sad morning. I couldn’t be there in person, but I watched Abe’s entire funeral. It was very moving. He and I had our last text about three weeks ago. I knew he was near his end, but it’s still the end of an era.
Abe was a compassionate and passionate guy. He was complicated. He was wise. He was an iconic leader. I craved his hug (laughs). He was famous for his hugs. He and I were good friends and really good partners.
I was the national chair with him as he was national director. We traveled all over the world together. We spent a lot of time together and got to know each other. We had known each other before, but you get to know each other differently when you’re partners like that, running the organization. He was a very special man in so many ways.
He and I attended the investiture of Pope Francis together as two of 13 Jews invited from around the world to sit with the Cardinals looking across at the heads of state and then out over security at 350,000 people, and then to have a private audience afterwards.
I was there because of Abe. It was one of those remarkable experiences that not many people get to have.
For me, it all dates back to having known Abe when I was the chair of the ADL board here in Colorado, and then going on a trip to Israel with him and his wife and other national leadership. They invited the regional board chairs to go, and that’s where we really connected.
From there, he recruited me to national leadership. That was 26 years ago. It’s a lot of years and a lot of stories and a lot of memories.
Abe had a very strong and forceful personality. But he was also humble. He was honored to be the one to both represent and help protect the Jewish people.
You know that his story is of being a hidden child in WW II, and as a Holocaust survivor. He really felt this was a calling, and it was what he did.
He was always there, and he was also sober about it as well. He was the eternal optimist.
He said, if you’re not going to be optimistic, what can you do? He said it would crush you if you weren’t an optimist. And he was. He got through all kinds of difficult situations, and he did it with grace, with warmth, and with toughness. He really spoke truth to power. He spoke truth to a pope, to prime ministers, to presidents and to bad people. I mean, he was fearless.
He was unbelievably good at the impromptu, just being able to be in a conversation and be able to react and talk and make sense of things. He was a great mentor.
Abe was with the ADL for his entire career, starting right out of law school. For the last 28 years, he had been the national director. It’s a long time. The world was changing. Our donor base was changing. As he would say as he saw the future, this was going to take a new generation of new people.
But by the same token, it was his life and he wasn’t anxious to leave. He was sort of torn in that he knew that it was time, and yet he would have preferred that time not to be yet. So we had a pretty tumultuous year, I’d say my first three years as national chair (in 2012).
So into 2013 we negotiated his retirement. And that sometimes was very loud. My wife would tell you about us getting thrown out of the executive lounge in a hotel in Tel Aviv because we were arguing so loudly (laughs).
We would have these loud discussions, some confrontational, about the terms and how he was going to choose his successor, but invariably our conversations ended with a hug.
One of the things I’m proudest of, as hard as that was, is that we remained good friends. He knew it was time. We hired his successor in November, 2014.
Jonathan Greenblatt started in the beginning of 2015, and for the first six months we went on a listening tour around the country. But as Abe said, “there’s only one national director at a time.” So for that six months, it was still Abe. Jonathan stayed out of his hair. Abe stayed out of Jonathan’s hair.
And in July, Abe left, and Jonathan became the director. Abe kept a relationship. He didn’t have an office, but he was available, still our sage, our wise man, and he was there to answer and do things. But he was retired and as he said, there’s only one national director at a time.
Abe didn’t really have hobbies. He traveled a lot. He wrote, but it was all about the ADL. I knew it was going to be really difficult for him, retiring. He got very engaged with the US Holocaust Museum. He was great about staying in touch.
One thing about Abe, he was great at staying in touch by text and phone, and he was great when he needed him.
He was terrific that way. He was one of a kind, a very special man. A very wise man.
It’s been a difficult morning.
