2001-01-18 Members Named to the US Holocaust Memorial Council
Press Secretary
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release January 18, 2001
PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES 14 MEMBERS OF THE
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL COUNCIL
President Clinton announced today his intention to appoint Maya
Angelou, Edgar Bronfman, Sr., Gila Bronner, Norman Brownstein, Stuart
Eizenstat, William Gray III, Myron Cherry, Frank Lautenberg, Ruth
Mandel, Harvey Meyerhoff, Set Momjian, Nathan Shapell, Eli Wiesel and
Karen Winnick as members of the United States Holocaust Memorial
Council.
Dr. Maya Angelou, of Winston Salem, North Carolina, is a noted
author, actor, dancer and poet. She has served as the Reynolds'
Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University since 1981.
Among her best-known works are I Know Why the Caged Bird Signs, Give Me
a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Diiie, The Heart of a Woman and Wouldn't
Take Nothing for My Journey Now. Dr. Angelou wrote and delivered the
poem On the Pulse of Morning for President Clinton's inauguration in
1993, and in 2000, was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Mr. Edgar M. Bronfman, Sr., of New York, New York, is a member of
the Board of Directors of Vivendi Universal and Chairman of The Samuel
Bronfman Foundation, Inc. In 1998, he was appointed by President
Clinton as Chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust
Assets in the United States. In 1999, Mr. Bronfman was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. He
also is President of the World Jewish Congress, the World Jewish
Restitution Organization, and is Chairman of the Foundation for Jewish
Campus Life (Hillel).
Ms. Gila Bronner, of Chicago, Illinois, is the President and CEO of
Bronner Group, LLC, an Internet and computer training and organization
change consulting firm. She was recently appointed to the City of
Chicago Mayor's Council of Technology Advisors, and she also serves on
the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants and is a member of the Illinois Local Government Advisory
Board and the Illinois State Government Accountability Council.
Mr. Norman Brownstein, of Englewood, Colorado, is Chair of the
Board of the legal firm of Brownstein Hyatt & Farber, and was recently
named by the National Law Journal as one of the 100 Most Influential
Lawyers in America. He also is a Director of the National Jewish Center
for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, a Trustee of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, and a Vice President of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee. Previously, Mr. Brownstein was the director of the
Denver Symphony and the Rose Medical Center.
The Honorable Stuart E. Eizenstat, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, is
currently Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. From June 1997 to July 1999
he served as Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and
Agricultural Affairs. From April 1996 to June 1997, he was Under
Secretary of Commerce of International Trade Administration, and from
September 1993 to April 1996 was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.
Deputy Secretary Eizenstat also has been a partner in the law firm of
Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy, and was President Carter's chief domestic
policy adviser from 1977 to 1981.
The Honorable William H. Gray, III, of Vienna, Virginia, is
President and CEO of The College Fund/UNCF. Previously, he served in
the United States Congress and was Chair of the House Budget Committee,
Chair of the Democratic Caucus and Majority Whip. In 1994, he was a
Special Adviser to President Clinton on Haiti. Prior to his tenure in
Congress, Mr. Gray taught at St. Peter's College, Jersey City State
College, Montclair State College, Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary
and Temple University. Additionally, he was pastor of the Bright Hope
Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
Mr. Myron Cherry of Chicago, Illinois, is the founder of Cherry &
Flynn, a law firm specializing in civil litigation. The firm's practice
specializes in all areas of commercial litigation, including securities,
contract, environment corporate governance, libel and slander, civil
rights, and intellectual property classes. Mr. Cherry has over 30 years
experience as a trial lawyer and is a member of the bars in the states
of Illinois, California, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. He
has presented cases before the United States Supreme Court, and several
districts of Columbia Circuit Courts of Appeal, and Illinois state
courts. Mr. Cherry is active in various political and charitable
activities having served as: a Trustee of the Democratic National
Committee, and twice on the United States Senate Judicial Nominations
Committee for Illinois. Mr. Cherry received his B.S. from the
University of Illinois, and an undergraduate B.S. in Law from
Northwestern University. He was editor of the Northwestern Law Review
where he received his L.L.B.
The Honorable Frank R. Lautenberg, of Cliffside Park, New Jersey,
retired as United States Senator from New Jersey in 2000. Prior to his
election to the Senate, he was Chairman and CEO of Automatic Data
Processing (ADP), a company that he co-founded. Originally elected to
the Senate in 1982, he was responsible for a number of significant
pieces of legislation over his three terms in the areas of health,
safety, security and transportation, including establishing 21 as the
national legal drinking age, banning smoking on airplanes, setting .08
blood alcohol content as the legal standard for drunk driving, and
tightening airport and airline safety and security. As the ranking
Democratic member of the Budget Committee, Senator Lautenberg also
co-authored the Balanced Budget Agreement of 1997. He also has served
as Chair of the United Jewish Appeal and as a Congressional Member of
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
Dr. Ruth B. Mandel, of Princeton, New Jersey, is Director of the
Eagleton Institute of Politics and is the Board of Governors Professor
of Politics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. From 1971
through 1994, she served as Director of Eagleton's Center for the
American Woman and Politics (CAWP), where she remains affiliated as a
Senior Scholar. Dr. Mandel has served on the board of the National
Council for Research on Women; the National Commission for the Renewal
of American Democracy; Princeton University's Center for Jewish Life;
the Mercer County Commission on the Status of Women, and various
editorial boards for scholarly journals and academic publishers. She
was appointed Vice Chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council by
President Clinton in May 1993.
Mr. Harvey M. Meyerhoff, of Baltimore, Maryland, is Chairman of the
Board of Magna Holdings, Inc. and Chairman Emeritus of the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Council. He also serves as a director of a number of
organizations including PEC Israel Economic Corporation, Offitbank, The
Concord Coalition and the National Housing Endowment. Mr. Meyerhoff is
a Trustee of The John Hopkins University and the University of Wisconsin
Board of Visitors, Center for Jewish Studies. Previously, he was a
Director/Trustee of Monumental Corporation, St. John's College, Maryland
National Bank and The John Hopkins Health System and the Johns Hopkins
Hospital.
Mr. Set Charles Momjian, of Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, is a
retired international marketing executive with Ford Motor Company. He
is Vice Chair of the Ellis Island Restoration Commission, a Founding
Member of the President Carter Library and Study Center and a member of
the boards of the Liberty Museum, Independence Hall Endowment Fund and
the Woodrow Wilson House. Mr. Momjian also has served as the United
States Representative to the United Nations (Human Rights) and as a
member of the President's Commission on the Restoration of the White
House Offices.
Mr. Nathan Shapell, of Beverly Hills, California, is Chairman and
CEO of Shapell Industries, Inc., a diversified financial and real estate
development firm. From 1987 to 1995 he was President of D.A.R.E.
America, a nationally renowned drug abuse resistance educational
program. He also has served on a number of State of California
commissions on government reform and was a member and Subcommittee
Chairman of President Reagan's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control.
In 1994, Mr. Shapell represented Holocaust Survivors Worldwide at the
candle lighting ceremony in the Vatican for the "Papal Concert to
Commemorate the Holocaust."
Professor Elie Wiesel, of New York, New York, is University
Professor and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston
University. A native of Sighet, Transylvania, Professor Wiesel survived
Auschwitz, and after the war, became a journalist in Paris. Eventually,
he began to write about the Holocaust experiences and is a distinguished
author of more than 40 books. Among his best-known works are his
memoirs Night (1960), All Rivers Run to the Sea (1995) and And the Sea
is Never Full. (1999). He has been awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, the rank of Grand
Officer in the French Legion of Honor, and, in 1986, he received the
Nobel Peace Prize. In 1978, President Carter appointed Professor Wiesel
Chairman of the President's Commission, and, on the Holocaust and in
1980 he became the Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust
Memorial Council.
Ms. Karen B. Winnick, of Los Angeles, California, is an author and
illustrator of children's books including Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers and
Sybil's Night Ride. She also produced a play, Kindertransport, about
children who were sent to England in WWII. Her paintings have been
exhibited in local galleries and her poems have been published in
magazines and anthologies. She also is a member of the Board of
Commissioners of the Los Angeles Zoo, the Board of Trustees at Brown
University and the Board of Trustees of The Jewish Museum in New York.
Ms. Winnick also is a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District
Reading Task Force, and, through the Winnick Family Foundation, supports
many education and literacy programs in Los Angeles and throughout the
country.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Council was established in
1979 to provide for the annual commemoration and observance of the Days
of Remembrance of the Holocaust, and to construct and operate a living
memorial to its victims. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
was dedicated in 1993.
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