Obituary
BY STEPHEN MILLER - Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 4, 2005
Max M. Fisher, a wealthy Detroit industrialist whose philanthropic and
diplomatic efforts made him among the most politically influential Jews
in America, died yesterday at his home in Franklin, Mich. He was 96.
A force in Republican politics since the 1950s, when he backed the
first gubernatorial campaign of George Romney, Fisher was an intimate
of each Republican president since Eisenhower and was particularly
close to President Nixon, who made Fisher his liaison to the Jewish
community.
In addition to undertaking sensitive diplomatic missions at several
crisis points in Israeli-American relations, Fisher raised hundreds of
millions of dollars for a variety of Jewish causes.
He served at various times as leader of the United Jewish Appeal, the
Jewish Agency for Israel, and the Council of Jewish Federations.
"In the world of Jewish volunteer leaders, Max Fisher was a giant," the
United Jewish Community's president and CEO, Howard Rieger, said."He
was known to all, whether heads of state in Israel or the United
States, or the leadership of the Jewish and general communities in the
United States, as a prime mover - as someone who made things happen."
"Max Fisher was a genuinely great man whose commitment and dedication
to what he believed were without comparison," the chairman of the
Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, said. "His influence and
advocacy for peace in the Middle East will be valued forever."
Fisher was also among the most important public benefactors in Detroit.
The $60 million Max M. Fisher Music Center, which opened in 2003,
serves as home to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and includes a public
high school devoted to the performing arts. It is called simply The
Max.
Fisher was born in 1908 in Pittsburgh to Russian-immigrant parents
named Velvil and Malka Fisch, later anglicized to William and Molly.
William Fisher was a peddler before he became a shop owner in Salem,
Ohio. He eventually moved to Detroit, where he went into the oil
business, reprocessing used crankcase oil in the Motor City.
Max Fisher grew up in Salem and attended Ohio State University on a
football scholarship - he played center. After he was injured, Fisher
worked his way through by delivering ice, and graduated in 1930 with a
degree in business administration.
After joining his father's reclamation business as a $15-a-week
salesman, Fisher convinced his father to expand, and rounded up
investors. By World War II, Aurora Gasoline was one of the largest
refiners in the Midwest. Fisher began investing in real estate.
By the 1950s, Fisher was wealthy and he began cultivating interests in
politics and Israel. He often told the story of a turning point in his
life when he first visited Israel, in 1954. Seeing poverty all around,
he suggested to the Israeli finance minister, Levi Eshkol, that the
nation stem the flow of immigration for a few years. "Every Jew in
Israel remembers how 6 million fellow Jews died under Hitler because
they had no place to go," Eshkol told him. "We will never close the
gates ... Israel exists so Jews may exist." It was, Fisher told his
biographer Peter Golden, "the greatest lesson I would ever learn about
Zionism."
Fisher became an outstanding fundraiser for Jewish causes both in the
Detroit area and abroad, and even became close friends with Henry Ford
II. In addition to his involvement with Romney, Fisher grew close to
Nixon, beginning in the late 1950s when Nixon was vice-president.
According to some sources, Eisenhower once told Fisher that he would
never have pressured Israel to evacuate the Sinai during the Suez
crisis if he had had a close Jewish adviser.
Already chairman of UJA, Fisher's fund-raising attained legendary
status when he raised $100 million in a single month to support Israel
in the wake of the Six-Day War, in 1967. Nixon brought Fisher into his
1968 presidential campaign as liaison to Jewish organizations.
According to a former Nixon staffer, Leonard Garment, Fisher convinced
Nixon not to support a Republican filibuster against the appointment of
Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court.
During the Nixon administration, Fisher acted as a private diplomatic
messenger to Israel. He lobbied unsuccessfully to have the
administration speak out more publicly on behalf of Soviet Jews who
wanted to immigrate to Israel. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973,
Fisher lobbied the president and Henry Kissinger nonstop to resupply
Israel promptly, according to Mr. Garment.
In a private memo to the Reagan White House commending Fisher's
services, Nixon wrote, "By far, the best man we worked with and one who
was invaluable when Kissinger was working out the disengagement plans
on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts was Max Fisher. He ... could always
carry the message to Garcia, even if it was unpleasant when we asked
him to."
In later interviews, Fisher downplayed Nixon's alleged anti-Semitism as
disclosed on secret tapes. "Have you ever said things in private that
you didn't want anybody to hear?" Fisher told the Detroit Free Press in
2003. "That's the same thing that happened. I'm sure that every
president has some nasty words to say or used some profane language."
Fisher had been friends with Gerald Ford since Mr. Ford's first run for
Congress, in 1948, and played an important role in preventing an
American tilt away from Israel when Mr. Ford became president. During
the new president's "state-of-the-world" speech, Fisher sat with the
Ford family in the gallery of the House of Representatives.
As a confirmed Republican, Fisher was largely shut out of the White
House during the Carter administration. According to Mr. Golden's
"Quiet Diplomat," when the Camp David Accords were signed in 1979,
Fisher was invited to the reception but was given a seat on the
periphery. Israel's prime minister, Menachem Begin, beckoned him up to
the dais, and said to Mr. Carter, "Mr. president, I want you to meet
the most important member of your country's Jewish community."
As they shook hands, the president replied, "Yes, I've heard of him."
Fisher continued to be an important adviser during the Reagan years but
disagreed with the administration over the sale of Awacs early-warning
planes to Saudi Arabia. Fisher's relations with in the Jewish community
became somewhat contentious during these years, and he was sometimes
accused of being a "court Jew," willing to trade access and influence
within Republican circles in exchange for betraying Israel's interests.
Fisher was an influential figure through the administration of George
H.W. Bush, and naturally lost influence under President Clinton. During
those years, he stepped up dramatically his philanthropy in Detroit. He
founded the National Jewish Coalition, devoted to supporting Jewish
Republican causes. In 1995, Fisher was one of the top donors to the
Foundation for Florida's Future, an organization founded by Florida's
governor, Jeb Bush.
During the 1992 election, Fisher's daughter, Mary, addressed the
Republican Convention, informing delegates that she was HIV-positive,
causing a tremendous public stir.
Fisher remained alert and devoted to his famous little black book of
phone numbers nearly to the end of his life. He spoke occasionally to
President Bush.
In 2003, he spoke proudly of his Detroit philanthropy, devoted to
rebuilding the city's downtown area. "Look, Detroit will never be the
same city as it was before," Fisher said. "But it will be a new city
with new ideas and new dreams."
After the United Jewish Appeal, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and the
Council of Jewish Federations merged in 1999 to form the United Jewish
Community, the UJC named its New York headquarters for Fisher.
Max Martin Fisher
Born July 15, 1908, in Pittsburgh, Pa.; died March 3 at his home in
Franklin, Mich.; survived by his wife, Marjorie, and five children
including Mary, the daughter who contracted HIV.
Rabbi Chaim Mordechai Aizik Hodakov, Chief of Staff of the office of
the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson for more than 40
years, passed away Friday night, April 23, after a brief illness. He
was 91 years old.
Born in the Russian town of Beshenkowitz on January 12, 1902 (Shevat 4,
5662) to Sholom Yisroel and Chaya Treina Hodakov, Chaim Mordechai Aizik
moved to Riga, Latvia with his parents in 1904.
A born educator and pedagogue, young Chaim Mordechai was appointed
principal of the Torah V'Derech Eretz school in Riga at the age of 18.
While still a young man, he was appointed head of Jewish education for
the Latvian Ministry of Education.
When the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn,
of righteous memory, moved to Riga (from Russia) in 1928, Rabbi Hodakov
became drawn to the Rebbe and became part of the Rebbe's work force. It
was during that period that he met the present Rebbe for the first
time.
In 1940, when the previous Rebbe escaped from Poland, he asked Rabbi
and Mrs. Hodakov to accompany him to the United States.
Some time after their arrival in the United States, the previous Rebbe
appointed him as director of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch (the educational
arm of the Lubavitch movement), Machne Israel (the social service arm),
and Kehot Publication Society, all of which were under the present
Rebbe's chairmanship.
In 1950, when the present Rebbe ascended to the helm of the world wide
Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Rabbi Hodakov became his Chief-of-Staff and
head of his secretariat. He was later appointed chairman of Agudas
Chassidei Chabad, the umbrella organization that oversees the worldwide
network of Chabad-Lubavitch organizations and institutions.
Rabbi Hodakov was a vigorous and resolute activist who innovated many
educational ideas and programs. He was a role model for many young
Chassidim in his demeanor and in his devotion to the Rebbe.
The funeral, which was held on Sunday, April 25, was attended by
several thousand people, many of whom had managed to fly in from
various parts of the United States. The procession filed past Lubavitch
World Headquarters in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, and
proceeded to the Old Montefiore Cemetery, in Springfield Gardens, New
York. He was was interred next to the resting place of the previous
Rebbe, of blessed memory.
He is survived by his wife, Ethel Tzerna, a noted educator and author,
his son Sholom Yisroel and daughter Chaya Rivkah Kramer, and numerous
grandchildren.
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February 4, 1998
Rabbi Menachem Shmuel Dovid Raichik, personal emissary of the
Lubavitcher Rebbes, passed away Tuesday night, February 4 (8 Shevat),
after a brief illness. He was 79 years old.
Born in the Polish town of Mlava on March 15, 1918 (Nissan 2, 5678),
Menachem Shmuel Dovid Raichik excelled in his studies and was
considered an "ilui" (Talmudic scholar of renown). In 1936, upon the
advice of the famous Amshinover Rebbe, the young Raichik enrolled in
the Lubavitcher yeshiva in Otwock, outside Warsaw, where he fell in
love with the Chabad synthesis of scholarship and personal refinement.
Fellow students recall Menachem Shmuel Dovid's meticulous observance of
the Mitzvot and his passionate way of prayer. His Shabbat morning
prayer ritual would last as long as six hours, and included lengthy
meditations in the Chabad tradition. At night, when reciting the
bedtime prayers, Raichik would often become engrossed in introspection
into the wee hours, when the time came for morning prayers. During the
day he employed his sharp mind in deep Talmudic study.
It was in the Lubavitch yeshiva that the young Raichik became attached
to the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of
righteous memory. In short time he became one of the select group who
memorized and reviewed the Rebbe's discourses.
On the Run
With the outbreak of the war at the end of 1939, Raichik and his fellow
yeshiva students were forced to flee Otwock. In each place they
arrived, the students quickly established new yeshivas and resumed
their studies.
Shortly before Chanukah that year, Raichik and a friend reached Warsaw,
where the Rebbe guided them and gave them money to escape to Vilnius.
Once he reached Lithuania, Raichik labored tirelessly to save fellow
students from German-occupied Poland and the Baltic states. Despite his
own capture once by border police, he organized smuggling operations,
bringing many refugees across the border to safer territory.
When Japan's consul to Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, sacrificed his
diplomatic career to issue Japanese passports to Jewish refugees,
Raichik helped procure visas for his fellow students and others.
After spending close to a year in Kobe, Japan, the yeshiva relocated
yet again, this time to Shanghai, where many other Jews spent the
remainder of the war years as well. Raichik quickly acquired a
reputation as an extraordinarily G-d fearing and scholarly man even
among the Lithuanian rabbis not familiar with the Chassidic way of
life.
In Shanghai, Rabbi Raichik became the foundation for the uprooted
Lubavitch yeshiva. In addition to overseeing the daily running of the
seminary, friends recall how lovingly he served as surrogate parent to
the younger students. Though given many chances to leave, Raichik chose
to stay until the very last student was able to leave, in 1946.
Throughout that period Raichik was in communication with the Rebbe who,
in addition to massive fund-raising and rescue efforts for Jews in
German-occupied territory and Russia, raised money to send to Shanghai.
American Jewish Revival
When Raichik finally reached the United States, the sixth Rebbe
immediately put him under the wing of his son-in-law and later
successor, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson of righteous memory, to travel
by train across North America to seek out Jews, in groups and as
individuals, to identify local communal needs and bolster Jewish
identity.
For months on end, Raichik criss-crossed the United States, dining on
sardines and fruits and vegetables, visiting Jews in places like
Chattanooga, Tennessee and Cheyenne, Wyoming, setting up schools and
mikvahs, and generally mapping the way for a future Jewish revival.
Because of his obvious refinement and gentle disposition, people took
an immediate liking to Raichik, trusting him with their most intimate
secrets. Much of the post-war Jewish infrastructure in many cities
across the United States can be traced to Raichik's tireless efforts.
After his marriage in 1948 to Lea Rappoport, Rabbi Raichik and his new
bride were dispatched to Los Angeles as personal emissaries of the
sixth Rebbe.
The Raichiks immediately set out to work to bolster Judaism on the West
Coast, and became "the address" for hundreds who sought them out for
matters spiritual and physical.
Following the sixth Rebbe's passing in 1950, Rabbi Raichik was among
the Lubavitch Chassidim who pleaded with the Rebbe's son-in-law, Rabbi
Menachem M. Schneerson, to become the movement's new leader. Clearly,
the new Rebbe saw Raichik as one of his stronger assets in bringing
Jewish tradition back to the Jews of the post-war world.
The new Rebbe, whose suggestion it was that the Raichiks be sent to Los
Angeles, wrote to Raichik that his position was not to be limited to
one synagogue, but "his net should be spread on the entire city and its
surrounding areas."
For close to fifty years, Rabbi Raichik brought the teachings of the
Torah, the wisdom of Chabad philosophy and the instructions of the
sixth and then the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbes into Jewish homes,
offices and synagogues across the state. He was often seen running in
LA's streets with a pair of tefillin before Shabbat, in hopes of
encouraging one more Jew to perform a mitzvah.
Dignitaries and beggars alike felt welcome in the Raichik home. Much of
the city's official Jewish business was conducted around the Raichiks'
dining room table.
In addition, Rabbi Raichik continued his travels to cities across
America to educate and reenergize existing and sprouting Jewish
Communities and was an example and guide to many Chabad-Lubavitch
Emissaries around the world.
So zealous was Raichik in his work, he frequently received notes from
the Rebbe urging him to take care of his health. The Rebbe also asked
other chassidim to encourage Raichik to eat regularly.
In 1990, Rabbi Raichik was appointed to the executive boards of Merkos
L'Inyonei Chinuch (educational arm of the Lubavitch movement), Machne
Israel (the social service arm), and Agudas Chassidei Chabad, the
umbrella organization that oversees the worldwide network of
Chabad-Lubavitch organizations and institutions.
Toward the end of his life Raichik suffered greatly from the
debilitating Parkinson disease, but refused to allow it to hamper his
busy schedule.
His funerals in Los Angeles and New York were attended by thousands of
people. In New York, the funeral procession filed past Lubavitch World
Headquarters and continued to the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens,
where he was interred close to the resting place of the Lubavitcher
Rebbes he had so faithfully served.
He is survived by his wife, Lea, and ten children and their families
who serve as leaders in their respective communities around the globe.