The Simon Wiesenthal Center mourns the passing of President George H.W. Bush

December 1, 2018

"The United States lost a great leader, a friend of Israel, and a champion of Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry who, in 1991, was the recipient of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s highest honor, the Humanitarian Award,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, Simon Wiesenthal Center Founder and Dean.

“First as US ambassador to the UN and then during his presidency, President Bush was a friend of Israel and the Jewish people. He was also instrumental in the campaign to free Soviet Jewry and in rescuing and bringing Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Tens of thousands of Jews were saved as a direct result of his intervention,” Hier continued

President Bush visited the Simon Wiesenthal Center, first on the occasion of lighting the memorial flame for the 6 million Jews lost in the Holocaust (pictured right top)  and again in 1991 when he was the keynote speaker at the Wiesenthal Center’s National Tribute Dinner honoring Arnold Schwarzenegger (pictured right bottom).