THE WHITE HOUSE
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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