Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights

LEO NEVAS

1912-2009

Remarks by Felice Gaer

Director, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the American Jewish Committee

It was more than a quarter century ago that I first met Leo Nevas. In 1982, I was the newly hired Executive Director of the International League for Human Rights, and Leo was one of its key officers. We shared an abiding interest in helping Andrei Sakharov, the famous Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who was then in exile in the Soviet city of Gorky with his wife Elena Bonner. Sakharov’s ideas and human rights activism eventually brought about the demise of the Communist superpower.

Leo was delighted that I wanted the struggle for freedom in Russia to be a major concern of the League, America’s oldest human rights group.

I liked Leo’s no-nonsense approach, the leadership, strategy and pragmatism he brought to the seemingly idealistic quest for human rights and freedom:

Help someone today.

Show a little courage.

Speak out.

Link issues together to make progress.

Plan ahead.

Make a difference.

That was Leo.

And we did make a difference.

Leo lived to see Sakharov freed from exile and honored as an elected member of the Soviet Congress of Deputies. Leo saw the demise of the Soviet Union and its bloc. And he reveled in it – confiding that for all his optimism about the need to defend the voiceless and oppressed, he never imagined he would live to see that terrible Soviet system collapse. The apartheid system also ended, and the UN even created a High Commissioner for Human Rights, allowing the growth and expansion of the UN’s work in protecting human rights around the world. These were just the tip of the iceberg.  

Leo and I shared an interest in reforming and strengthening the United Nations, protecting the downtrodden worldwide, and advancing the well-being of Jews and promoting universal values.

We fought to aid Soviet Jews to exercise their right to leave, to bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, to combat anti-Semitism globally, and to end the UN’s bias against Israel. The pursuit of justice for all, and promoting fairness, and freedom, were enormously important to Leo. He was a lawyer, a jurist, and very much a humanist. His concern for these issues stemmed from many factors.

Jewish tradition was key to Leo’s support for human rights and fundamental freedoms. After all, Judaism brought a distinctive approach to the relationship of the individual to improving his world, his society, his life: Judaism promotes the sanctity of life, universality, and equality.

Judaism teaches that there is one moral law for everyone – the prince and the pauper, the native born and the stranger --  and that every person is free to determine his/her own spiritual program . Life is not fated, but rather, Jewish tradition teaches that the moral ills of this world can be overcome. And that change can be made in this world.  Those principles led Leo, as many of us, to fight to protect the human rights of every person, at home and abroad. 

Eleanor Roosevelt who chaired the negotiations that produced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights cautioned that the “destiny of human rights is in the hands of each of our citizens in each of our communities. … Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”

Leo Nevas understood that this means each person must take responsibility.

And Leo was among the most responsible when it came to upholding the rights of others.

Leo broke down barriers. Whether fighting against the “exclusion of Jews from the executive suites of corporations”  or exclusion from owning property in places like… Westport, Leo was engaged, working with organizations in the community and beyond. 

He was very active with the American Jewish Committee, became chair of its International Relations Commission, chair of its Board of Governors, and, not long after I moved to the AJC myself in 1993, Leo became chair of the AJC’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (1996-2000) on which he had served since it was founded.

Leo’s contributions to the field of human rights were extensive – he never tired of trying one more letter, one more call, one more visit, one more action to better the world.

A few examples.

In the 1970s, Leo was concerned about reports of human rights abuses in Israel, so he and his wife Libby spent a half year there during which he studied the situation and consulted widely on what to do about it. On his return, AJC’s Blaustein Institute made the first grant to establish a credible civil rights monitoring organization in that country, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as has been chronicled by Professor Michael Galchinsky in the 2008 book Jews and International Human Rights. Leo was key to that happening.

I mentioned Leo’s interest in the plight of Andrei Sakharov. You may not know that when the Norwegian Ambassador came to inform the famous physicist and dissident that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, Leo was present, visiting with Sakharov – delivering the International League’s award of a year earlier to Sakharov in person. 

AJC’s Executive Director David Harris has written about how, in his support of the Soviet Jewry movement, Leo had his clothes ‘specially tailored to facilitate the smuggling of important materials back and forth. Leo took risks because of the depth of his convictions; Leo was a ‘proud and courageous Jew’ willing to help break down barriers against Jews and against anyone suffering injustice and discrimination.

David Harris wrote this about Leo Nevas in his first volume of In the Trenches and I quote him further:  “We can only stand in awe of such people who are not content with simply being bystanders to the passage of history, but are determined to shape that history, and to do so for the principles of democracy, human rights, and individual dignity. One is tempted to ask what would the world look like, what our communities would look like, if there were more such individuals like Leo in our midst.”

I learned a bit of what that world would look like by working with Leo. He was an  advisor to JBI, offering counsel that was selfless and savvy. He was always available to call someone, to act, to help.   

Leo readily aided human rights defenders in need – if Tanya Yankelevich or Elena Bonner asked for help for Sakharov or others in the USSR,  if Helen Suzman asked for help for women in the black townships of South Africa, or if Michael Aris, husband of  the Burmese democracy champion Aung Sang Suu Kyi, asked for help creating a lifeline to his heroic wife, Leo was quick to respond, quietly, effectively and generously.  Aung Sang Suu Kyi has said “Fear is not the natural state of civilized people,” and Leo understood that those of us living here have a responsibility to try to change that too.

The United Nations was a passion, and a disappointment. As Leo’s longstanding friend Norman Cousins said , “If the UN is to survive, those who represent it must bolster it; …those who believe in it must fight for it.” Leo bolstered and fought for it – as Vice President and an active member of the Board of the United Nations Association of the USA--- which today has created the Leo Nevas Human Rights Program, a remarkable tribute to Leo by Paul Newman and JoAnne Woodward.

Of the many experiences and frustrations I shared with Leo in and around the UN, one that impressed Leo particularly was creation –after 60 years of silence-- of a Holocaust Remembrance Day and series of programs, including concerts, speeches, and educational materials available on the internet. At a body so routinely engaged in bashing Israel and sometimes vilifying Jews, this initiative by former Secretary General Kofi Annan seemed to Leo to signal a sea-change in an organization that had had been unable for so many years even to use the word ‘Holocaust’ to describe the events of World War II.  

I recall that Jo-Anne Price joined Leo at last year’s UN Holocaust event, where an Israeli youth orchestra played Beethoven’s 5^th in the General Assembly Hall – cleansing it, it seemed, of so much of its anti-semitic invective. 

Leo encouraged more action to change the UN and promote the fair treatment of Israel. He was convinced that change comes from working at it, being there, bringing the standard of excellence that he brought to his legal practice and other endeavors to the UN, too. Don’t let the opponents of peace go unchallenged, he told me more than once. But pick your battles carefully.

Leo told me he lived for these organizations. He enjoyed participating, planning, strategizing and interacting in them.  A friend of Leo’s has recalled  in an on-line guest book that Leo had told him at their last meeting, “I’ve had quite a life.”  Indeed, he said this many times; and he really felt it. Those of us who worked with Leo marveled at how he continued to carry on with so many activities to the very end. 

Elie Wiesel reminds us that “the duty of our generation” entering the 21^st century is showing “solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick and those in despair.”  For all of them, whether in the 20^th or 21^st centuries, Leo was there. He offered a model of what personal responsibility and commitment can achieve. 

What a great honor it has been to work with Leo, to get to know his family and his devotion to them, to see how one man, inspired by his heritage and his sense of justice and compassion, has ennobled us all. It’s an honor to have been asked to speak today.  I am so glad that the current chair of the Jacob Blaustein Institute, and past President of the American Jewish Committee, E. Robert Goodkind is here today as well as Mimi Alperin, current chair of the Board of Governors, and Harold Tanner, also a past President of AJC.

My condolences to Leo’s family, -- his three children, JoAnne, Marc and Bernard—and his eight grandchildren – and to all Leo’s friends.

Leo shared Andrei Sakharov’s conviction that “I intend to hold fast to my belief in the hidden strength of the human spirit.”

Tannenbaum

In 1988, my late husband, Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, suffered cardiac arrest. Technically, he died.  But quick-acting paramedics revived him and gave us four years of found time. These found years started with a long stay in the hospital.  But, right after he was released, Marc was awarded with the Inter-faith Gold Medallion. In his acceptance speech, he talked about death.  He said:  “It’s not death that people fear.  It’s living a life of insignificance.”

Leo Nevas was at that event and heard that speech. And that makes it a fitting opening for a memorial tribute to Leo.

When Marc died in 1992, Leo and his lovely wife Libby were on a cruise. He learned of Marc’s death from the NY Times fax delivered to the ship. And on Crystal Harmony letterhead, dated July 4, he immediately sent me a handwritten note.

That note said:  “For me, Marc was a warm and close friend whose relationship I cherished. We worked closely together for some years and I cherished his wisdom and warmth. It is truly sad that he has been taken…when there was so much more to be done by him.”

Those words were prophetic. If Marc were alive today, those are exactly the words that he would have used in eulogizing Leo. 

I first met Leo at an AJC dinner. I was new in my husband’s life and Marc was eager for me to meet the man about whom he had spoken so often and who was such an important part of his life. When Marc was Director for International Relations at AJC, Leo was his Commission Chair. A more harmonious pairing would be hard to find.

Leo remarked: “I was particularly interested in some fine studies on specific human rights projects – a famous one being the ‘Executive Suite,' which reported the exclusion of Jews from executive suites of companies. I endorsed the concept that we, as Jews, should be fighting for human rights for everybody.”

Leo and Marc were great allies, who were bound by mutual respect, great affection and compatible views. Marc saw in Leo a man of character, who had no interest in the ethnic politics that could often undermine important work. He trusted Leo completely. And Marc didn’t trust easily.

Happily for us, there were many links between us. Marc and I were founding Board members of AJWS and Marc recruited Leo for that Board. AJWS was a great source of pride to both of them.

When Marc died in 1992, I inherited his friendship with Leo. This was very comforting to me. Two weeks after Marc’s death, another colleague of his contacted me and encouraged me to setup an organization to build on Marc’s work. Implicitly, this meant building on Leo’s work as well, because the interests of the two were so intertwined. So, when I founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding a few months later, it was fitting - and not surprising – that Leo became a founding member of our Leadership Council and a bulwark of our organization until his death. 

Given his abiding interest in human rights and international relations, it was natural that Leo was most moved by our religion and conflict resolution program. Many of our talks focused on the pivotal role that religious actors can play in Track II diplomacy – and Leo always asked astute questions, helping us to clarify our approach and increase our impact. 

Leo was involved in many causes – always seeking justice for all people. He served as Chairman of the Blaustein Institute of Human Rights, President of the International League for Human Rights, Vice Chairman of the United Nations Association and Vice Chairman of the Fairfield County Foundation.  He also held many positions in his local community:  hospitals, synagogues, banks, the Red Cross, schools, theaters. 

And there was “star power, too.” As actor Paul Newman’s long-time lawyer and trusted advisor, he served on the Board of the Newman’s Own Foundation. He also helped found the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, a charity that offers free camping to children suffering from cancer and other blood diseases. Paul Newman said of Leo: "Leo Nevas was both the oar and the anchor for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp and continues to keep us afloat.”

And great father that he was, Leo set an example for his children. Leo’s whole family is involved in philanthropy. All are advocates for human and civil rights, youth, the arts and democracy.

And that brings me back to where I began, which was Marc’s speech about death. If it’s truethat it’s not dying that people fear, but rather living a life of insignificance, then Leo Nevas truly had nothing to fear. He made each one of his 97 years count.  And the world is a better place for Leo having lived in it.

Thus music you heard behind the slides is called, “Sephardic Lullaby.”  And Leo, we hope you have a peaceful sleep. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, many of whom honor us with their presence tonight. Please stand up so that we can acknowledge you and, with you, remember Leo.

United Nations Association

American Jewish World Service

American Jewish Committee

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