"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 andthen 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 Jewsto Israel. Tens of thousands of Jews were saved as a direct result of his intervention,” Hier continued
President Bush visited the SimonWiesenthal 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 speakerat the Wiesenthal Center’s National Tribute Dinner honoring Arnold Schwarzenegger (pictured right bottom).