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At Abraham Foxman’s funeral, an elegy for the last generation with direct ties to the Holocaust

JL;DR SUMMARY Mourners recently gathered to bid farewell to Abraham Foxman, a towering figure in Jewish communal leadership and a Holocaust survivor, who passed away at age 86. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Anti Defamation LeagueJewish HistoryHolocaustHolocaust SurvivorsJewish LeadershipCivil RightsAbraham FoxmanPluralismJewish Advocacy

Places mentioned

New York, United States
"Many of the speakers at Park Avenue Synagogue credited his accomplishments to his outsized personality, his sense of humor and his intuitive leadership skills."
Israel
"The Holocaust shaped Abes character and defined his mission to combat antisemitism and hypocrisy, to call up racism and bias, to speak up for the Jewish people and a Jewish democratic state of Israel."
Florida, United States
"(Not able to attend was Jonathan Greenblatt, Foxmans successor at ADL, whose mother died in Florida on Saturday.)"
Webster, Wisconsin, United States
"Thomas Friedman sent a video tribute, recalling how they met when the future New York Times columnist was a camper and Foxman was a counselor at Herzl Camp in Webster, Wisconsin."
Vilnius, Vilnius County, Lithuania
"His Polish Jewish parents fled to present-day Vilnius after the Nazi invasion of Poland; when Vilnius too came under Nazi control, his parents left him in the care of his nanny, who baptized him as a Catholic."

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Cairo Item ID 82120
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2026-05-13 05:30:58 UTC
Curated 2026-05-13 08:31:23 UTC