Z.L. (usually lowercase) stands for Zachor Livracha (may his memory be for a blessing).
Rep. Tom Lantos, 80, a California Democrat whose experience during the Holocaust shaped his concern for human rights and his staunch view in favor of U.S. military intervention abroad, died early this morning, a spokeswoman told the Associated Press. He had esophageal cancer and died at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.
Lantos, born in Budapest to Hungarian Jews, served 14 terms in the House of Representatives. He is the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress. His district included southwest San Francisco and much of San Mateo County, where he was known for supporting the socially liberal agenda of his constituents. Last year, he announced he would not seek reelection because of his cancer treatment.
Lantos was a powerful figure on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he had been the senior Democratic member since 2001 and its chairman since 2007.
For years, he sided with Republican neoconservatives who believe the United States should assert democracy abroad and use the military to intervene when a moral imperative or national interest is at stake.
In 2002, he supported the congressional resolution that authorized President Bush to invade Iraq and played a decisive role to gain Democratic support for the measure.
On the House floor at the time, he noted his own past as a Nazi-resistance fighter. “Had the United States and its allies confronted Hitler earlier, had we acted sooner to stymie his evil designs, the 51 million lives needlessly lost during that war could have been saved,” he said. “Just as leaders and diplomats who appeased Hitler at Munich in 1938 stand humiliated before history, so will we if we appease Saddam Hussein today.”
But after the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, Lantos became increasingly critical about the direction of the war and called for large withdrawals of American troops. He also held more than a dozen hearings on the situation.
Capitol Hill veterans describe Lantos – courtly, loquacious but tough – as a throwback to an earlier generation of lawmakers who were able to work across party and ideological lines.
The reaction from Jewish groups to the news was swift.
“For years people have looked to Congressman Tom Lantos as the conscience of the United States Congress,” said Rabbi Steve Gutow, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). “Chairman Lantos was a leader on so many issues of concern to the Jewish community such as anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Israel.”
William Daroff, vice president for public policy of the United Jewish Communities (UJC), said Lantos “was a great friend of the Jewish community and the Jewish Federation system. As Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Lantos steered a steady ship during a particularly tumultuous time in American foreign policy.”
“We mourn the loss of Congressman Lantos,” said Nathan Diament, Washington director for the Orthodox Union. “He was a proud supporter of Israel and a proud Jew. His presence will be sorely missed.”
In announcing his expected retirement last month, Lantos said “It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress. I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country.”