Bayer, Freedom Fighter, Dies
By Jeffrey Goldberg
The Forward, November 18, 1994
NEW YORK — Abraham Bayer, a tenacious fighter for Jewish freedom, died last week at the age of 62 after a long battle with cancer.
Bayer figured prominently in all the great struggles of post-Holocaust world Jewry — he was a pioneer in the movements to free the Jews of the Soviet Union and Ethiopia and made numerous clandestine trips to both countries. He was among the first to push the American Jewish community to embrace the survivors of the Holocaust, and his advocacy led to the building of the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
For much of his career, Bayer headed up the international concerns desk at the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, and his interests extended far beyond the purely sectarian. In his later years, as the Jews he fought for in Russia, Ethiopia and Syria gained their freedom, Bayer turned his attention to the Muslims of Bosnia. Just last year, already ill, he joined the Bosnian delegation to the United Nations Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. The Bosnian ambassador to the U.N., Muhammed Sacirbey, later said, “I very much appreciate the efforts of various communities that I have visited, but if I have to pick out one person, let me pick Abe because there is always one individual who has gone beyond the call of duty.”
Bayer was a believing Jew and a willful man; in Jewish organizational life, he could always be counted on to understand the vital issues and force them onto the agenda.
Despite his accomplishments, Bayer was known for his modesty; friends say he was always hesitant to take personal credit.
“Although he would be too modest to assert the claim on his own behalf, a true accounting of OSI’s work would give him shared credit for every successful Nazi prosecution recorded by the Department of Justice. Alas, we will not see his like again,” wrote Eli Rosenbaum, the acting director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, in a tribute to Bayer.
At Bayer’s funeral service on Friday, Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, recalled Bayer’s great love for his fellow Jews. Mr. Foxman, who traveled to the Soviet Union with Bayer 20 years ago, remembered how his companion embraced the refuseniks they met “as if they were intimate members of his family.”
“Abe’s life was one of passion for Am Yisrael,” Mr. Foxman said. “He loved his fellow Jews with body and soul.”
Bayer is survived by his wife, Ellen, an official of the UJA-Federation of New York, three children and one grandchild.