Tom Lantos - Rabbi Jason Miller

I met California Rep. Tom Lantos at the AIPAC Policy Conference this year. Rep. Lantos introduced Sen. Hillary Clinton before she spoke at her candidate’s reception at the policy conference, where I took the photo at right.

Tom Lantos announced today that he will retire from office and not seek re-election following his being diagnosed with cancer. The JTA article states that in “his 27 years in the U.S. Congress, Rep. Tom Lantos had two constituencies — California’s 12th District, encompassing parts of San Francisco and its suburbs, and the ghosts of the Jews who perished in his native Europe.”

The 80-year-old Lantos was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. He is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House and is known as “the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress.” Tom Lantos has been a strong advocate for humanitarian rights during his long career in politics. He has been a strong supporter of Israel and a voice of conscience on the situation in Darfur.

I pray for a refuah shleyma (speedy recovery) for Tom Lantos. His career as a U.S. Representative has been an honorable one.