On Tuesday evening, May 15, I found myself sitting, along with more than 400 other people, in a small ballroom of an elite Washington DC hotel to attend a memorial service for a man I had never met.
For many, our only knowledge of the late Bernard Rapoport would be here “and Bernard and Audre Rapoport” at the end of the list of those who supported the television work of Bill Moyers on PBS. Some years ago I became curious about this couple and looked them. To say that I was impressed by how they lived their lives would be an understatement.
Thus, when I encountered Moyers doing a tribute to his recently deceased (April 5) friend, I was, as a blogger, moved to try to call the attention of others to the tribute by Moyers and the remarkable man he was honoring. I titled the post Moyers, what can I do to make this world a better place? because that quote from the tribute seemed to personify the life and work of a truly remarkable man, about whom too few seemed to know.
I had never met Rapoport, but through mutual acquaintances I was invited to attend the Memorial at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington DC.
I don’t know if others there were like me, knowing “B” as everyone called him only by reputation.
I do know that the reach of his impact could be seen not only in those who spoke during the program - besides his son and grandaughters, Rabbi David Saperstein, Robert Borosage, Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Harkin, and Bill Clinton (John Sweeney was scheduled, but could not attend) - but the many notables in the audience. A partial list of those I saw included Tom and Christie Vilsack, Pat Leahy, Jack Reed, Blanche Lincoln, Steve Cohen, Tom Foley, Jimmy Hoffa, Rich Trumpka, Bill Richardson, Ben Bullock, Richard Bryan, Chuck and Linda Robb, Ken Salazar, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Norman Ornstein, Don Fowler, Bill Nelson and Frank Lautenberg.
B was the son of a man who had opposed the Czar in the failed 1905 Revolution and somehow escaped imprisonment and came to the United State. Bernard Rapoport was born in San Antonio, and remained committed to Texas for his entire life. One could do well to look up the details of his life experience, including the financial difficulties the family faced during the Great Depression. I have no doubt that his personal experiences were a part of the reason that even as a successful businessman (insurance) that Rapoport always remained concerned for those who faced struggles in life, why he wanted “make this world a better place.” He greatly valued his time at The University of Texas in Austin, where as a result of an appointment by then Governer Ann Richards he served 6 years on the Board of Regents, during four of which he was the chairman.
If one had never heard of B Rapoport and wandered in to the Memorial, one would quickly have been moved. It is not so much the famous and powerful people who were there. There were also ordinary people whose lives he had touch.
Most of all there was B himself, as we experienced him through his family and friends, through pictures and a brief video, and through the words in the program.
Inside the front cover of the program is a picture of Rapoport with his then elderly parents, under which are the following words:
My father taught me three things: one, protect your name; two, never let a book out of your hands; and three, and most important, have a sense of outrage at injustice.
Books were important to Rapoport. They were a treasured part of his own growing up, he remained an insatiable reader his entire life, and as a generous man he always wanted to share books with others. Several of the speakers told about his penchant of sending them books for Christmas. But it did not stop there - he would follow up the gift with phone calls wanting to discuss the content. Bill Clinton joked that he had wanted to bring all the books Rapoport had sent him over the 40 years of their friends (which began when Bill and Hillary were actively involved in the 1972 McGovern campaign in Texas) but he had not spent enough time in the weight room recently.
We also heard it from his granddaughter Abby, who said that when she began college (at Grinnell, in Iowa, her sister Emily went to Oberlin) her grandfather called up the institution and got the syllabi for all her courses, read her books along with her calling her up regularly to discuss what they were reading. As I discovered reviewing his life, he also served on the Library of Congress Trust Fund board.
Long before Howard Dean and the 50 state strategy, B Rapoport was a passionate Democrat and a passionate progressive. He would financially support progressive candidates who had little or no chance of winning, because he wanted that point of view part of the discussion. As Senator Harkin noted, “The more liberal you were, the more you got. I did all right, but Paul Wellstone beat me.”
B was a strong supporter of various liberal organizations and publications. He was a champion of Molly Ivins, of The Texas Observer and The Nation. He supported many liberal think tanks.
He did want to make the world a better place. His autobiography is titled Being Rapoport: Capitalist With a Conscience - it is a book one wishes many other who have benefited greatly from what this country has provided them would read to understand that ultimately none of us is entirely self-made.
The Rapoports funded many things. Rabbi Saperstein told about how B insisted on tripling the size of The L’Taken Social Justice Seminar of The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, a program that has now trained over 40,000 teenagers to explore the Jewish values surrounding various public police and to teach them the skills of effective advocacy. This was just one example of B living out the third of the things his father taught him: most important, have a sense of outrage at injustice. He tried to see that others were empowered to not merely be outraged, but to work to overcome that injustice. He never lost his outrage, he channeled it, which is undoubtedly why he was such a passionate liberal and progressive, why he so valued education, why he treasured books as a means of empowering people, as he himself had been empowered by them.
One thing especially dear to their hearts was the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Academy, a charter school for inner city kids in Waco. There were several scenes from the school in the video we saw. The children were excited to see B, a real delight for someone they viewed as a friend, and even more. One of the most striking moments of the entire service was seeing one very little girl hugging Rapoport around his knees.
Inside the back cover of the program is a another quote from B:
When I was a little boy we played marbles. I would start out with 30 and my friend would start out with 30. In one instance I won all 30 of his marbles. I gave him back 10 - not because I’m nice, not because I’m honest, and not because I am good, but because if I had all the marbles, I had no one to play with. As I grew up I realized when too few have too much and too many have too little, we do not have a sustainable society.
As I read those words before the start of the Memorial, I was struck by both ideas. B Rapoport realized that he did not need to win everything, that one does not have to destroy one’s opponent in a competition. As passionate a competitor as he was in business and in his politics, he still recognized the humanity of those with whom he contended.
The second part - when too few have too much and too many have too little, we do not have a sustainable society - are words we also heard from those who spoke. It is a view of society that drove not only Rapoport’s philanthropy but also his politics.
I had titled my piece on the Moyers’ tribute with B Rapoport’s words, Moyer, what can I do to make this world a better place? At the time I only knew about Rapoport from reading about him. My writing that gave me an opportunity to experience him through the eyes and lives and memories of others. Having had that opportunity, I ask myself the same question, what can I do to make this world a better place?
B Rapoport lived his life attempting to make the world a better place. He served as an example and a mentor to others of our responsibility to the society in which we find ourselves. That was reflected in the Memorial because of how he lived.
I never met B. Nor will have most of those who encounter these words. Yet he has affected my life through the lives of the thousands he has already touched.
To those who knew him, the title of this post will probably immediately remind them of a dear and valued friend.
To those of us who can only know him through words - his and those of others - and the lives and institutions he touched - we should still be grateful.
He lived July 17, 1917 – April 5, 2012.
He lives on through those who knew him, and those who learn about him.
Put simply, “B” was a real mensch, in the best sense of that word.