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Senator
Bonds with Israel
By Buying Israel Bonds
By
Tim Boxer
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ORMER U.S. Ambassador to
Israel William A. Brown once heard a story from
Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii that drove home the importance
of keeping Israel strong
through Israel Bonds.
Inouye was badly wounded in
Italy during World War II. He had his arm amputated. As he
was recuperating, another wounded soldier told him how he
participated in the liberation of Dachau.
The man said the bodies
were lined up like cordwood. “I came from Hawaii,”
Inouye said. “I didn’t know what cordwood was. I had to
look it up in the dictionary.”
Israel Bond chief Gideon Patt (center) honored
Arie Sheer (left), head of Israel Discount Bank, at
dinner where former Ambassador to Israel William
Brown spoke. |
From that powerful account
and many others like it, Inouye became “a dedicated friend
of the newly formed State of Israel,” Brown said. “He
went out and purchased one of the original Israel Bonds.”
“As a matter of
fact,” the senator told Brown, “I still have that bond
framed in my office.”
Brown, who served as
ambassador to Israel from 1988-92, is a member of the board
of directors of Israel Discount Bank of New York. He spoke
at an Israel Bond dinner at the Grand Hyatt in New York
honoring Arie Sheer, president/ceo of Israel Discount Bank.
The dinner raised
$54,314,000. During the calling of the cards, one guest
announced: “In honor of my two grandchildren who don’t
write and don’t call, I’m buying two zero coupon bonds.
And in honor of my future widow, an additional $5,000
bond.”
“I became a banker
because of my mother’s fairy tales,” Sheer said. “She
used to tell me that there was a poor fisherman, a poor
tailor, but never a poor banker.”
Also,
Israel Bonds president/ceo Gideon Patt presented the Imre J.
Rosenthal Achievement Award to Jerry Sandak, senior
executive vice president at Rosenthal & Rosenthal for
his leadership in the Israel Bonds banking and finance
campaign.
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Benjamin
Brafman: 
