[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 8, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 8, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     TRIBUTE TO RABBI ROBERT SCHUR

  (Mr. FROST asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, 37 years ago, when I was 15 years old, I 
received a phone call that changed my life. Rabbi Robert Schur, 
spiritual leader of Temple Beth-El in Forth Worth, TX, called and 
persuaded me to attend a conclave sponsored by the youth movement of 
reform Judaism.
  I attended that conclave in August of 1957 and two things occurred. I 
was elected to my first office of any kind as a regional officer of the 
Texas Federation of Temple Youth, an event that whetted my appetite for 
politics. Second, I started down a path of spiritual exploration that 
provided me many of the values relating to social justice and civil 
rights that I brought to my current job as a Member of Congress.
  Last Thursday, Rabbi Schur died in Forth Worth after a lengthy battle 
with Alzheimer's disease. He is mourned not just by the Forth Worth 
Jewish community which he served in an active capacity continuously 
from 1957 to 1984 but by the civic and religious structure of the 
entire city. People from all faiths and walks of life attended his 
funeral last Sunday in the Temple Beth-El sanctuary.
  Bob Schur was remembered as a community leader who stood with Martin 
Luther King, Jr. for civil rights in Ft. Worth at a time when members 
of his own congregation would have preferred silence.
  I was a member of his first confirmation class and he performed the 
wedding ceremony for my wife Valerie and me. He was a friend and an 
inspiration. He changed my life. He will be deeply missed by all who 
knew him.

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