[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 4715]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO LYNNE SILBERT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. HOWARD L. BERMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 16, 2002

  Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am greatly honored today to pay tribute to 
one of my most unique and closest friends, Lynne Silbert, who has been 
chosen to receive the prestigious Human Spirit Award from the Wellness 
Community of West Los Angeles.
  It is hard to find words to adequately describe Lynne. Lovely and 
charming, inside and out, she has touched a myriad of lives. She is 
warm and generous, but truly defined by her enormous desire to serve 
humanity. She is funny and fun; a companion to do something crazy with 
and a friend so loyal and so sensitive that your moment of need is the 
moment she is at your side. She approaches life as she approaches her 
work, with passion and a great heart. As an aside, my wife Janis and I 
will always remember her opening her home to us for our wedding.
  The daughter of distinguished and philanthropic parents, Lillian and 
Harvey Silbert, Lynne chose--as a young widow with two small children--
to go back to school. She received her degree in counseling and started 
her career with a small nonprofit organization that provided support, 
education and hope to cancer patients and their families. She has 
helped that organization grow from a small yellow house in Santa Monica 
to an international organization with facilities throughout the United 
States and in Japan and Israel.
  Over 19 years later, Lynne is still with the Wellness Community. She 
has led thousands of support groups, and has infused thousands of 
cancer patients with hope and determination. Especially noteworthy is 
her work with children--both the kids of cancer patients and those who 
suffer with cancer themselves. Beloved by adolescents because she never 
has lost her own youthfulness, she has both created and facilitated 
hundreds of groups to support young people battling this dread disease. 
It takes enormous skill, empathy and grace to do this difficult work. 
Lynne has an abundance of each of these attributes.
  Her good works aren't limited, however, to the Wllness Community. She 
is a member of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Board of Governors and 
is active with the American Friends of Hebrew University. She is the 
mother of two accomplished daughters: Jill and Gina and, although you'd 
never know it, the grandmother of four. She is married to a 
distinguished member of Los Angeles' medical community, Dr. Seth 
Weingarten.
  Mr. Speaker, distinguished Colleagues, I ask you today to join me in 
saluting Lynne Silbert and congratulating her this honor, which she so 
richly deserves. She embodies the Spirit of Humanity. To know her is to 
be greatly blessed and to find your life immeasurably enriched.

                          ____________________