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Dr. Aaron Lerner is co-founder of , Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
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By Dr. Aaron Lerner
May 19, 2006
From the eulogy presented by Aaron Lerner at the funeral of his father, Dr. Joseph Lerner, founder and Co-Director of IMRA, last Sunday in Jerusalem.
My father, Dr. Joseph Lerner, was a loving father, friend and colleague.
Though my father held the highest super-grade rank in the United States Government that one could hold without being a political appointee, I cannot recall even once that he didn't have time to spend with us.
For Joe Lerner family came first.
My loving father was an activist's activist -- he wasn't just an eitza (advice) giver - he was an eitza implementer.
In America, Joe Lerner was, among other things, an adamant media critic -- so much so that when my parents made Aliyah the Ombudsman of The Washington Post wrote a column on the Post's editorial page titled "Last Call from Joe Lerner" wishing him well in Israel.
Here in Israel my father was an eitza implementer and facilitator: both advising and funding such important projects as: Peace Watch, Media Watch and the Association for Missing Soldiers.
And of course - IMRA - a hasbarah project that I have had the pleasure and honor to work on together with my parents over these many years as our shared "hobby".
I thank God that my father had all his intellectual power to the very end.
Just days before he became ill he briefed a group of 36 visiting Swedish journalists in Jerusalem on Arab-Israeli affairs and working with a leading Washington attorney succeeded (after a 33 year effort ) for the first time in having the chief executive officers of the top six U.S. oil companies asked at a Congressional Committee hearing about their position on the OPEC Cartel. As a result of their responses, legal action is being considered against them.
It is my fervent hope that we can live up to the sterling example that my father set as a loving husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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