Honoring the life, achievements, and contributions of Rabbi Charles H. Rosenzveig.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 283) honoring the life, achievements, and contributions of Rabbi Charles H. Rosenzveig, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution and yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I rise in support of H. Res. 283, a resolution offered by Mr. Peters of Michigan, honoring the life, achievements, and contributions of Rabbi Charles H. Rosenzveig. Although Rabbi Rosenzveig passed away last December, I think it is extremely and particularly appropriate that the House honor him now after having recently marked Holocaust Remembrance Day.

While Rabbi Rosenzveig will always be remembered as a loving husband and father with a wife, Helen, and four children, one of whom followed in his father's footsteps into rabbinate and became a rabbi, many of us knew him as a path-breaking educator about the Holocaust and the founder of an important Holocaust museum and memorial.

His life story of survival, escape and renewal serves as a model for all of us. Though he escaped the clutches of the Nazis who invaded his native Poland, Rabbi Rosenzveig lost much of his family in the Holocaust. After making his way east through the Soviet Union, he found refuge in the United States in 1947. After attending Yeshiva University in New York City, he became the spiritual leader of Congregation Mount Sinai in Port Huron, Michigan. In 1984, Rabbi Rosenzveig founded the Holocaust Memorial Center, a national freestanding memorial to the horrors of the Holocaust, in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 1993, he left the pulpit to devote his energies full time to the center. The center serves not only as a memorial to those who perished at the hands of the Nazis but as a Jewish history museum and an educational institution dedicated to tolerance to future generations.

While it is fitting that Rabbi Rosenzveig's memory and his many accomplishments be noted here today, the Nation's other Holocaust museums, many modeled after the center he founded in Farmington Hills, form perhaps the most enduring tribute to his achievements. We mourn the loss of Rabbi Charles H. Rosenzveig and pay our respects to his family and to those who knew him well.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the sponsor of the resolution, the gentleman from Michigan, Representative Peters, as much time as he may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend and express my appreciation to the gentleman from Arkansas who has worked very closely in a very bipartisan manner on many issues. It is a pleasure to work with him as we continue to move forward the needs of the people, not only of our country, but of the world.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I would like to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of House Resolution 283, a resolution that I authored to honor the life, achievements and contributions of Rabbi Charles H. Rosenzveig.

The late Rabbi Rosenzveig, who passed away in December, was a scholar, teacher, Holocaust survivor, and a founder of the Nation's first freestanding Holocaust Memorial Center in Oakland County, Michigan, the county which I have lived my whole life and now have the honor to represent here in Congress.

This resolution is important to the people of Michigan and has been sponsored in a thoroughly bipartisan fashion by Representatives Levin, Camp, Dingell, Ehlers, Hoekstra, Upton, Kildee, McCotter, Miller, Rogers, Stupak, and Schauer.

I would like to commend and thank Chairman Berman, Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen, and Vice Chairman Ackerman for their sponsorship of this resolution and their leadership in moving it through the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Rabbi Rosenzveig lost his mother, father, brother and sister in the Holocaust before fleeing to Poland and then the Soviet Union before immigrating to New York City in 1947. He led his class at the prestigious Yeshiva University in Manhattan and was ordained in 1951 as a rabbi.

He served his congregants at Congregation Mt. Sinai in Port Huron, Michigan, for decades before leaving the synagogue to devote his entire energy and spirit to the Holocaust Memorial Center of West Bloomfield, Michigan, which he founded in 1984.

Rabbi Rosenzveig traveled and spoke extensively to raise the awareness of resources needed to grow the Holocaust Memorial Center, allowing the center to move from its original home in West Bloomfield to a large state-of-the-art museum in Farmington Hills, Michigan, that also houses the Museum of European Heritage and the International Institute of the Righteous.

The Holocaust Memorial Center, which has educated millions of visitors, stands to enlighten future generations about the horrors of the Holocaust and nourish a social consciousness whereby, as Rabbi Rosenzveig used to say, the ``righteous acts of the few become the standard of the many.''

Rabbi Rosenzveig was an extraordinary American who devoted his life to serving others. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet him, and I was taken by his wisdom, vision, sincerity, and deep sense of caring for all people.

Please join me in paying tribute to a great teacher, scholar, leader, and the founder and director of the Holocaust Memorial Center. I am pleased that the House is considering this bipartisan resolution, and I urge my colleagues to support the passage of House Resolution 283.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of H. Res. 283, honoring the life, achievements and contributions of Rabbi Charles Rosenzveig. Rabbi Rosenzveig was a Holocaust survivor, scholar, teacher and founder of the first freestanding Holocaust Memorial Center in the United States. Rabbi Rosenzveig passed away on December 11, 2008, but his lifelong efforts to keep alive the memory of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust and his commitment to teaching the lessons of tolerance to future generations will live on.

After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, he immigrated to the United States in 1947 where he was ordained as a rabbi, became a respected teacher in the Jewish community and spoke extensively to raise awareness about the Holocaust. Rabbi Rosenzveig made it his personal mission to teach new generations of the lessons of the Holocaust, and he led the efforts in establishing the Holocaust Memorial Center in West Bloomfield, Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States.

The original Holocaust Memorial Center which Rabbi Rosenzveig helped establish in West Bloomfield, which was later moved to a large state- of-the-art museum in Farmington Hills, served as a model for many other Holocaust centers later built throughout the United States.

I would like to thank my colleague from Michigan, Congressman Peters, for introducing this measure which commemorates those who perished at the hands of the Nazi regime and honors the life and accomplishments of Rabbi Charles Rosenzveig as a scholar, teacher, rabbi, and founder and director of the Holocaust Memorial Center.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this important resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I ask my fellow Members to support this resolution commemorating Rabbi Rosenzveig. I also appreciate Chairman Payne and the staffs on both sides of the aisle for their hard work in bringing forth several measures today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.