San Diego, CA (special) --As fellow members of the American Jewish Committee and two members of the United States Congress chuckled, Dr. Steve Davis explained on Sunday, July 1, how rare a figure he is in the history of the United States of America.

Davis, a psychiatrist and an AJC vice president, is married to Congresswoman Susan Davis, D-San Diego, who along with Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, was in the La Jolla Marriott Hotel audience to give him moral support. As a psychiatrist, Steve Davis explained, he tends to limit his public speaking to "yes, uh huh, can you tell me more?"  Since the founding of the Republic, some 12,000 men and women have served in Congress, but only 216 have been women, he said. Unlike his wife, who was elected in her own right, many other female

AFTER THE SPEECH--Dr. Steve Davis, having told the AJC what it is like to be married to a member of Congress, returns to a table where he is awaited by his smiling spouse, US Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego).

members of Congress succeeded their deceased husbands. So it is safe to say that the
number of males who have been congressional spouses is quite a bit fewer
than 216.

Although there is a Congressional Spouses Club, its activities do not
always compel the interest of its male members. "I've already missed the
teas given by Laura Bush and by Lynn Cheney," Davis said.

"At the spouses introductory luncheon, however, I did get a private tour of
the White House permanent doll collection, a viewing of the collection of
First Lady inaugural gowns, and an invitation to the White House Easter
Egg roll," Davis said.

"The only thing I couldn't take care of right away was a recipe for the
Congressional Spouses Cookbook," he added. "I'm still looking. If you have
some thoughts see me afterwards. A kugel maybe?

He paraphrased U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., as once saying "her
husband went to bed thinking he had married Debbie Reynolds, and woke up
the next morning with Eleanor Roosevelt. ... I thought I knew going into our
marriage that I was getting both....It can't be said that I had no warning,
but there was nothing in our ketubah that said anything about Congress."

In a more serious vein, Davis said it was lamentable that so few women
have been as successful in political careers as his wife, the
congresswoman.

"It's fair to ask what's the difference if women are elected to Congress,"
Davis said. "When interviewed, elected women, unlike elected men,
recognize and feel a conscious and quickly articulated responsibility to
speak for other women, for children, and for families. While to be elected
they have to first represent their districts, most also recognize that
because of their limited numbers, their voices also represent voiceless
women beyond their district boundaries." 

Davis was the keynote speaker at an annual meeting at which former
regional director Gary Rotto was honored for his service to the San Diego
chapter. Additionally his successor as director, Samuel Sokolove, set out
a broad agenda for the chapter, and some new officers and board members
were sworn in.

Rotto had resigned as regional director to run for the San Diego City
Council, but failed to get into the runoff election which ultimately
resulted in Donna Frye representing the city's 6th Councilmanic District.

In presenting an award to Rotto for his AJC service, Marty Block, the
chapter president and chairman of the San Diego Community College Board
of Trustees, quipped, "Gary had warned me that he had half a mind to run
for City Council and I encouraged him. Half a mind is better than some
minds in politics."

Sokolove delivered a far more serious address. After telling about the
tireless and successful campaign of a Polish Jew, Raphael Lemkin, to
persuade the United Nations adopt a convention against genocide--and, in
fact, coining the word "genocide"--before his death in 1959, Sokolove
urged chapter members to demonstrate the same unflagging commitment
as Lemkin in attempting to deal with other world problems.

"In San Diego, citizens daily consider the implications of 'the other,'" he
said. "The border for our city isn't an existential one but an actual
convergence of one world with another, and the tensions of this
convergence offer countless opportunities for alienation, callous labeling
and physical assault. 

"In the last year, radical groups in California ... have rallied against the
'raging flood' of Mexican immigration, with violence accompanying the
rhetoric....The American Jewish Committee believes that strengthening the
basic principles of pluralism in the United States, and around the world, is
the best defense against bigotry.

"It accomplishes this by advocating for human rights, increasing
awareness and respect for America's ethnic, racial and religious heritage,
and by promoting cooperation among those diverse groups."

Additionally, said Sokolove, "the American Jewish Committee will
continue to advocate for Israel during this most critical and troubling
time. It will counter Holocaust denial in the Arab world ... and coordinate
a variety of imaginative exchange programs in Israel and Europe." He said
"halting the spread of terror and the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and isolating rogue states are also high on the AJC's list of
priorities."

Domestically, he said, the AJC will "continue to maintain the wall of
separation between church and state, promote religious freedom, civil
rights and intergroup relations, advocate for the rights of immigrants and
address issues regarding charitable choice and public education."

Within the Jewish community, he said, the AJC "will help insure Jewish
continuity and Jewish identity by arguing for the primacy of Jewish
education and scholarship in Jewish life."

Many board members and officers, including chapter president Block, and
vice presidents Steve Davis, Joan Dean and Lenore Kagen were continued in
their offices. However, some new officers and board members also were
installed, among them: vice presidents Art Stromberg and Susan Ulevitch,
secretary Raquel Lazar-Paley, treasurer Judy Hahn and board members Rob
DeKoven, Rosalind Dermer, Nancy Harrison, Rabbi Moshe Levin, Phyllis
Magerman, Alan Nevin, Faye Rose, Norman Smith and Rabbi Leonard Zoll.