Moshe was a giant of progressive Zionism in the United States. He co-founded Americans for Progressive Israel (a predecessor to Partners for Progressive Israel) in the early 1950s, and was one of the founding presidents in 1998 of Meretz USA, as our organization was then called. He will be very deeply missed.
Please find below a short biography of Moshe written by journalist Doug Chandler in May 2009 when Meretz USA bestowed upon Moshe our “Lifetime Achievement Award”.
Moshe Kagan: Dor L’Dor [Generation to Generation]
Moshe Kagan’s closest friends and colleagues have always regarded the man as reserved and modest, reluctant to talk about himself or to place himself in the spotlight. But they also know that what applies to many people of modesty also applies to Moshe: his vast reservoir of experience, his repertoire of talents, his practical wisdom and, perhaps most important to an organization like Meretz USA, his willingness to share those qualities.
Moshe Kagan’s closest friends and colleagues have always regarded the man as reserved and modest, reluctant to talk about himself or to place himself in the spotlight. But they also know that what applies to many people of modesty also applies to Moshe: his vast reservoir of experience, his repertoire of talents, his practical wisdom and, perhaps most important to an organization like Meretz USA, his willingness to share those qualities.
Indeed,
generation after generation of progressive Zionists have learned from Moshe and
been inspired by him.
Now
89, Moshe Kagan came to this country in 1940 from the small town of Keidan in
Lithuania, where his parents were both progressive Zionists. He lived with an
uncle for a while in the Bronx, but not more than a year passed when Moshe,
then 20, enlisted in the U.S. Army. Quick to see his brilliance, the Army sent
the young Kagan to Oklahoma, where he and other recruits developed a
complicated system to locate enemy artillery guns, and later to England and
France. As many of his generation did, he also learned about man’s huge
capacity for evil during the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of his parents
and his two older sisters.
The
same brilliance shined again in the late ‘40s, when Moshe found work at a small
electronics firm after earning his degree in electrical engineering from the
City College of New York. In only a few days at the firm, he designed a battery
that eventually powered rockets and missiles for the Navy, the Air Force and
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The invention propelled the
growth of his company, Yardney Electric, which promoted Moshe to vice president
and, by the early 1960s, president.
Moshe’s
career also included work as a consultant for Armand Hammer, the American-Jewish
industrialist known as a friend to many of the world’s leaders, and a role in
designing the model for America’s fleet of nuclear submarines.
Just
as Moshe’s professional life thrived, so, too, did his involvement in the
Jewish world. He joined Hashomer Hatzair at the age of 11, following one of his
sisters into the Zionist youth group, and came to know many of the movement’s
guiding lights while still in his teens.
In
the early 1950s, he and three other giants of the Zionist left—Valia Hirsch,
Avraham Schenker and Richard Yaffe — felt the need to create an organization in
the States that would support Israel’s Mapam party, a part of the same
socialist orbit as Hashomer Hatzair and the Kibbutz Artzi Federation. Acting
together, the four launched Americans for Progressive Israel, one of the
predecessors to Meretz USA.
During
those years, Moshe became a leader in the Zionist world, joining the boards or
executives of such organizations as the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American
Zionist Movement and the Jewish National Fund. He has also been involved in the
vast constellation of Jewish groups, including the World Jewish Congress and
the Jewish Labor Committee, and his friends have included many of Israel’s
public figures. Among the groups that have recently honored Moshe is the World
Zionist Organization, which named him a life fellow.
In
addition to that involvement, Moshe enjoys spending time with his partner of
more than 20 years, Betty Taylor; his two children, David and Lori; and his
grandchildren, Talia, 17, and Noah, 14.
Meanwhile,
his knowledge of the Jewish world and his range of contacts continue to be a
rich resource for Meretz USA, where Moshe remains a board member, and at
Hashomer Hatzair, Inc., where he has served as president for many years. And
it’s at both those organizations where generations of active members consider
themselves mentored and inspired by Moshe.
Moshe
“helped me understand the arcane nature of organizations in the Jewish world,
especially the Zionist movement,” says Arieh Lebowitz, an officer of Meretz USA
and formerly a founder of API’s young-adult circle in the late 1970s. He also
introduced Lebowitz to colleagues in a number of countries.
Charney
Bromberg, a past executive director of Meretz USA, says few people have taught
him as much about politics in general as Moshe has. He calls Moshe “a
Renaissance man of Jewish politics” and a figure whose very presence made
Meretz USA a respectable player in various umbrella organizations.
Yotam
Marom, who, as a young leader of Hashomer Hatzair, is an up-and-coming
activist, says Moshe is a role model for members of the group and “a reminder
that the things we fight for are truly meaningful.”
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