Wally Marks, Jr. (1931-2009)

By Pat McDonnell Twair


	Wally Marks marching to his own drum beat at a 2008 peace rally (Staff photo S. Twair).

ON MAY 31 at the Iranian Muslim Association of North America, Wally Marks, Jr. became the first Jew whose life was commemorated in a Los Angeles mosque.

Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, who organized the I.M.A.N. memorial at the request of the Marks family, termed it a sh’loshim to celebrate Wally’s legacy. Among the hundreds of guests were representatives of more than 35 organizations who shared their mutual interests in working for peace, the environment and more progressive government institutions.

Weeks earlier, on April 17, more than a thousand people attended a more traditional service at Hillside Memorial Park, where Wally’s early life was discussed.

Although born at the height of the Great Depression, Wally lived a privileged life in Beverly Hills, where his father developed commercial properties on Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. How many young boys learn about art by viewing masterpieces in the private gallery of a neighbor, Hollywood’s legendary Edward G. Robinson?

Wally’s altruism and respect for the underdog were developed in childhood by long conversations with another neighbor, Jean Sieroty. Her son, Alan, and Wally became lifelong friends, and Alan became a California state senator.

Wally received his bachelor’s degree in 1951 and a law degree in 1954 from Stanford University. He worked in his father’s real estate firm and became involved in campaigns for social justice. He volunteered in 1957 to be a Big Brother to 10-year-old Steve Steinberg, who today is a newsman in the San Francisco area.

“For four-and-a-half years, Wally never cancelled one of our excursions,” Steinberg recalled. “He asked me a lot of questions about what it felt to be my age, he taught me to play tennis and arranged my first high school summer job. We got together the first weekend after his honeymoon and even, I, a 12-year-old, thought that was remarkable dedication.”

So did Wally’s bride, Suzanne, on that same May 1959 weekend when Wally asked her to join him in ringing doorbells to promote the Rumford Fair Housing Act.

“It was hot, my feet hurt, but even then as a young Republican, I understood we’d better stop excluding people from neighborhoods,” she reminisced.

Leonard Beerman, the founding rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple, recalled meeting Wally in 1949 and competing with him in strenuous games of tennis. He noted that the young man stuttered but, after his marriage, lost the speech impediment. Wally was not one for ostentation, Rabbi Beerman said, driving VW bugs and compact cars, and eschewing resort vacations for family camping trips.

Suzanne—and then Wally—became involved in the nuclear freeze movement.

“I was arrested protesting at a Nevada nuclear test site,” Suzanne said, “but Wally shied away from angry demonstrations, preferring to spend his time exposing the hardships and humiliation of human rights abuses and educating the public about them.”

Wally and Suzanne’s intense interest in Israel/Palestine didn’t come to the forefront until 2004.

Explained Suzanne: “From the 1960s, we’d heard Leonard Beerman speak loudly and clearly in his sermons about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. We’d taken guided tours of Israel, but it wasn’t until Wally went on a 2004 trip to the West Bank sponsored by Tikkun magazine that he saw the light.”

Initially they invested time and money in “10,000 Kites,” a program for Israeli and Palestinian children to simultaneously fly kites with peace messages on both sides of Israel’s apartheid wall. The Palestinians felt slighted, however, and the project only got off the ground in Israel. Nonetheless, the Markses witnessed the cruelty of military occupation on the West Bank. When they returned to Los Angeles, they ruffled a lot of feathers by speaking to Jewish organizations about the deplorable conditions under which Palestinians live.

The Markses provided seed money for “NewGround: Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change,” which brings together young Jewish and Muslim professionals in frank dialogue under the auspices of the Muslim Public Affairs Council and Progressive Jewish Alliance.

Wally read extensively about the Middle East, traveled to the West Bank and asked questions endlessly. He invested considerably in a documentary, “Encounter Point,” by Ronit Avni, director of Just Vision, which seeks to unite Jewish and Palestinian victims of violence.

The lessons Wally learned as an equal opportunity activist—equal access to quality education, opportunities to buy or rent a home and live in safe, clean neighborhoods—were what he wanted to see applied to Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

These aspirations for an open city for two peoples (Israelis and Palestinians) and three religions (Jews, Christians and Muslims) are the material for a documentary, “Jerusalem: Open City,” which Wally was working on with Ed Gaffney and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi. For more information, e-mail < This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. >.

Wally and Suzanne hosted at their home progressive Israelis including human rights attorney Yael Berda and members of Machsim Watch, Israeli women who monitor the actions of Israeli soldiers toward Palestinians at checkpoints. They hosted programs for Sikkuy, the Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality in Israel, and Devorah Brous, who endured years of hardship working to help Bedouins in unrecognized villages of the Negev Desert.

In June 2008, Wally was preparing to fly to Ramallah to consult on the Jerusalem documentary when oncologists informed him that he had a rare and virulent form of cancer. Even while undergoing brutal chemotherapy treatments, Wally continued his research and questioned experts on Middle Eastern topics.

The end was sudden. His son, three daughters and six grandchildren were constantly with him, reliving good times. On April 12, Wally and Suzanne’s 50th wedding anniversary, Rabbi Beerman came to Wally’s bedroom to preside over the same vows the pair had exchanged a half-century earlier. Wally died the next day.

Ed Gaffney described Wally as a bridge builder who wanted all the people and organizations he supported to join in working for just causes. Rabbi Beliak is helping to realize Wally’s dream via the Web site <www.highmarksjustice.org>, which lists all the organizations Wally cared about. One activist noted: “Wally didn’t just donate money, he showed up when it mattered.”

Speaking at the I.M.A.N. mosque on May 31, Suzanne stated: “I’ve been treated to an extraordinary life although, granted, I didn’t have as much privacy as I might have wanted. Wally, like all of us, was a grassroots guy. He got down in the trenches to fight for right actions.”

Her words leave no doubt that Suzanne will continue the work she and Wally launched to find justice in Israel/Palestine.

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in Los Angeles.