Center for Jewish Studies director Eric Meyers remembers his uncle Marshall as the babysitter who would take him to the Dartmouth campus, where Marshall was finishing his undergraduate degree. But thousands of Argentines remember Meyer as the man who stood up for them and saved people's lives in the 1970s.
One was Débora Benchoam, the second-youngest person to be arrested by the Argentine security forces during the so-called Dirty War. In 1977, Argentine soldiers killed her teen-aged brother and took Benchoam, then 16, prisoner. In a panel discussion organized Monday at Duke to celebrate Meyer's life, Benchoam recounted how she was raped and beaten, then kept in jail for more than four years. Meyer, then the rabbi of the Comunidad Bet El, visited her often and advocated for her release.
When she was free and prepared to leave Argentina, Benchoam said that Meyer said words that changed her life. "As we waited to board the airplane, he told me to tell my story, as a way of making sure that people knew what had happened in Argentina and who was responsible," Benchoam said. Benchoam is now a lawyer with the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights and works to protect human rights in the Americas.
The event featured images from Duke University Library's collection of Meyer's personal and professional correspondence, documents and photographs, including letters between Benchoam and Meyer. In 2006, his widow Naomi Meyer donated his personal papers to Duke, forming the cornerstone of the Duke Archive for Human Rights. The 47,850-item collection includes personal and professional correspondence, writings and photos, as well as audio and videotapes.
Naomi Meyer and Ariel Dorfman, the renowned Duke professor and writer who was born in Argentina and raised in Chile, joined Benchoam on the panel. Meyer recalled how her husband opened their Buenos Aires home to everyone, making it a "Casa del Pueblo," house of the people.
Although unable to attend the event, Argentine Ambassador Héctor Timerman, whose father, Jacobo, was also helped by Meyer, wrote a tribute to the man he described as "praying with his feet" as he waited in long lines to visit political prisoners. Jacobo, a newspaper editor tortured and imprisoned by the military junta, dedicated his classic book, Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number, to Rabbi Meyer.
After the return of democracy to Argentina in 1983, Argentine President Raul Alfonsin recruited Meyer to serve on a national commission the abuses suffered under the military junta. The Argentine government recognized his human rights work when it awarded him its highest civilian honor.
Meyer returned to the United States in 1984 to lead the congregation B'nai Jeshurun, reviving the decaying New York City synagogue and transforming it into a dynamic center for Judaism in the United States. Meyer advocated for intra-religious dialogue and peace efforts, the plight of marginalized groups within the United States, human rights abuses in Central America and for peace and respect for human rights in Israel and Palestine.
Eric Meyers said his uncle acted on the belief that "all humanity was equal in the eyes of God."
"I would emphasize deeds of loving kindness, which is really the basis for all human rights: the right of every individual to be treated with dignity and fairness by others, and the obligation each of us has to be our brother and sister's keepers," Meyers said. "And in the face of injustice, Marshall would have said in the words of the rabbis, 'We have no right to be silent.'"