The Foreign Service Journal, February 2013

64 FEBRUARY 2013 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL IN MEMORY n Jerine Newhouse Bird. , 86, the wife of retired FSO Eugene Bird, died on Dec. 13 after a 15-month battle with peritoneal cancer. A longtime resident of Washington, D.C., Bird was a perennial activist and lob- byist for Middle East peace. Born in Portland, Ore., in 1926, Jerine (“Jerri”) B. Newhouse grew up in Eugene, Ore. A graduate of the University of Oregon, she married Eugene H. Bird, a Foreign Service officer and an Arabist, in 1948. Over the next three decades, the couple lived in Stockholm, Washington, D.C., Jerusalem, Beirut, Dhahran, Cairo, Bombay, NewDelhi, Jeddah and Riyadh. The extensive experience in the Middle East had a profound effect on Jerri Bird. On the eve of the October 1956 Suez War, the Birds were stationed in East Jerusalem. “For some reason, the ‘incidents’ have beenmore numerous and the ‘reprisals’ very heavy,” she wrote to her parents in Oregon. “Neither side is ‘right,’ but Israel’s policy of retaliation simply keeps the fire going. It is openly acknowledged that for every (Israeli) life lost in a border incident, the Israelis will kill in return and usually many, many more. An eye for an eye has turned into 12 for one or better.” Their son, Pulitzer Prize-winning histo- rian Kai Bird, later wrote about their life in his memoir, Crossing MandelbaumGate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 (Scribner, 2011). After her husband’s retirement, Mrs. Birdmoved back toWashington, D.C. There she became active in the Episcopal Church’s Washington Interfaith Alli- ance for Middle East Peace and, in 1989, founded Partners for Peace. As the group’s president, she organized an innovative program that brought “Three Women from Jerusalem” to tour American cities several times a year. She reached out to audiences in synagogues, churches and universities through this program to explain the complexities of the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. Bird chose the three women—a Jewish Israeli, a MuslimPalestinian and a Chris- tian Palestinian—for each 10-city tour. The three women usually were strangers to each other; Bird’s only prerequisite for their participation was that they all had to agree that the city of Jerusalem should be shared among the three faiths. Over more than two decades, thou- sands of Americans heard these Jerusalem women debate a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. “I wanted ordinary women to speak to ordinary people in America,” Bird told the Baltimore Jewish Times in 1998. “I felt that the voices not being heard were the women, the human voices. I felt Americans would respond to it.” Jerri Bird was known to her family and friends as a strongly opinionated, sharp- tongued advocate. “She was a great lady with a strong conscience,” said Charles Glass, ABC News’ former chief Middle East correspondent. “She tried to undo some of the harmour country has done to the Palestinians.” A trainedmusician, Bird once sang in a production of “The Sound of Music” in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She played the part of Mother Superior. She later wrote magazine articles for The Foreign Service Journa l and contrib- uted an essay on Saudi women to an anthology edited by ElizabethWarnock Fernea, Children of the MuslimMiddle East (University of Texas Press, 1995). Her family was most important to her; and her grandchildren, in particular, brought her the greatest joys in the last years of her life. Jerine Bird is survived by her husband, Eugene; their children, daughter and son- in-law Christina and RodrigoMacaya, son and daughter-in-law Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark, daughter and son-in-lawNancy Bird and Karl Becker, and daughter and son-in-law Shelly Bird and Jonathan Ely; grandchildren Lisa and Lya Macaya, Jason and Daniel Macaya, Joshua Goldmark Bird and Jonathan Ely; and her sister, Nadine. At her request, the family asks that memorial donations be sent to the Middle East Children’s Alliance (www.mecafor peace.org), 1101 8th St., Suite 100, Berkeley CA 94710, or to the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (www. afedj.org), 25 Old King’s Highway No., Suite 13, Darien CT 06820. n James Franklin Brackman , 86, a retired FSO, died on Nov. 22 at Fairfax Hos- pital in Fairfax, Va., after a long illness. He was a longtime resident of Alexandria, Va. Born in Neola, W. Va., in 1926, Mr. Brackman served in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1946 and received an honorable discharge. He completed a bachelor of science degree in finance and accounting fromWest Virginia Tech in 1950. In 1952, Mr. Brackman joined the United States Foreign Service and began a diplomatic career as a budget and fiscal officer spanning 39 years. His first post was Bonn, where he helped administer the Marshall Plan. He then served in Bogotá. At his third post, in Amman, he met his wife, Stella Scouros, whomhe married in 1958. The couple subsequently served in Caracas, Karachi, Budapest, Asunción, Belgrade (in the former Yugoslavia), Kinshasa, Cairo and Beijing. He loved the Foreign Service and thrived at every post by immersing himself in the culture and the new experiences that each offered. Sent to East Pakistan in 1971, he helped with the evacuation of American citizens during the Bangladesh independence struggle. Earlier, he was a member of the control team in Karachi during the 1962