Sitting with friends in the rear dining room of a Silver Lake, Harrison, Italian restaurant a couple of years ago, I couldn’t stop looking to a table to my right where an elderly, raven-haired woman was sipping after-dinner coffee with a man I assumed was her husband.
My companions did not seem to notice my distraction, but I couldn’t stop thinking I knew this lady. Finally, I screwed up enough courage to whisper her name. She didn’t budge. I said it too softly, I reasoned. Even my dinner partners hadn’t heard me.
I whispered louder. A soft calling of her name. Nita? Then louder. NITA?
She heard. As she turned to face me she transformed from that matronly woman into the smiling, energetic Nita Lowey that had mesmerized voters and fellow politicians during her 32-year career as a Democratic congresswoman from Westchester County. She introduced me to her husband, Stephen Lowey.
Nita M. Lowey, the first woman to chair the influential and powerful House Appropriations Committee, died Saturday. She was 87. She suffered from metastatic breast cancer.
Though I was one of her constituents for the entirety of her congressional career, which ended in January 2021, I didn’t meet her until the spring of 2010.
I had recently joined Shalom Yisrael of Westchester, an organization that works on a person-to-person model developing lasting friendships between Israelis and Americans. That year Shalom Yisrael brought to New York eight women from the communities on the border of the Gaza Strip for two weeks of rest and relaxation from their hazardous volunteer work as first responders when families and friends were in danger from all too frequent terrorist attacks, rocket fire or natural disasters.
I was tasked with planning a three day excursion to Washington, D. C. The highlight would be a a tour of the Capitol led by a member of Rep. Lowey’s staff, followed by a visit with the congresswoman.
It would be more than a “visit.” That year and subsequently for the next decade, Nita hosted our group for breakfast or lunch in the Congressional Dining room, as shown in the accompanying picture. She would stay throughout the full meal, advising to order whatever we wanted, especially dessert.
Sitting at a wide round table, she would elaborate on her numerous meetings with Israeli, Arab and Palestinian leaders as part of her work on the House Foreign Affairs committee, then would query each woman about their family and jobs. Like most everyone who met them, Congresswoman Lowey wanted to know why they lived on the edge of peril, why not in a more secure spot in Israel?
They do not dream of leaving, they would tell her. Their responses echoed what we have heard time and again from people in our own country. Their choice is no different than that made by Americans living in tornado alley or along the Gulf Coast ravaged annually by hurricanes. Or those who warily watch waters rise above levies each year to wash away homes. Israelis live there because it is their home, whether they grew up there or recently relocated. It is beautiful, they would tell her, with a real sense of community.
From 2010 through 2020 the scene repeated itself as successive Shalom Yisrael guests came to Washington. All of the Shalom Yisrael guests Nita Lowey met, from near Gaza and the northern border near Lebanon, had to relocate their families after the October 6 attacks. At least one was killed. A few have returned to their homes.
Since our chance restaurant encounter I’ve been back there twice, each time scanning every table hoping to see her. No luck. We had known each other, casually, for 11 years. That first and only time after dinner, I thanked her for her service to the nation.
