PORTLAND, Ore. – The Rev. Jerry Kulah has nothing but gratitude for American Methodists.
In 1833, they sent their first missionary to his country, Liberia, which was founded for freed American slaves. Melville B. Cox died four months after he arrived in Africa, but the missionary's legacy lives on in the United Methodist Church's fastest-growing region, and in his words to his own church back in North Carolina: "Let a thousand fall before Africa be given up."
Bob Silverman, a Jew who spent most of his diplomatic career in Muslim-majority nations, will now reach out to Muslims in his own country. The American Jewish Committee recently hired him as its first U.S. director of Muslim-Jewish relations.
As a U.S. Foreign Service officer for 27 years, the Des Moines, Iowa, native served in Israel, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Sweden, and retired from the government last year. Now 58, he works at the New York headquarters of the 110-year-old AJC, which was founded to combat discrimination against Jews but has historically defended other minority groups as well.
