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Amos Ishai is no more. I first met Amos Ishai at the FAI General Conference held in 1982 in Brussels. He was then the First Vice President of FAI and I do recall him leaving a deep mark on me as a friendly and likeable person. At this General Conference India had put up and won the bid to host the General Conference in New Delhi in 1984. At this very General Conference Amos was elected President of FAI and he would thus preside over the 1983 and 1984 General Conferences. That meant that he, an Israeli national, would require to be in New Delhi, at the capital of India, a country that did not diplomatically recognise the existence of Israel till that time. Soon after his election I was required to correspond with him and get this diplomatic problem solved. Amos came up with an excellent solution. Let New Delhi (1984) and Prague (1985) swop over. His telex-es and letters were so persuasive and sweet that the swop was carried out painlessly. New Delhi was now required to host the 1985 General Conference, by which time Amos would have completed his tenure of office. My correspondence with him soon endeared him to me and, I suspect, me to him, as we soon became friends and remained so till his passing away. The 1985 General Conference was held in New Delhi under the leadership of Dr Cenek Kepak, but we still had a problem getting Amos Ishai to India. He had been elected the Treasurer General and was required to be present. With our determination we succeeded. With a straight face we managed to convince the authorities in New Delhi to let in the FAI Treasurer General and not an Israeli delegate ! He arrived in New Delhi and spent a good 10 days in India. He worked hard with the host team. I do recall one incident. One night he visited the Conference Secretariat late at night to see us working away preparing delegate kits and papers for distribution. He took charge of some of our papers and started proof reading them ! It took me quite an effort to convince him to get to bed as he had an early and long day ahead of him. The Conference went off smoothly. Amos sat right next to the Indian Prime Minister Late Rajiv Gandhi. The two interacted and I can say with authority that Indo-Israeli relations took a turn for the better after this two hour programme. Since then we continued with our personal correspondence and kept up a steady friendship which few, even in FAI, knew about. He would call me on telephone regularly. He advised me on the finer aspects of the functioning of FAI. He was my guide who I would refer to when I had a problem dealing with any issue of the FAI. His last call was not many months ago. He was concerned with the issue of Israeli students travelling within India and not writing home. He wanted help to locate some missing students. I had barely started looking into the project when he fell sick. Earlier we, his friends in India, did toy with the idea of having him take over responsibilities as India’s Honorary Consul General in Haifa. Amos was also keen to give his time to such an assignment. That project kept getting delayed due to the many changes in the governments in India. A position we felt he would do well in as a true friend of India. Alas, Amos is no more. An active and vibrant life has come to an end. The news has shocked us all in India. Adieu, my friend, Amos. May God Bless You and may you be happy wherever you are. We will always remember you and especially your friend, Atul Dev.
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