Colin Powell will be remembered in history as the first Black U.S. national security advisor, the first Black military chief of staff and the first Black secretary of state.
Powell, the former U.S. secretary of state who brokered the “road map” to a two-state peace deal that still informs much of U.S. policy in the region, died Monday aged 84. He died of COVID-19, his family said on Facebook. WASHINGTON ( JTA) — Colin Powell will be remembered in history as the first Black U.S. national security advisor, the first Black military chief of staff and the first Black secretary of state. He was also the first military chief to speak Yiddish as a second language, and he loved surprising Jews with his skill. Powell, the former U.S. secretary of state who brokered the “road map” to a two-state peace deal that still informs much of U.S. policy in the region, died Monday aged 84. He died of COVID-19, his family said on Facebook. He was fully vaccinated and, according to news reports, had been undergoing treatments for blood cancer. Powell made history three times as the first Black man in a senior security position: As President Ronald Reagan’s last national security adviser from 1987 to 1989; as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush, who commanded the successful first Gulf War; and as secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 under Bush’s son, President George W. Bush. Powell, the child of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in the Bronx, was a hero in Vietnam who upon his return stayed in the military and rapidly rose through the ranks. From when he was 13 until his sophomore year at the City College of New York, Powell worked for Sickser’s, a Jewish-owned shop in the Bronx that sold goods to new parents — many of them Jewish who spoke Yiddish as a first language. He also worked as a “Shabbes goy,” turning on the electricity for Orthodox families on the Sabbath, and picked up the language.
