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September 5, 2008
Matt Horn: Our Man In D.C.
Neil Rubin
Editor
Matthew M. Horn vividly recalls when his armored vehicle arrived in front of a Belgrade synagogue one Yom Kippur in the early 1990s. Instead of gaining respite from the Balkans’ violent ethnic conflicts — in which he served as a legal and political adviser for the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe — he was thrust amidst the region’s strife.
“I hopped out, and a TV reporter stuck a microphone in my face and said, ‘As a Jew, don’t you identify with the Serbians and their long struggle?’ It was a setup. I got back in, and we drove away,” he recently recalled while downing coffee at a Pikesville Starbucks.
Such was life as Mr. Horn helped top policymakers with decisions that helped redraw Europe’s map during the tumultuous immediate post-communist years.
These days, with personal views shaped by a modern Orthodox upbringing and a stint in the U.S. Marine Corps, Mr. Horn, 44, a native of Suffern, N.Y., fights in Washington, D.C., for the American Jewish Congress’ agenda as its national policy director. That is, when he’s not home in Mount Washington with his wife and their two children.
An extended conversation with Mr. Horn quickly reveals an energetic personality, one who’s “in-the-know” on national affairs, and an individual who passionately wants to update others on the day’s burning Jewish and general issues. Throughout, he offers a retinue of personal stories about world leaders along with photos and private notes to back up the tales.
Meanwhile, Mr. Horn’s talk slides from his childhood to meetings with Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, reflections on Baltimore Jewry, thoughts on the war on terror, and how his children yell at him for not knowing area roads. And he comes across as sincere and eager to help others.
“I really believe that whole tikkun olam thing,” he said of the Jewish value to repair a fractured world.
Mr. Horn’s arrival at the AJCongress three years ago came after serving in Donald Rumsfeld’s Department of Defense as special assistant for international security affairs and international security policy, where he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.
Before that, and after a law degree from Pace University, came stints as senior federal affairs representative at the MWW Group, and as counsel and legislative assistant to Rep. Ben Gilman (R-N.Y.).
Despite Republican credentials, he takes pride in a bipartisan approach. “When I was in the administration and on the Hill, I think if you didn’t ask me, you wouldn’t know if I were a Democrat or Republican,” he said.
At the AJCongress, the big issues are gaining funding for the U.S.-Israel Energy Cooperation Act, which Mr. Horn said he almost single-handedly helped push through Congress after several years of inaction. He also brings focus to issues such as human shields, which Hezbollah used during its summer 2006 war with Israel.
But befitting his experience, his gaze heads toward Europe. “Our niche, regardless of what folks say, is NATO and Israel, upgrading the relationship,” he said.
Europe’s Jewish history has always had a hold on him. Back in 1992, he visited the Theresienstadt concentration camp. “They said, ‘All the Jewish men come with us.’ They needed us for a minyan. They lit the candles and we said Kaddish.. To this day, I get tears thinking about it.”
The images he saw at such sites — piles of shoes, mounds of eyeglasses — stayed with him during later meetings with Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who was widely accused of war crimes. “I can tell you stories about him,” Mr. Horn said. “I would never shake his hand.”
Today, he worries that many Americans still do not comprehend the war on terror.
“9/11 was a wake-up call,” he said. “It was beyond this generation’s Pearl Harbor. Had we killed Hitler in 1932, my guess is we would not have had the Holocaust or World War II, but if you kill [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad or [Hamas leader Khalid] Mashal, they’re different.
“Guys who lead a movement play by the rules; that’s the frustrating point when you talk about human shields and things. They can send 1,000 rockets to Sderot and Ashkelon [in Israel]. Israel can’t hit back anything without going up the chain of command; it all has to be vetted. Why isn’t the world screaming at terrorists instead of Israel?”
When not pressing such cases, he’s come to enjoy home life in Baltimore. Still, he can be perturbed by some questions. “When people would talk to me about what I was doing at the Pentagon or Capitol Hill, it was almost foreign. They said, ‘You were in the Marine Corps? Are You Jewish? Did you convert?’”
But this is home, and he wants more of it. “I don’t see my kids every day and that’s very hard,” he said. “When I’m going to work late, I try to stay home late in the morning to kiss them and stay engaged. I have an awesome wife, and I don’t want to be one of those people out of touch with their kids. … If I could do what I do in Washington here, I’d do it in a second.”