How Capitol Hill Used to Be: Remembering Hawaii’s Daniel Inouye at 100

As we emerge from the 2024 election, it’s worthwhile to look back at a time when values like integrity and bipartisanship were much more common than today on Capitol Hill. Few figures embody that era better than the late Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, a Democrat who would have turned 100 on Sept. 7. Known as a patriot, war hero, as well as a steadfast supporter of Israel and the Jewish people, Inouye’s life serves as a reminder of how Washington, D.C. once operated.

When Inouye passed away in December 2012 at age 88, he became the first Senator in 23 years to lie in State in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Over 50 senators had died between 1989 and 2012 — including Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, Ted Stevens, Alan Simpson, and Gaylord Nelson. None were given that distinction upon their passing.

For many today outside of Hawaii and D.C., Inouye’s name may only be familiar from landing at Honolulu’s airport, which was named after him in 2017. But Inouye was a Washington legend. He was Hawaii’s first U.S. House Representative after it became a state in 1959, and later its third U.S. Senator ever. Over his five decades in the Senate, Inouye served as chairman of the Appropriations and Intelligence Committees. He was prominently featured in the media for his work on the Watergate and Iran-Contra investigations. He even ascended to the role of President Pro Tempore of the Senate, making him third in line to the presidency during his last two years.

Before entering politics, Inouye enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 17 in World War II as a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated Japanese-American unit—and the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. During a battle near San Terenzo, Italy in 1945,  Second Lieutenant Inouye, then age 20, was shot in the right elbow while clutching an unpinned grenade. His arm detached, but his severed hand still clutched the unpinned grenade. He knew that his dismembered hand could relax at any moment and set off the explosive. So as he continued to bleed under enemy fire, Inouye managed to pry the grenade from his severed hand and toss it a safe distance away. Still, while bleeding profusely, Inouye continued to protect his platoon with what President Bill Clinton later called, “gallant, aggressive tactics” and “indomitable leadership” upon bestowing Inouye with the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2000.

Inouye would often tell the story about how in the first few days after losing his arm, while in a field hospital, he was approached by a military chaplain who was performing last rites on gravely wounded soldiers. When the chaplain reached Inouye, he refused, saying, “No, I’m not going anywhere.”

While recovering from his injuries in a military hospital in Michigan after the War, Inouye met a fellow serviceman named Bob Dole (R-Kan.). The two began a friendship that would continue when they served on opposite sides of the aisle in the U.S. Senate. The hospital would later be named after Inouye and Dole, as well as Senator Philip Hart (D-Mich.), a wounded D-Day veteran who served with them in the U.S. Senate.

During WWII, Japanese-Americans were labeled “enemy aliens” and forcibly relocated to internment camps; for Inouye, joining the Army was “a way to prove loyalty.” He would later question if he could have made that same choice had he been interned.

Rabbi Itchel Krasnjansky of Chabad in Hawaii, who knew Inouye well, told The Journal that Inouye’s commitment to the Jewish people and Israel took root while he was recovering from his wounds sustained in World War II.

“[Inouye] told me his hospital roommate was a Jewish soldier, and they talked a lot about the Holocaust,” Krasnjansky told The Journal. Krasnjansky has led Honolulu’s Chabad since 1987. “It really got to him — he couldn’t understand why a people who contributed so much to society had been treated so terribly.” This experience helped lay the foundation for Inouye’s lifelong friendship with the Jewish community. Krasnjansky recalled that among many of the artifacts celebrating Hawaii in Inouye’s office, there was a menorah, a shofar and a painting of the Kotel in Jerusalem. Krasnjansky recalled the joy it brought him when Inouye brandished personal memorabilia from Israeli leaders, including signed photographs from Prime Ministers Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.

Krasnjansky fondly recalled every time he saw those items in the Senator’s Honolulu office. “He told me that the world owes the Jewish people a debt of gratitude for everything — all the contributions that Jewish people have made throughout history,” Krasnjansky said. “And what they got in return was persecution and pogroms.” After the founding of Israel, while at George Washington University Law School, Inouye even became a registered Israel Bonds salesman.

”I am convinced that it is in our best, national interest to make sure that a strong, viable Israel continues to exert its influence in that part of the world,” Inouye told The New York Times in 1985, adding that the Israelis are ”the only reliable ally we have in that part of the world.” At the time, Inouye estimated that there were only about 500 Jewish families living in Hawaii. Today, there are an estimated 7,000-10,000 Jews residing in Hawaii.

As a U.S Senator, Inouye used his influence with his friends — Republican and Democrat — to secure funding for Israeli defense initiatives such as the Iron Dome missile defense system. He also directed funds toward Jewish causes, including support for a Jewish orphanage in France.

Inouye’s final visit to Israel was less than a year before his death. There, he attended the dedication of the Israel Center for Excellence Through Education, a boarding school in Jerusalem.

Following his passing, Israel honored Inouye in 2014 by naming a facility of the Arrow anti-missile defense system after him, the first time a foreign national received such a tribute in Israel. At the dedication ceremony, an olive tree was planted in Inouye’s memory.

“In missile defense, Senator Inouye was a great supporter of David’s Sling and Iron Dome,” former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel B. Shapiro said at the ceremony. “He was also instrumental in bringing Israeli technologies to the American military, technologies that have saved the lives of countless American military personnel and contributed to the success of American military missions.”

As new faces arrive on Capitol Hill this January, and as divisions continue to deepen in American politics, it’s important to remember how Inouye’s colleagues lauded his ability to command respect and live up to the U.S. Senate’s supposed reputation of being “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

“Senator Inouye was a quiet force in the U.S. Senate,” Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said after Inouye died in 2012. “Because he was restrained in his demeanor, when he spoke, he commanded attention. He was well-respected in the Senate for his lifelong statesmanship and for his early displays of courage and sacrifice for our country.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) described Inouye as “the kind of man, in short, that America has always been grateful to have, especially in her darkest hours, men who lead by example and who expect nothing in return.”

Inouye’s last neighbor on the seventh floor of the Hart Senate Office Building in D.C., Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.), said in a eulogy that, “Dan’s connections stretched across every state.” Tester then described an inspiring photo that was prominently displayed in Inouye’s office, featuring Inouye, President (and former Senate Majority Leader) Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas), Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.), Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and then-New Hampshire Attorney General (and future Republican U.S. Senator) Warren Rudman. “On that photo, Mansfield, then Majority Leader, had written, ‘To my friend Senator Dan Inouye, with admiration, respect, and affection.’ I can’t say it any better than that.”

The Jewish Institute for National Security of America said that Inouye “proved to be the kind of hero the world needed to defeat the evil that was Nazi Germany” and described him as “one of the most respected legislators to ever serve in Congress.”

In today’s polarized political environment, Inouye’s story is a model of leadership grounded in humility, bipartisanship and a commitment to getting things done for the American people and its allies— including Israel. His life and career serve as a standard for what anyone in American public service could — and should — strive to be.