Former Bronx congressman Eliot Engel has died at the age of 79.
A former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and who represented New York's 16th District for over thirty years, died in his native Bronx on Friday, April 10. His family did not immediately state a cause of death.
Elliot Lance Engel was born in the Bronx on Feb. 18, 1947. He was the son of an ironworker and the grandson of Jewish immigrants who fled czarist Russia, specifically Ukraine.
As reported in the Washington Post, Engel grew up in Bronx housing projects, attended New York City public schools and graduated from Hunter College. Mr. Engel worked as a schoolteacher and guidance counselor, earned a law degree and served in the New York State Assembly before being elected to Congress in 1988.
Engel's primary focus in his committee work was on foreign affaires and he took a particular interest in Ireland. This was in part prompted by voters in his district which spanned the Bronx and part of Westchester County. He represented the district until he lost a primary in 2020.
During his time in Congress, Engel, whose career reached its pinnacle when he became chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was indeed a stalwart on issues of Irish American concern, in particular the battle to secure a permanent American home for Malachy McAllister.
Just prior to his departure from the House of Representatives Engel, joined by other members of Congress, penned a letter to then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging the preservation and protection of the Good Friday Agreement amid all the rancor and disruption caused by Brexit.
There will be additional reporting on the passing of Eliot Engel in the next print/digital edition of the Echo.
