Nearly 77 years ago in Jerusalem, in the midst of World War II, a young British soldier married the daughter of the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of the Old City. The chuppah was raised on the rooftop of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva with a clear view of the Western Wall. Rabbi Ben-Zion Chai Uziel, Chief Sephardic Rabbi of what was then Mandatory Palestine, joined Naomi’s father in conducting the ceremony.
The couple, Louis and Naomi Horn, z”l, passed away within a few dozen hours of each other Oct. 20 and 22 in Salem, where they were beloved members of the Jewish community. Louis would have been 102 on Nov. 2, and Naomi celebrated her 100th birthday last May 25.
On two days, Thursday and Friday, their Salem friends and synagogue family traveled to Portland for funerals at the Kesser Israel Cemetery, first for Louis and a day later for Naomi, who was laid to rest beside her husband just hours before Shabbat.
“They were 100 percent Jewish in the deepest, deepest ways,” said Rabbi Eli Herb of Temple Beth Shalom, which the couple joined when they moved to Salem in 1949. Lou served as the congregation’s president for three terms, and Naomi was twice president of the sisterhood. “They were members, teachers – machers  – in the best sense of the word.”
Though they had no children of their own, they founded the temple’s religious school, taught Sunday School for many years, and also gave private lessons for bar and bat mitzvahs. 
Todd Silverstein, a longtime friend who spoke at the funerals, remembered both for their deep devotion to each other, to family and friends, to Israel and to the Jewish people. He closed his eulogies for both with “Sunrise, Sunset,” one of the couple’s favorite songs, and one he said that “Lou would sing at the drop of a hat.”
Lou was born in London, England, but grew up in Birmingham, where his father, Abraham, an immigrant from Lodz, Poland, worked as a master tailor. Lou, the oldest of four boys, enlisted in the British Army in March 1941, serving in Egypt and Iraq before being sent to the Palestinian Mandate administered by Great Britain. There he met Naomi, the daughter of 
HaRav Ben-Zion Mordechai Hazan, a noted kabbalist and a founder of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva, who had been born in Iraq. 
Lou liked to tell the story of going to a synagogue service with Naomi’s father, who spoke no English, and being invited to lead the prayers. At the end of the service, Rabbi Hazan was pointing in Lou’s direction, speaking with other rabbis. Lou was nervous, but he later learned that his future father-in-law was telling others, with pride: “You see this man in military uniform? He knows how to pray in Hebrew, and he is soon to marry my daughter, Naomi.”
In 1947, the young couple moved to Britain, and, after Lou’s military service, came to the United States. They lived in several states – including a memorable, if brief, time working at a dude ranch near Tucson, Ariz., owned by one of Lou’s aunts – before deciding to join friends in Salem.
Both Lou and Naomi worked for the State of Oregon – Naomi in the Department of Education, where she was an evaluator for teacher certification, and Lou in the Department of Commerce, from which he retired as assistant Corporation Commissioner. 
Lou is survived by nieces and nephews and a number of cousins, including Karen Danner in the Portland area, and many close friends in the Salem Jewish community.
Naomi, who was one of nine children, is survived by a brother, Avihail, in Israel, a large extended family, and, of course, her and Lou’s Salem Jewish community.
(To access an oral history interview with Naomi Horn held at the Oregon Jewish Museum & Center for Holocaust Education, contact archivist Alisha Babbstein at ababbstein@ojmche.org)