Jackson Sees Lesson for World in Match of Arab, County Woman

The Rev. Jesse Jackson performed the wedding of a young Palestinian businessman and a Yorba Linda woman in Laguna Niguel on Saturday to stress, he said, the importance of love and family in solving the larger issues of the world.

Before officiating at the wedding of Ahmad N. Bayaa and Jill Marie Baumgartner at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Jackson said his purpose in coming was “personal, spiritual and political.”

“Love must lead us to higher ground” and help the struggle against “anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism and anti-Asianism,” he said.

The former presidential candidate said he looked forward to the day when “Israelis and Palestinians will be sitting around the same table talking about peace,” and when Lebanon, where many of the groom’s family came from, “will be revived again.”

Bayaa, 35, is founder and president of Southland Communications of Santa Ana, which manufactures pagers. Baumgartner, 24, is a representative for the Chanel Co. at Bullock’s in Newport Beach.

Jackson told the crowd that “this marriage is America at its best” because it “represents joy in Laguna, hope in the world.”

The civil ceremony was scheduled for 8 p.m. But more than 400 guests waited an hour for Jackson to arrive from Washington, where he attended a demonstration commemorating the 25th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march.

Jackson, accompanied by two of his sons, arrived in Los Angeles about 7:15 p.m. aboard a commercial flight and then took a helicopter to the roof of Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo. From there he was whisked to the wedding.

There was no extra security other than the hotel’s. Jackson no longer has Secret Service protection.

In another comment before the wedding, Jackson said he might go to Watts and “offer my body as a living sacrifice” to end gang warfare and drug use. He declined to elaborate on what he meant.

The ceremony was recorded by Arab-American Television, which has a one-hour show each Saturday on UHF station KSCI, Channel 18. Whid G. Boctor, production company president, said it was filmed both because of Jackson’s appearance and Bayaa’s prominence in the Arab-American community.

Khader Hamide, a Palestinian activist, called Jackson’s presence “symbolic.” “I’m sure you understand the support of Jesse Jackson in the Arab community.”

Bayaa, a Muslim, said the reason he wanted Jackson to perform the civil ceremony was neither for Jackson’s support for an independent Palestinian state, nor because of Bayaa’s own small efforts in Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 campaigns. Rather, he said, it was because of Jackson’s national prominence and because Bayaaa wanted to do something special for his fiancee.

It was through the office of Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton) that Bayaa was able to approach Jackson about the wedding. Dymally, arriving at the wedding, said he came because of “friendship, fraternity and love--nothing political.”

Most of Bayaa’s large family, including his parents and eight brothers and sisters, attended the wedding, some traveling from as far as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The family initially was from the city of Acre, near Haifa in Israel. The family fled to Jordan in 1948, following Israeli independence, later moving to Syria and finally settling in a refugee camp near Tripoli, Lebanon.

Ahmad Bayaa’s older brother, Ziad, was the first member of the family to come to Southern California, studying business at Cal State Long Beach. Ahmad also studied at the university, graduating in 1975 with a degree in computer engineering. Bayaa now lives in Long Beach and his parents live in Irvine.

Bayaa, who said he came to this country penniless, was well able to afford the $50,000 he estimated the wedding would cost.

Two weeks ago, he announced that his company, which employs about 50 people and also is known as National Paging Co., will acquire a Torrance company, A+ Beepers, for $12.5 million. En route to their honeymoon in Paris and the south of France, Bayaa said, the couple will stop in New York where he will make a presentation to money managers and brokers in connection with the acquisition.