In 1975 he created the Washington Action Office of the Jewish Federations of North America and served as its director for 18 years.
[4] He attended Harvard University on a full scholarship, earning his bachelor's degree in European History in 1963.
[2] In 1971–1972 he was a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, where he created a seminar program for newly elected members of Congress.
[1][2][6][7] When the bill passed and President Gerald Ford was ready to sign it, Talisman's wife Jill was in labor with the couple's daughter, Jessica, at the Columbia Hospital for Women, located three blocks from the White House.
[1][2] In the late 1970s, Talisman served on the presidential commission that recommended creation of a national memorial to the Holocaust.
[2] After the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened, Talisman served on its Committee on Conscience, which oversees genocide-prevention efforts.
[1] In 1983, Jill and Mark Talisman created the Project Judaica Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the mission of rescuing and exhibiting historic or endangered Jewish artifacts.
[3] The vegetable garden in the family's Chevy Chase, Maryland, property, where Talisman spent many hours every week during the growing season, was locally famous.