Safe Haven

If one were to take bets 10 years ago which North American nation would elect its first Jewish head of government, the safe wager would be on the United States or maybe Canada. Life has a funny way of upending expectations as Mexico will soon have the distinction of being the first country in this continent to inaugurate a Jewish president, Claudia Sheinbaum, despite a Jewish population of 60,000 in a country of 130 million.

Mexico and the U.S. are currently intertwined in a challenging immigration situation on the border. A huge flood of migrants are seeking to cross north into this country. The U.S. has been overwhelmed by the numbers and needs Mexico’s help in stemming the tide.

Both countries have a history of immigration but an ambivalent attitude toward newcomers. Many Americans believe the country will be changed or diminished by immigrants. Some Mexicans are wary of anyone who does not fit into a certain type of mestizo identity, and politicians cynically have used that prejudice to attack Sheinbaum.

In America, the debate is often centered around illegal, or unauthorized, immigration, people who cross the border, often undergoing perilous journeys, without permission. But desperate people have been searching for safe haven for decades. Many Jews, including my family, did what they needed to find refuge. Their actions often involved illegal activity.

One of my family’s storis is that in the 1930s a great uncle of mine living in Mexico would make sure that his pregnant wife would cross the border into Texas each day (when such a journey was relatively simple) so that she would give birth in the United States and thereby confer automatic citizenship on the child. Now, the Forward has revealed that President-elect Sheinbaum’s family in Mexico used subterfuge to hide their immigrant status.

Sheinbaum’s mother has always claimed that she was born in Mexico, but records show that she was actually born in Bulgaria and came to Mexico at age six via Palestine in 1946. Mexican immigration documents were forged to make it seem that she was born in the country as a way of protecting against a possible revocation of her visa. Many American Jewish families have similar stories of changed birthplaces and false birthdates. How many people have grandparents who weren’t quite sure when and where they were born?

The revelations about Sheinbaum’s mother does not affect her eligibility to serve. Mexican law states that the president and one of their parents must be born in the country (both Sheinbaum and her father were born in Mexico). The news does highlight the challenge of immigration for both countries. Laws and rules are important to keep countries safe and secure, but in desperate times people will do whatever it takes to find freedom. The U.S. and Mexico must work together to create humane, just, and workable immigration policies that benefit all.

They Saved the World

Today marks the 80^th anniversary of the Allied invasion of northern Europe during World War II, otherwise known as D-Day. The youngest veterans of that battle are 98 years old, some of whom made their way to France for the celebration. This moment is an opportunity to contemplate what the war means today, 8 decades later.

D-Day was a major success for the Allies in 1944 and marked the beginning of the end for Nazi domination of Europe. As President Biden said to one of the veterans, “You saved the world.” But the sacrifice required to achieve the goal was staggering. Almost 10,000 American soldiers are buried in Normandy, along with tens of thousands from other countries.

In France, efforts are being made to remember some of the failures of the invasion as well. The president, Emmanuel Macron, visited the site of a brutal German crackdown far from the beaches of Normandy but connected to the invasion. French commandos and resistance fighters were given the task of preventing the Germans from reinforcing their positions in Normandy, but they were discovered, and their camp was destroyed. The Nazis burned villages and executed members of resistance in retaliation.

This battle is not much remembered in France, perhaps because the mission didn’t succeed, and the cost was so high. Survivors only began to speak out in recent decades when the far right in France began to question Nazi atrocities. They wanted to make clear that the Nazis not only perpetrated the Holocaust against Jews, they also committed brutal crimes against the French resistance.

Amongst the endless rows of crosses in the American cemetery in Normandy are Stars of David, reminders of the Jewish contribution to the war. In Israel, the new Chaim Herzog Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II aims to tell the story of the 1.5 million Jewish soldiers around the world who fought, including 250,000 who lost their lives.

Jews have been fighting in the world’s armies for millennia, but World War II is different because all the Jewish soldiers, no matter the country, were fighting on the same side, against fascism. 500,000 served in the United States, 500,000 for the Soviet Union, and another 500,000 with other allied military forces. By contrast, Jewish soldiers during World War I fought on all sides. My father’s father served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the Italian campaign, where there may have been Italian Jewish soldiers shooting at him.

As I wrote about at the 75^th anniversary of D-Day, my mother’s stepfather participated in the invasion, although he was not part of the initial landing. My cousin would like to possibly donate some of my grandfather’s military items to the Herzog Museum, so he looked at my grandfather’s uniform. Based on his insignia, he was a technician fourth grade with the Engineer Special Brigade.

During World War II, the U.S. Army had a great need for people with all kinds of special skills so it created the technician rank, which was designed for a person who could perform a specialized task and was not considered a regular combat soldier. Technicians could be anyone from a cook to a tank driver. I’m not sure what role my grandfather performed, but he was an engineer by training and was 34 years old at D-Day, so he was certainly not running up the beachhead with a machine gun.

So many people contributed to “saving the world” in France, from commandos to resistance volunteers to aging engineers. Their sacrifice not only saved the world, it created the world we live in, one secured by an international order and mutual defense. As we have seen in the last few years, the foundations established 80 years ago will constantly be tested. May we continue to be inspired by generations past to keep and defend the peace.

To Return Or Not To Return

During my time in rabbinical school, we had short seminars called “minimesters” that gave us an opportunity to grapple with issue in depth that could not be covered during our regular curriculum. For a week or two during semester breaks we would learn about clergy boundaries or couples’ therapy. One minimester dealt with ethical issues rabbis and cantors might face.

During one session, the head of fundraising at the Jewish Theological Seminary spoke to us about thorny issues around money. She told us the story of Ivan Boesky, the 1980s Wall Street businessman convicted of insider trading. Boesky was a trustee at the Seminary at the time of his legal troubles and president of the JTS library. In fact, the new library was named after him and his wife.

The JTS fundraiser posed the ethical dilemma to us: what would you do if a major donor and leader of your organization was accused of a crime? In this case, the money that he had given to the institution was the direct result of his illegal actions. I don’t quite remember exactly what we said, but I am sure we idealistic rabbinical students said of course the money should not be kept by JTS.

Whether it should be returned is a separate matter. On the one hand, do you really want to return the ill-gotten gains to the criminal? He shouldn’t be rewarded for his misdeeds. On the other hand, who would be the victim to whom you could return the money? With insider trading it is hard to tell. Is it other wealthy Wall Street firms? Is it institutional investors who saw their portfolios dip? Is it everyday people who invested their nest egg?

Even if the victim is your average Joe or Jane, how would you possibly return to them the $2 million Boesky pledged to the Seminary? How would you find them? How would determine how much to give them? In the end, according to contemporary media reports, while JTS removed the bronze letters of his and his wife’s names from the library, they didn’t return the money.

Was JTS’s decision ethical? The money certainly went to a good cause – preserving the literary and cultural heritage of the Jewish people in the most extensive Judaica library in the Western hemisphere. But it was also not a great look for the school, which is why Boesky’s name came off the building. Boesky also withdrew a $750,000 pledge to the Center for Jewish Life at Princeton University.

So much has changed in the nearly 40 years since. That library from the 1980s no longer exists, replaced by a smaller structure which is controversial for a different reason. Some scholars are upset that most of the collection is now stored off-site and researchers must request those volumes rather than find them in the stacks.

Boesky died this week at the age of 87. After serving 18 months of his prison sentence in the 80s he lived a quiet life in California. While dramatic, his story was not nearly as tragic as the Jewish Wall Street scandal a generation later. Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme had very clear victims, some of which were Jewish non-profits themselves. Many never recovered. The lesson in all these stories is that those entrusted with money of others, whether the financiers or the fundraisers, have a sacred duty to do their business with the highest degree of ethical integrity.

Exclusion

I once served on a jury decades ago when I lived in New York City. I was working at the time and hadn’t yet entered rabbinical school. During jury selection I was given a questionnaire which asked whether I was willing to vote for conviction on the basis of only one witness. The reason for this question was that the Bible decrees that no one may be convicted of a crime based only on one person’s testimony.

The question gave me pause because I knew that Jewish law, based on Deuteronomy 19:15, rules that a conviction for a crime requires two eyewitnesses. Would I be able to serve on the jury given my religious beliefs? While some might have taken the opportunity to get out of jury duty, I was interested in serving. My job was fine, but it was relatively low level. Missing a few days of work wasn’t going to be a problem for me, especially because I knew it wasn’t going to be my career. I was already planning to enter rabbinical school in a few months.

My reasoning in responding “yes” to the question of whether I would convict on the basis of one witness was the fact that as an American Jew, my responsibilities differed depending on the context. If I were to serve on a beit din, a Jewish court, I would need to follow the Jewish rules of procedure but serving in American court meant agreeing to New York State’s system.

In the end, our jury convicted the defendant of drug possession. If I recall correctly, there was more than one witness who testified at the trial. I remember feeling the verdict in the pit of my stomach as we the jury rose to give our decision. I was confident that the man was guilty, but still we had just determined that his life’s future would almost certainly entail imprisonment. Who knows what consequences this would have for him.

After we had reached our decision, the judge assuaged my conscience when he told us that the defendant was certainly guilty, and we had made the right decision, even without the evidence he was aware of but that had been kept from us for legal reasons.

I recalled my experience from years ago after reading that death row cases in California are being reviewed because prosecutors kept Jews off juries solely because of their religion. These prosecutors felt that Jews opposed the death penalty and so they would vote against the state in these cases. This anti-Jewish bias has been long assumed, but proof was finally provided when investigators looked through notes from an old case. The prosecutor, during jury selection, wrote things like “I liked him better than any other Jew but no way” and “Banker. Jew?”

Striking a juror based on their race or religion is unconstitutional so lawyers use other means to exclude those they think will vote the “wrong” way, but here was conclusive evidence that the prosecution wanted to keep Jews off a death penalty case.

Jewish law, based again on the Bible, allows for the death penalty, but the Mishnah states: “A Sanhedrin (court) that executes once in seven years, is called murderous.” (Makkot 1:10) Throughout history, Jews have been leery of trusting non-Jewish courts, which were often used as a means of persecuting the community. Jews do not automatically see the criminal justice system as fair or equitable.

Would these potential Jewish jurors have let their personal or religious beliefs affect their decisions? Maybe. Especially if they saw a system that disproportionally imprisons and executes people of color. Unfortunately, the illegal actions of the prosecutors have now led to the reopening of cases and potential retrials, which will subject victims families to more trauma.

As one California rabbi noted about the exclusion of Jews from juries, “It’s pretty awful. The word disappointing isn’t enough.” With all of the antisemitism we have been experiencing, this news is just another blow, but perhaps the discovery of the prosecutor’s notes may lead to change. Now that the exclusion of Jews from death penalty juries has been confirmed, the process can be eliminated as one step in creating a criminal justice system that is truly just.

Sing Loud and Proud

There is much that Americans don’t understand about Israelis. These two peoples live in different parts of the world with different cultural perspectives and understandings of the world. Sometimes we are baffled by each other and the things we hold dear. I’m talking of course about … Israel’s odd obsession with the Eurovision Song Contest.

In the midst of war, protests, and high stakes diplomacy, Israel’s entry in the competition this year has qualified for the grand finale on Saturday and has good odds to win. Such success would be a big deal in tiny Israel in any year because of the credibility and positive attention it brings, but the contest has extra meaning now for an embattled country struggling to find any good news.

Despite the success of Israel’s entrant, Eden Golan, strife has still been a part of the story. At the semifinal this week in Malmo, Sweden, a large pro-Palestinian protest took place outside the performance. Inside, despite strict rules prohibiting politics from the event, performers and audience members tried to express their pro-Palestinian views. A huge security contingent has been deployed to prevent unrest.

Despite the prohibition on politics, Golan’s song, “Hurricane”, can be read as a comment on the Israeli psyche after October 7. It is a song about loss and finding strength in the midst of a storm. Reportedly, Eurovision rejected multiple versions of the song because the lyrics were too explicit in their references to the Hamas attacks on Israel. The necessary rewrites were probably for the best. Good pop songs employ metaphor and subtext so that they can operate on multiple levels. One person can hear the song and think of their recent breakup while another person sees a commentary on the Israeli national mood.

As the New Yorker noted years ago, America has yet to catch the Eurovision fever. We have our own versions of song contests but nothing like Eurovision, which is a combination of American Idol and the World Cup. Perhaps we can’t relate to the idea of rooting for a song based on nationality. After all, we take for granted that our music culture dominates the world.

Beyond musical patriotism, the American problem with Eurovision is its cheesiness. Americans love cool, and Eurovision is anything but, as Will Ferrell demonstrated in his send up, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Americans like their pop edgy, not crafted by committee to appeal to a wide audience.

“Hurricane” happens to be a great pop song (feel free to cast your vote), and while it may not be cool, it is certainly filled with heartfelt emotion, which may account for its popularity even in a continent that many of us think of as rabidly anti-Israel. Music sometimes makes a political statement, but it can also transcend politics. Sometimes it does both in the same song.

Leave the Camp

The situation on college campuses has deteriorated significantly since my message last week. Columbia once again called in police after pro-Palestinian protestors occupied a building. At the University of California Los Angeles, counter protesters violently attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment on that campus followed by the clearing of the site by authorities the next day. Where will all of this lead us?

Once again, I find myself pleading for a middle ground that doesn’t seem to exist and few are interested in. So many seem to want to write off the other side. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators refuse to speak with those who hold up signs of the hostages in Gaza. Leaders in the Jewish establishment want to write off other Jews, many of whom are young people, because of their anti-Zionist views.

The very idea of an encampment is symbolic and symptomatic of our age. In an encampment there is no dialogue, only demands. In an encampment there are not values to share with everyone, only community principles that must be adhered to in order to enter. Perhaps as a result of the polarization and vitriol, we have retreated into our camps and put up barricades to try and feel safe.

But as we have seen with the pro-Palestinian encampments, these places may provide a temporary bit of security to the participants, but they threaten others and sow chaos. Ultimately, true safety comes from the allies we build and bonds we form with people who may not agree with us, even on ideas we hold sacred.

I have heard the pro-Palestinian demonstrations described as “peace marches” or “anti-war protests”, but I think these descriptions are not correct. If the theme was truly peace, then the demand would not be a unilateral ceasefire on the part of Israel, because unilateral in this case means that Hamas does not need to stop fighting, only Israel.

A true anti-war movement would be calling for a peace treaty, not a ceasefire, but peace requires talking to your adversary. As Shimon Peres is reputed to have said, “You don’t make peace with friends, you make it with very unsavory enemies.” A true peace movement would require reaching out to those you vehemently disagree with, and what better place to do that but on college campuses, where Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Arabs, Zionists, and supporters of Palestinian nationalism all come to learn? What a missed opportunity to form bonds that could truly change a brutal reality.

I know how some in the pro-Palestinian encampments might respond. “Peace has been tried, and it didn’t work. Only through resistance and confrontation can we reach our goals.” But as Nicholas Kristof points out, these were the same tactics used in the 1960s to stop the Vietnam War and he argues that they actually prolonged the conflict. Many Americans were horrified at the actions of student protesters and so they voted for Richard Nixon, the candidate of law and order, who ultimately expanded the war.

Kristof urges the students to learn the lessons of history and take a different path, one that can actually help the Palestinian people. He encourages them to raise money for relief, which can save lives, and spend the summer in the West Bank learning from Palestinians on the ground and protecting them from the violence of Israeli settlers. Who knows if this last proposal is even possible, but it is far more constructive than sowing chaos and its inevitable backlash in America.

What happened to the vision of peace based on justice and mutual understanding? I think it is still out there, but we have to work hard to activate it. To do so we must get out of the comfortable encampments of our own anger, pain, and fear. It’s the only way to build a better future.

Pulled by the Extremes

Every college has its campus lore, the stories it tells about itself. At Columbia University, one of the important narratives is the tale of the 1968 student strike that shut down the university and did immense harm to the school’s reputation. Students were protesting the Vietnam War and a planned gym that would have separate entrances for students and community members. The occupation of administrative buildings ended with the arrest of over 700 students and hundreds of injuries. 

When I attended Columbia 25 years later, the university was emerging from the dark aftermath of the ’68 protests. The institution had lost donors and potential students and suffered additionally from the troubles of New York City in the 1970s and 1980s. By the time of the mid-1990s, Columbia once again became a place where students wanted to attend to take advantage of a rebounding world-class city and a unique institution of higher learning that focused on the classics of Western thought and literature. 

Memories of 1968 transformed from shame to a point of pride. Columbia was a place that valued free expression and was committed to giving students the space to speak their minds without resorting to repression. I have been thinking about this history a lot lately as pro-Palestinian protests have swept American campuses in the last six months. 

In WhatsApp groups that I am a part of and in opinion pieces I have read, there is a sentiment of outrage on the part of some Jewish parents and other observers at these anti-Israel activities. It is understandable to be angry about some of the disruptions these protests have caused and some of the rhetoric used, but as was the case at Columbia in 1968, outrage on the part of the older generation was the point. The students want to be extreme, say things that they know are offensive, and disrupt events. This is how they move the discussion in their favor. 

As it was in 1968, the reaction can often be an overreaction, which plays right into the hands of the protesters, and history has arguably repeated itself as Columbia’s president called in police to clear the recent pro-Palestinian encampment there. Thankfully, the arrests almost 56 years to the day after those of 1968 were not violent, but the tense situation is not over as more campuses around the country are seeing their own encampments and Columbia’s is back up and running, in defiance of university rules. 

The challenge is that Columbia, one of America’s great liberal institutions, is being pulled by the extremes of both sides of the political spectrum. As Franklin Foer wrote about in his article “The Golden Age of American Jews Is Ending”, liberalism has been a great boon for American Jews because it emphasizes pluralism, inquiry, and engagement with and balancing of opposing ideas. Jews like me have flocked to Columbia for generations because they can be part of a thriving Jewish campus community and challenge themselves to think critically in their classrooms, even if that scholarship might test their cherished assumptions. 

This week Columbia’s liberalism has been under its greatest challenge since 1968. On the one hand, members of Congress who have tolerated antisemitism in their ranks have used Jewish safety for their own political purposes. Some Jewish students certainly feel unsafe on campus, but forgive me if I am not convinced that these politicians have the Jewish community’s best interests at heart. 

Meanwhile, as these politicians have stoked the flames, the other side of the spectrum has eagerly taken the opportunity to further their own aims. Protesters, many of whom may not be Columbia students, have chanted vile hate speech. Calls for the burning of Tel Aviv, solidarity with Hamas, and telling Jews to go back to Poland cross a line. This is not First Amendment protected speech, it is harassment. 

As Foer points out, some on the left are not interested in dialogue and discussion of difficult issues. In many of the pro-Palestinian protests and encampments, people who want to enter these spaces must first denounce Israel before they are admitted. There is no sense that the opposing side might have truth or facts in its possession. These protesters say that they are open to people of all backgrounds, but how welcoming is it to insist that any Jew who wants to join must disavow the nation where 45% of all Jews in the world live? 

As many have noted, the semester is ending in the next few weeks. Students will return home, and the encampments will end of their own accord, but if 1968 is any precedent, the story will not be over. The Democratic National Convention this year, as it was 56 years ago, will be held in Chicago. In 1968, a much more violent police-protestor confrontation resulted in in one of the most frightening moments of the 1960s. The pro-Palestinian movement is planning its own protests in Chicago this year. Whether those descend into chaos remains to be seen. 

Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, another liberal bastion which happens to be my alma mater, and which is Columbia’s neighbor just a few blocks north, wrote before Passover: 

What is happening on the Columbia campus serves as a microcosm of a broader societal problem—the breakdown of constructive discourse and the inability to understand and respect differing viewpoints. The morphing of what might be legitimate debate into the worst and most aggressive forms of antisemitic expression is horrifying for us as Jews and as Americans. It must be unequivocally condemned, and it is particularly antithetical to everything that our universities teach and foster. 

Columbia will survive this latest crisis, but what lessons will emerge from this addition to the campus lore? I hope it will be that these events led the university to recommit itself to its liberal values as a place dedicated to free inquiry, community involvement, and shared responsibility. 

Feast of Freedom

Each year at Passover, we celebrate our redemption from slavery to freedom. It is a moment of triumph for our people, but how do you observe a holiday like that when you don’t feel a sense of victory? How can you say “we were slaves, but now we are free” when hostages sit in captivity? How can you say “let all who are hungry come and eat” when Gaza is at risk of famine?

This year I imagine we in the comfort of America will have to do what so many of our ancestors have done over millennia: live with cognitive dissonance. The Spanish refugee putting together a Seder in North Africa in 1493 or the Warsaw Ghetto resident in the spring of 1942 had to find a way to connect with the Exodus story even as they were sitting in darkness.

Jews in America have always connected the Haggadah to the fight for liberation of our people, but in the past, it was our brethren in other places: the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust, Soviet Jewry in the 1970s, Ethiopian Jews in the 1980s. The difference this year is that the isolation, pain, and trauma Jews feel is worldwide. We are not worried about our people in some far-flung location. We are worried about them, and ourselves.

Fortunately, we have some excellent scholars and writers who can offer us solace and inspiration at our Seders. At a class I taught this week, called Preparing for Passover: The Meaning of Freedom, I offered a source sheet with some texts that speak to me. Leah Solomon argues that the proclamation “Let all who are hungry come and eat” reminds us that it is far too easy to only see our own pain. These words should encourage us to empathize with all who are suffering, a sentiment echoed by Rachel Goldberg, the mother of one of the hostages who rejects the “enticing and delicious world of hatred.”

David Arnow challenges us to think about the causes of our present situation, however difficult such self-reflection might be. The rabbis of the midrash noted that “particular failings of Jacob, Joseph, and his brothers set in motion a chain of events that ended in disaster for their descendants.” What were our mistakes and acts of omission and commission? What can we do to make a positive change for our people?

Rabbi Eliezer Diamond notes the bittersweet promise of the Haggadah, that “in every generation they have risen up to destroy us,” but that God “rescues us from their hand.” Redemption is a process, not a completed act. Sometimes we are in the middle, after the destruction but before the redemption. It is precisely in these moments that we need that most precious of commodities: hope.

Finally, Rabbi Gordon Tucker shares his disappointment at the fact that at the Seder each year we open the door for Elijiah, but no one shows up (unless you are my house where a mysterious figure in a sheet enters to drink some grape juice and scurry off). The hoped for messiah doesn’t come, and instead the traditional text reads: “Pour your wrath upon the nations that did not know You.” We are angry at the brokenness of the world, but Rabbi Tucker suggests that perhaps it is not God whose wrath should pour out, but ours. At the moment when Elijiah doesn’t come, we must let our anger out but then let it go. To feel rage is natural, but we cannot let it consume us.

I hope that some of these reflections provide opportunities for discussion and insight at your Seders. May this Passover bring freedom to those in chains, redemption to those who suffer, and peace to all in a time of war.

Leverage

A few weeks ago, Senator Charles Schumer, the majority leader, made a speech on the Senator floor accusing Israel’s prime minister of being an obstacle to peace and calling for new elections. Many were outraged that Schumer would call for a change in government of an American ally. Others felt that he spoke hard truths that needed to be heard. 

The possibility of an American government official influencing an Israeli election recalls the moment in 1992 when a U.S. president helped bring down an Israeli government. President George H. W. Bush had just won the first Iraq War and was seeking to create a new world order based on stability and the rule of law. He felt that an obstacle to his foreign policy was the continued Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

He called for a peace conference to be held in Madrid where Israel would sit down for the first time with nations at war with it and, crucially, Palestinian representatives. In order to make this happen, Bush felt that Israel must stop building settlements in the occupied territories, so he called on Israel to freeze construction. The prime minister at the time, Yitzhak Shamir, refused. 

Bush decided to hold up approval of $10 billion in loan guarantees to Israel for the resettlement of the flood of Soviet immigrants coming to the country as leverage to secure the settlement freeze and Israel’s participation at the peace conference. A massive lobbying campaign was launched to get Congress to approve the loan guarantees over the president’s objection. Bush held a press conference where he described himself, the leader of the free world, as “one lonely little guy” facing off against “some powerful political forces”. 

In the end, the lonely little guy won and held up the loan guarantees while Shamir attended the peace conference. In the 1992 Israeli election, held a few months later, Shamir was defeated by the more moderate Yitzhak Rabin, who pledged to build a better relationship with the United States. It seems that the Israeli electorate was not willing to choose settlements in the West Bank and Gaza over a strong relationship with America. Rabin agreed to slow settlement construction and the loan guarantees were released by Bush. 

This episode was the last time an American president used leverage to change Israeli policy. Schumer, in his speech, noted that if Netanyahu did not alter course in the war, America should use that leverage again. It was likely a hint, with President Biden’s tacit approval, that U.S.-Israel relations could deteriorate further if a change is not made. Events since the speech, including the killing by Israel of 7 relief workers delivering food in Gaza, have only strained relations further. 

Bush lost his own election in 1992, and while his support in the Jewish community plummeted, few political analysts would argue that his Israel policy was to blame for his defeat. A poor economy and his broken promise not to raise taxes were more likely responsible. Nonetheless, since that time, no American president has withheld or conditioned aid the way Bush did.  

The Jewish vote might be one reason presidents are unlikely to take Bush’s approach, but the reality is that Republican presidents rarely do well in that demographic. Today, however, the evangelical Christian vote is far more important to Republican candidates. It’s unlikely that a Republican would defy their evangelical base, while a Democrat would be leery of angering key Jewish votes in battleground states. For now, at least, electoral politics likely means that Schumer’s speech was a warning, but unlikely to mark a major shift in America’s full support for Israel. 

My Shabbat with Joe Lieberman

The news that Joseph Lieberman died this week reminded me of the time twenty years ago that my family and I spent a Shabbat with the senator and his wife in Safed. We were living in Israel during my rabbinical studies and liked to travel around the country as much as possible. One weekend we decided to go north to the Galilee for a bit of vacation.

Safed is known for its mystical charms and is home to a number of kabbalistic synagogues and artists. On Friday evening we chose to attend a small Ashkenazi shul that was absolutely packed. The service featured joyous dancing and there in the midst of circle was Senator Lieberman. After the service, we went up to him to say Shabbat Shalom and I told him that we had a number of connections in common. He was gracious in giving us a few minutes of his time.

We happened to be staying at the Ruth Safed Rimonim Hotel, and to our surprise, Senator Lieberman was staying there too, which meant that we essentially spent the entire Shabbat with him and his wife. There weren’t a lot of guests staying there, and every meal in the hotel was buffet-style so we would see him in line to get food. Each time he would engage with us and continue our previous conversation.

I don’t remember the content of our brief conversations, only that Lieberman was a mensch. He seemed to be in Israel on some kind of official senatorian business because there were other people in his party, and they looked like they were having important discussions. He never seemed annoyed to see us again, nor did he avoid engaging. Mostly I like to tell the story so that I can begin by saying, “I once spent a Shabbat with Joe Lieberman” before I have to explain what actually happened.

There is a postscript to the story as well. A few years later, we saw Lieberman once again, this time in New York at the kosher restaurant Le Marais. Once again, he was gracious and said he remembered us, even if he didn’t.

Senator Lieberman will be remembered for his centrism and his devotion to both America and Judaism. He nearly became the first Jewish vice-president of the United States even though he was an observant Orthodox Jew. His near election may have been the high point of the 1990s Jewish golden age I wrote about a few weeks ago. Despite his commitment to Jewish practice, he and Al Gore won the popular vote with virtually no antisemitism during the campaign. Could the same be said today?

Regardless of one’s political position, we can all acknowledge that this week we lost a giant of the American Jewish community. When historians of the far future write of the history of American Jews, his story must surely be prominent. He represented the great success of our community. Unlike in other countries and time periods when Jewish politicians either converted or downplayed their Jewishness, he embraced it as an asset, and he was respected by non-Jews for his religious commitment. Joe Lieberman reminds us that we don’t have to choose. In America we can be our whole selves with both pride and success. May his memory be a blessing.