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This Shabbat, I will share the third and final part of a sermon series on Zionism and Jewish American identity, inspired by a recent conference I attended called Zionism: A New Conversation. In my final sermon, I will ask the question, "Who owns Zionism?" For those who are looking to learn more about the topic, I highly recommend listening to Yehuda Kurtzer’s Podcast: Identity Crisis, episode 180: Who Get’s To Be A Zionist? where he discusses how Jewish organizations are finding it increasingly challenging to represent the wide diversity of North American perspectives on Zionism.
Click here to read the previous two sermons, focusing on different aspects of Jewish peoplehood and memory in a post-October 7th world, or in the boxes below.
Finally, I’d like to end on a somber note as we mark the passing of former Senator Joe Lieberman.
When I was a high school teenager in American History class, our teacher taught us historical events and his viewpoint on those events. One day, he proudly proclaimed that America is a Christian country. I argued back, but he was hearing nothing of it. That was the reality back then; there had not been a Jewish President or Vice President, and few of us imagined the country would elect a Jewish candidate. But, in 2000, a couple of years after that history class, Senator Joe Lieberman was chosen to run as vice president with then VP Al Gore.
As a young Jew, he made me feel that this country could be really accepting of us. He was an atypical candidate at the time. He wasn't cool like Bill Clinton, but the country was seeking stability and a return to morality. Joe Lieberman wasn’t the ‘typical’ Jew in the sense that he was an openly religiously observant Jew. Most Jews in office were more ‘culturally’ Jewish, but as a young Jewish man who was observant, it was incredible to see how this country embraced a Jewish man who openly showed his faith to the world.
I highly recommend an article by Rabbi Daniel Cohen, Joe Lieberman’s rabbi, titled, “Joe Lieberman’s rabbi on the senator who was ‘one of us.’" In his eulogy, Rabbi Cohen, said, “He was a senator, but at the same time, he sat in seats like everybody else, he enjoyed the kiddush like everybody else…When he walked home from shul, he got soaked on rainy days. He was one of us.” Rabbi Cohen saw Lieberman as “the modern embodiment of the biblical Joseph-somebody who can really serve as a role model for the vision of being a Jew, which is not isolating oneself from the world, but engaging in elevating the world.” He thought the senator’s commitment to religious observance was the product of a series of minor decisions guided by a commitment to God: “A life is built by small decisions, not major ones,” Cohen said. “And Senator Lieberman understood that character is built over time.”
May his memory be a blessing,
Rabbi David Baum
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