Word: judaisms
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...pride that many Jews take in Lieberman's selection is expansive and genuine. But the media's single-minded focus on the senator's Judaism is unusual, to say the least. The possible addition of another Jew to the upper echelons of government hardly seems like news. The Clinton administration in particular has promoted significant numbers of Jews to positions almost as high as the vice presidency: Many of his top Cabinet deputies, like Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin '61, come from Jewish backgrounds. Both of Clinton's appointees to the Supreme Court...
...spotlight on Lieberman illuminates a subtle tension in American Jewry that is often overlooked by the national media. Judaism is both an ethnicity and a religion, but the most prominent Jews in American life usually embody the former quality more than the latter. Jewish senators like Barbara Boxer or Charles E. Schumer '71 rarely quote from Chronicles, or any part of the Bible. Seinfeld, Kramer and Elaine never set foot in a synagogue. There are few rabbis or religious Jews who enter public debates with the forcefulness of Jerry Falwell or Cardinal O'Connor. But Lieberman is different: His most...
...Orthodox Jews. Ironically, those preconceived notions may be strongest among the same liberal ethnic Jews who are themselves so well-represented. The day after the announcement, I asked a Jewish friend what his mother thought of the choice. She was pleased, he said, but wary, because she considers Orthodox Judaism "essentially a cult." Even more open-minded ethnic Jews might feel alienated by Lieberman's strongly religious language and values. He may encounter that kind of skepticism next week in Los Angeles, where in heavily Jewish Hollywood, Judaism is less a religion than a state of mind...
...much he seemed to genuinely enjoy the joke. Whenever I ran into him, he always brought it up. He could have been merely courting a TIME reporter, but my gut told me that he had (A) a genuine sense of humor, (B) secure enough feelings about his Judaism and the place of Jews in the world that he could laugh about it and (C) a healthy lack of pomposity...
...Saturday reading philosophy instead of attending synagogue, and found that my tradition was unwilling to let me wallow in my meaninglessness. Abraham Joshua Heschel, the greatest Jewish philosopher of our time, was only one of the many voices insisting that we start with what we can. "The teaching of Judaism is the theology of the common deed," he wrote. Doing things can make a difference. Powerful changes are in fact only possible by immersing ourselves in the world and trying to take part. "Perhaps the essential teaching of Judaism is that in doing the finite we may perceive the infinite...