'A Part and Apart' The 'Happy Dilemma' of Jews in Politics Is the Choice Between Outsiderness And Full Acceptance in America

By GIL TROY

The Forward, APRIL 26, 2002

Jews in American Politics Edited by L. Sandy Maisel and Ira N. Forman Rowman & Littlefield, 512 pages, $39.95.

On March 22, a day after the Senate voted to abolish soft money donations, The New York Times reported that the supposedly reform-minded Democrats scored big-time. Haim Saban, the Israeli-born entertainment billionaire who prospered by feeding the violent fantasies of the post-toddler set with "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" and equally socially useful programs, donated a record $7 million to finance new Democratic headquarters. According to The Times, Saban himself suggested the sum. "We have two numbers in the Jewish belief that are lucky numbers: One is 18, and the other is seven," Saban said. "I thought 18 was kind of too high, so I went with seven."

Forged in revolution and suffused with idealism, America has always had a paradoxical approach to politics. The go-getter's bottom-line crassness mixes freely with the romantic patriots' high-falutin principles. Saban's mix of vulgarity and moralism, as both entertainer and donor, is not only quintessentially American but is also, alas, quintessentially Jewish. By demonstrating that such synergy is typical, the essays in "Jews in American Politics" show that Jews seem to fit into American politics as smoothly as a pol fits into a Fourth of July parade.

It tells both a great American success story and a great Jewish success story, celebrating what the poster boy for American Jewish political achievement, Senator Joseph Lieberman, who in the book's introduction calls "the important and special role" Jews can "play in the civic life of this great country." On one level, this handsome and authoritative book is the political junkie's equivalent of the American Jewish sports encyclopedia that was the standard bar mitzvah present of my youth. Governmental posts and years in office replace RBIs and ERAs, yet the boosterish tone and the desire to prove how normal yet special Jews are remains the same.

And yes, this book is, perhaps, like so much American Jewish historical literature, too focused on success. It will not explain the relieved whisperings after September 11 that Gore-Lieberman lost, so no one could somehow pin Osama bin Laden's massacre on America's Jewish veep. Nor does it dwell on the fact that Jews have functioned best behind the scenes, and that Lieberman is the rare Jewish pol who is in any way religious.

In his interesting essay on Jews and the media, "A Part and Apart," Matthew Kerbel, political science professor at Villanova University, acknowledges the dilemmas facing Jewish media stars: the compulsion to conform and the anxiety to assimilate. Yet there is no question that the rise of infotainment has been good for the Jews. Media stars Lesley Stahl and Mike Wallace, Charles Krauthammer and Larry King all deploy "two sets of related skills deeply rooted in Jewish history: the ability to instruct and the ability to amuse." These reporters, like most successful American Jews, follow a formula the Jacksonian Jew Mordechai Manuel Noah epitomized: "To be a good Jew at home, a good Christian on the air, and a good American all the time." As such, two centuries of American history and four millennia of Jewish history culminate — in the form of Barbara Walters.

Reading this book in the conventional linear way can get tedious. This approach, however, captures the richness of the American Jewish political experience as it highlights central themes. The mystery of American Jewish liberalism repeatedly emerges. Among the talented authors explaining its origins, persistence and breadth are Ira N. Forman, the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council and one of the editors, on American Jewish voting behavior, which was not always liberal; Brandeis University history professor Stephen Whitfield on the Jew as radical, and the political scientists Anna Greenberg and Kenneth Wald asking "Still Liberal After All These Years?" The essays are very readable and are well served by charts, subheadings and superb sidebars.

After 14 thematic essays, the second half of the book features more than 400 biographical snapshots, from the diplomats Morton Abramowitz and Elliott Abrams to Senator Edward Zorinsky of Nebraska and media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman.

In truth, the book is best sampled as a smorgasbord. Begin by reading an essay here or there, be it on "Jews and the Conservative Movement" or on Jewish party politicians. Cleanse your palette between essays by flipping through the back — reading the two Judge Ginsburgs — Douglas, who did not make it to the Supreme Court, and Ruth Bader, who did; Arthur Goldberg, U.N. ambassador, secretary of labor and Supreme Court justice; Emma Goldman, the radical anarchist; Samuel Gompers, the conservative labor leader. Flipping through the back, one is likely say, "Wow, I didn't know he was Jewish" — after encountering the likes of David Broder and Herbert Swope. The front features familiar but pithy insights, such as the neoconservative scholar Milton Himmelfarb's formulation that "Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans." Fresh nuggets abound, such as the one about Maud Nathan, the eloquent Jewish suffragette, about whom President Woodrow Wilson, who was less progressive than his reputation suggests, noted, "When I hear a woman talk so well in the public interest, it almost makes me believe in woman suffrage."

This volume will entertain, inform and inspire. But it should also provoke thought and stimulate debate. American Jewish historian David Dalin's insightful essay on presidents and Jews retells the perhaps apocryphal story about Theodore Roosevelt's speech at a dinner honoring the first Jew ever appointed to the cabinet. Roosevelt proclaimed that Oscar S. Straus was the best man for the job. The venerable, hearing-impaired financier Jacob Schiff then introduced Straus by explaining how Roosevelt had asked for the best Jew for the job.

American Jews want it both ways. We want to be as Jewish as we wish when we choose, but we also demand full acceptance as Americans when we choose. The prominent Johns Hopkins political scientist Benjamin Ginsburg's superb essay "Identity and Politics: Dilemmas of Jewish Leadership in America" addresses this oft-overlooked conflict. "How long can America's Jews simultaneously lead the United States and resist assimilation by it?" he asks. "How can a group fail to immerse itself fully in a country in which some of its leading lights serve as senators, high court justices, and cabinet secretaries?" Ginsburg is right: It may not "really be appropriate for a future Jewish president" to declare "Next year in Jerusalem" at a White House Seder.

Of course, as this encyclopedic book makes clear, this is a happy dilemma born of American Jewish success and American acceptance. In these dark days, when so much of the world is consumed by antisemitism, we should appreciate such dilemmas. And that is why, even as we say "Next Year in Jerusalem," we also say, "God bless America."

Gil Troy teaches American history at McGill University. His most recent books are "Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity, and the Challenges of Today" (Bronfman Jewish Education Center, 2002) and "Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons" (University of Kansas, 2000).