Friday, July 3, 2015

America's First Jewish President?

delivered by Rabbi David Novak
Israel Congregation of Manchester
Manchester Center, Vermont
June 2015

Bernie Sanders D’var Torah


Just imagine if America has a breakthrough in the 2016 election.

Just imagine.

Imagine if, for the first time, ever, in our over two hundred years of democratic government

we, the United States electorate, elect our first

Jewish

President of the United States.

Yes, that would be Bernie Sanders, our state’s junior senator, the man everyone here knows as “Bernie.”  

Of course a man who has made his career as a socialist mayor of Burlington, then member of the United States House and now junior senator from Vermont, running for president on the Democratic ticket and always speaking his mind is once again running on a platform that could only be called “Bernie-esque” We all know what that means.

It’s the kind of straight talk you’d expect from Bernie, and when you are talking about Bernie, that is probably the one thing that all of us can agree upon.

Still, this is not a campaign ad for him.

After all, it is not my job to advocate for any one candidate from the bimah of this congregation, nor would I do so.

What is interesting, though, is the fact that Bernie is Jewish and the campaign is getting some surprising traction in the national media because of his being part of the Jewish People.  

The attention to Bernie is showing up in interesting ways for him and for the Jewish community.

First is what happened to him a little more than a week ago.

Bernie was on the nationally syndicated public radio Diane Rehm show,  produced at WAMU in Washington, DC and heard in our region on New Hampshire Public Radio.  

The Rehm show’s website says that it is heard by more than 2.4 million people weekly.  

Before discussing what happened, just a word on how Diane Rehm sounds on the radio and in-person.  Because of an illness that afflicted her, spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological voice disorder that causes strained, difficult speech, it makes her sound elderly,and strained.  On first hearing her one might think that she is doing the show well into late life.  That, however, is not the case.  

Her show attracts national figures, including Senator Sanders.  The day he appeared on her program it went like this:

Diane Rehm: Senator, you have dual citizenship with Israel.

Bernie Sanders: Well, no I do not have dual citizenship with Israel. I'm an American. I don't know where that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions. No, I'm an American citizen, period.

Rehm: I understand from a list we have gotten that you were on that list.

Sanders: No.

Rehm: Forgive me if that is—

Sanders: That's some of the nonsense that goes on in the internet. But that is absolutely not true.

Rehm: Interesting. Are there members of Congress who do have dual citizenship or is that part of the fable?

Sanders: I honestly don't know but I have read that on the internet. You know, my dad came to this country from Poland at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket. He loved this country. I am, you know, I got offended a little bit by that comment, and I know it's been on the internet. I am obviously an American citizen and I do not have any dual citizenship.”

Notice how Rehm persisted, first stating factually that Bernie had dual citizenship, then asking if there are members of Congress with dual citizenship.  

For a woman who has been hosting a radio talk show from Washington these are some naive accusations to make, falling right into a worn-out trope that was once used on Roman Catholics Al Smith and John Kennedy that they would answer to the pope.

The ADL’s Abe Foxman, on the eve of his retirement, said in a statement:

“Diane Rehm’s questions were inappropriate, insensitive questioning without any minimal journalistic checking of claims. Such a statement is not only factually incorrect, but has no place in such an interview.

“It is deeply troubling to think that a well-respected media outlet like NPR would apparently rely on unsubstantiated information from the Internet in its preparation for a guest.

“Ms. Rehm’s description and follow-up question about whether other Senators have dual citizenship with Israel play into classic anti-Semitic charges of dual loyalty. Such charges have been leveled for centuries and have been a catalyst for scapegoating and vilifying Jews.
“Senator Sanders deserves a public apology, as do NPR listeners.”

Rehm published an apology the next day on her website and issued one on-air:    “. . . instead of asking it as a question I stated it as fact. That was wrong. He does NOT have dual citizenship and Senator Sanders immediately corrected me.

“I should have explained to him and to you why I felt this was a relevant question and something he might like to address.

“I apologize to Senator Sanders and to you for having made an erroneous statement. However, I am glad to play a role in putting this rumor to rest.”

Interesting apology:  she raised the dual citizen canard as a fact to put it to rest.  

Foxman added after seeing Rehm’s statement:

“Her mistake was to not research it before she even stated it as fact.  She shouldn’t have asked the question, period.  Had she researched it, she wouldn’t have raised it at all.  Because her question challenges not only his loyalty, but also Jewish loyalties to this country.

Insulting it was to state it to Senator Sanders as a fact.  And it was stupid for it not to be flagged by a woman of Rehm’s considerable talent.  She should have better producers, at a minimum, and enough judgment to have asked the Senator off-air about the allegation before stating it as a fact on the air.   

My hope is that this is the last we will hear on this subject, but I’m not holding my breath.

Then there’s Israel and where Bernie stands on Israel as a member of the United States Senate and over the length of his political career.  

Most people with Bernie’s political proclivities are known for their less than firm support for Israel’s right to exist.  

Which is why news coverage is beginning to examine Bernie’s relation to Israel as he is being taken as a serious candidate for president.

To know Bernie is to know that after college he lived on a kibbutz.  To know Bernie is to also know that the majority of his father’s family were killed in the Shoah, and as above, his father came to this country, penniless, when he was 17.

Bernie’s politics vis-a-vis Israel were raised in an article in this week’s Forward.  On his website under “Israel and Gaza” was this:

Sen. Sanders is deeply troubled by the outbreak of violence in Gaza. It is extraordinarily depressing that year after year, decade after decade, the wars and killing continue without any apparent progress toward the creation of a permanent peace. While the summer of 2014 was a particularly contentious time in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, Sen. Sanders’ hope is that the United States will, in the future, help play a leading role in creating a permanent two-state solution. To achieve that outcome the U.S. must work with the international community to support a settlement that respects the legitimate claims and grievances of both sides, lifts the blockade of Gaza, resolves the borders of the West Bank, and allows both the Israeli and Palestinian people to live in peace.

“The bottom line is that Israel must have the right to exist in peace and security, just as the Palestinians must have the right to a homeland in which they and they alone control their political system and their economy.”

The article in the Forward cites a town hall meeting in Cabot last summer, available on YouTube.  

First came a question about Israel’s ongoing bombings in Gaza; then an interruption from audience members angry at Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Another interruption followed. And then, onstage, Senator Bernie Sanders, sleeves rolled to his elbows, shouted at a constituent to shut up.

But Sanders’ annoyed shut-down of the critic of Israel, and pieces of his lecture on the dangers of Hamas that followed, may mask a deeper trend in Bernie’s thinking: the asymmetrical nature of war between Hamas and the IDF meant that, at least at the time, it seemed that more damage was being done to Palestinian civilians under Hamas rule than to Israelis.

It was not for lack of Hamas’s trying.  Israel benefited greatly from Iron Dome, Israeli-invented and American funded, to intercept many of the rockets that threatened Israeli population centers.  


In the video of the August 2014 town hall, at the height of the Gaza conflict, Bernie asserted that Israel had “overreacted,” and that the bombing of UN facilities was “terribly, terribly wrong,” while also noting that Hamas was launching rockets from populated areas.  In other words, yes, bombing of UN facilities is wrong, but, without saying it, what was Israel to do?

Throughout much of his political career Bernie has avoided talking much about Israel.  Aaron Keyak, a Democratic political consultant and the managing director of Bluelight Strategies said, “I know he’s often rated as the most liberal senator, but when I see Senator Bernie Sanders, I see someone who is a typical pro-Israel Jewish Democrat.”

The article’s author searched the Congressional Record, finding very few statements about Israel by Sanders on the floor of the House or the Senate. In 2002, during the debate over the resolution that authorized President George W. Bush to use military force in Iraq, Sanders, then a House member, asked whether an invasion of Iraq would worsen the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And in 2008, Sanders was one of 100 co-sponsors of a Senate resolution to recognize the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding.  He also boycotted the Prime Minister’s recent address to congress.

Faced with what a somewhat enigmatic positions on Israel, I turned to Yoram Samets, a pro-Israel activist from Burlington.  I asked him about his opinion of Bernie and Israel.

Samets wrote back saying:  “He [Bernie] is a strong advocate of Israel.  And [he is] deeply challenged by the Prime Minister and the right leaning government.  But from my perspective he would be better for Israel than our current President.  Bernie has a deeper understanding of the challenges Jews (Israel) face in the world. And he is very aware and concerned about what is taking place in the neighborhood.

“His Israel issues are about politics, economics and the impact on family.  His American issues are about politics, economics and the impact on family.”  

In other words, Bernie is being consistent in his criticism of the Israeli and the American governments about the issues that matter for people who may not be enfranchised in government.  That’s Bernie.  

So for Bernie the question is:  Does what he advocates for us here at home differ from what he would advocate for Israel if he became president for  United States?

I will give Aaron Keyak, the political consultant quoted above the last word:  

“I think the people who find it surprising that Bernie Sanders is pro-Israel are some of the same people who are quick to paint progressives as anti-Israel. He prefers for Israel to have a left of center government, but he still fundamentally supports Israel.”

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