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October 27, 2000/28 Tammuz 5760, Vol. 53, No.5
Busy life doesn't interfere with faith
TAMI BICKLEY
Associate Editor
On a Monday morning in late August, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and his wife awoke to the phone ringing in their Connecticut home.
That call changed their lives, informing the senator that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore had chosen him as his vice-presidential running mate.
The whirlwind of a seemingly endless campaign trail was just beginning.
In American politics, a major-party candidate's spouse ultimately bears nearly as much weight of public scrutiny as the candidate. And Hadassah Lieberman, 52, found this out early in the game.
"It has been one thing after another," she told a group of Arizona businesswomen Oct. 16 at an afternoon rally in Phoenix. "I have had (to figure out) what to wear, what to say. It's been quite an experience."
Seated next to Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, Lieberman answered questions about everything from her personal life to her political agenda to her husband's plans, should he and Vice President Gore be elected Nov. 7.
But mostly, she dealt with issues relating to childcare, women's rights and health care.
The Gore-Lieberman ticket, she said, is the only one discussing issues "all over the country that really go from the cradle to the grave." She asserted that seniors would be better off with Gore and her husband in office.
"Health care is something the Gore-Lieberman ticket is very concerned about," she said. "(We are concerned) that those seniors who have trouble meeting their costs on a monthly basis don't have to choose between dinner and ... medication."
Women also stand to benefit if the Democratic ticket wins, she said, prompting one local businesswoman to ask, "How visible will your input be in the (Gore-Lieberman) administration?"
"Right now, as I say to my husband all the time, 'this is my new job.' So I am doing nothing but this all the time," she responded, adding that her hectic traveling schedule has made it difficult for her to see her family, much less her friends.
Such work, she joked, "is work for 25-year-olds."
The Liebermans, known as a tight-knit family, have been together just once a week during the campaign.
Hadassah and Joseph Lieberman, married since 1983, have four children and two grandchildren.
The Liebermans - who usually attend Shabbat services together at an Orthodox synagogue walking distance from one of their homes in Washington, D.C., or New Haven, Conn., - now observe the Sabbath elsewhere - and apart.
"I complain about it every now and again to my friends," she said of her separation from her family.
With or without her husband at her side, Hadassah Lieberman adheres to the practices of observant Judaism.
Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, she immigrated to the United States with her family when she was a year old. The daughter of a rabbi, she was raised in an Orthodox household.
She describes the Lieberman family's level of faith as Jewishly "observant" rather than Orthodox. That faith has been the focus of much public attention, as Joseph Lieberman possibly stands to become the nation's first Jewish vice president.
While she says the attention does not bother her, she wants to keep faith and religion two separate issues.
"Faith comes in many different packages from many different sources," she explained. "For some of us, like my husband and myself, religion empowers us and we get our faith out of religion. But many other people get their faith from different religions or from a different source other than religion. We believe that faith helps us get stronger and shapes our values and empowers us."
Touching on the violence in the Middle East, Lieberman said, "This is an unfortunate situation and we're all praying for the peace process to begin again, and we're just hoping that peace will again take root."
In Phoenix, Lieberman also met with supporters at the home of Saul and Elaine Schreiber.
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