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January 17, 2003/Shevat 14 5763, Vol. 55, No. 21
Pride, fear after campaign announcement
PETER EPHROSS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The American public appears to be ready for a Jewish president - but some American Jews may be a little more anxious about the idea.
Even though it's the second time around for Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) in the national spotlight, it's different now that he's gunning for the top slot on the ticket.
Lieberman, who ran as Al Gore's vice presidential nominee in 2000, announced this week that he would seek the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
For most Jews, there's an immediate swelling of pride that an M.O.T. - a member of the tribe - is seriously being considered as a presidential candidate. However, "after the pride is past, and I think that will pass pretty quickly," there will be "ambivalence from both ends - the liberals and the traditionalists," said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology and Jewish studies at the City University of New York.
For those who are more liberal than Jewish, there's ambivalence that the face of Judaism presented to the American public is one of observance. Lieberman prays at a modern Orthodox synagogue in Washington and observes the laws of kashrut and Shabbat.
"There are always Jews who will look over their shoulder and feel uncomfortable when a co-religionist rises to a highly visible position of society. This is a reflection of their own personal discomfort with who they are," said Rabbi Joshua Plaut, the executive director of the Center for Jewish History in New York.
On the flip side, among some Orthodox Jews, there's a fear that Lieberman will be seen as a negative model of adaptation to the modern world, Heilman says.
"What do you do with an Orthodox Jew who will have a Christmas tree in his house, which he will have in the White House if he is president," said Heilman, the author of "Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry."
While almost all U.S. Jews fall somewhere in between these two poles, many may experience at last a muted aspect of these feelings. And for some Jews across the religious spectrum whose Judaism derives primarily from a fear of anti-Semitism, that ambivalence morphs into fear.
These Jews fear that "if Jews are going to be in the public arena, then it will increase anti-Semitism," said Eva Fogelman, a New York-based psychologist. If anything goes wrong," Fogelman said, these Jews worry that "the Jews as a group will be blamed."
These worries fly in the face of facts: Polls indicate that Americans don't really care about a candidate's religion anymore. In 1937, the Gallup organization found that 46 percent of Americans would vote for a Jewish person for president. By 1999, that number had climbed to 92 percent.
Lieberman ran alongside Gore in 2000 with almost no problems related to his religion - and no evidence that his Jewishness hurt the Democratic ticket. But the events of the past few years - the echoes of Sept. 11 and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence - have created a heightened anxiety.
"The American Jewish community is also in a somewhat different place than it was two years ago," said Jonathan Sarna, Braun professor of Jewish history at Brandeis University. "The community is much more nervous, about anti-Semitism domestically, about Israel, about the fate of Jews around the world."
Whatever their reactions, many American Jews respond strongly to Lieberman's nomination. Whether this will translate into votes is another matter.
JTA Staff Writer Joe Berkofsky in New York contributed to this report.
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