Mr. Speaker

of Israel and so on," Mr. Bookbinder said.
"But in the more general sense, he's a dis-
aster for what we believe in."
When asked what fears Jews might
have about Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Bookbinder
listed what many Democrats say is on the
cutting block — support for affirmative ac-
tion, welfare, prohibition of prayer in pub-
lic school, no private-school vouchers,
abortion rights, and rights of women and
homosexuals.
To Arthur Schechter, president of the
Jewish Federation of Greater Houston and
active in national Democratic politics, Mr.
Gingrich's proposals to overhaul the scope
and size of fluids to social-service agencies
is a catastrophe.
Mr. Schechter and Priscilla Siskin, pres-
ident of Greater Chattanooga's Jewish Fed-
eration, recently blasted the Contract With
America in a statement issued
by the Democratic National
Committee as "mean-spirited
cuts" from which the Jewish
federation movement cannot
recover.
'We'll lose more than $4 mil-
lion [in Houston] if all of this
passes," Mr. Schechter said in
an interview, noting that he is
speaking for himself and not
the federation. "Social justice
issues are basically irrelevant
to the real ideologues that fol-
low Newt Gingrich...Reform of
welfare is something that we
need to do, but to talk about
block grants without national
standards is bad. As a Jewish
person, I find it difficult to buy
into."
But Jewish Republicans try
to paint the Speaker as a new
Jack Kemp, a fiscal conserva-
tive concerned with long-term
improvement of social welfare
programs. In the 1980s, Mr.
Kemp, then a representative
from New York and later
George Bush's secretary of
housing and urban develop-
ment, was one of Mr. Gingrich's mentors.

,

Rising Jewish
Conservatives

No one doubts that the rise of the Repub-
lican party has brought the ascent of Jew-
ish conservative political activists.
"The 25-to-30 percent of the communi-
ty that was always Republican and con-
servative, which during the height of the
liberal culture in the '50s, '60s and '70s
was unorganized and in disarray, has
become well-funded and organized,"
said Rabbi David Saperstein of the
Reform movement's Religious Action
Center in Washington, D.C. "In the spec-
trum of voices in Jewish America, there
are far more voices than there had been
and they are more assertive. And that's
healthy."
Jews, however, remain an exception in
the rising Republican tide in American pol-
itics. In the November 1994 Republican
onslaught, several independent polls, in-
cluding one taken by the New York Times

And The Jews

"A Sensitive Spirituality"

T

hree years ago Rep. Newt Gin-
grich (R-Ga.) spoke at Congrega-
tion Etz Chaim, which sits in
Georgia's Sixth Congressional Dis-
trict, which he represents.
Hardly anyone noticed him walk into
the room that day. After joining the
Men's Club Sunday Brunch for the stan-
dard fare of bagels, lox and noodle kugel,
he gave a wide-ranging talk on every-
thing from the controversy surrounding
Eastern Airlines' bankruptcy to U.S. sup-
port for Israel.
Two days after returning from the
104th Congress' marathon first 100 days,
Mr. Gingrich walked into Etz Chaim's

sanctuary. Many of the 400 people pre-
sent rose to applaud the speaker of the
U.S. House of Representatives. His exit
almost an hour later was slowed by au-
tograph seekers.
Following the talk, in his nearby of-
fice, Mr. Gingrich spoke with Atlanta
Jewish Times Managing Editor Neil Ru-
bin. The following are excerpts from that
conversation.

In 1992, you said that politicians like your-
self stand between the world and another
Auschvirtz. Could you further explain what you
meant by that?

Newt Gingrich: It's something best said
by George Bernard Shaw: "That all it
takes for evil men to succeed is for good
men to do nothing." You add women in
and it's essentially the way you say it.
Unless you have people willing to ded-
icate their lives to extending and pre-
serving freedom, and who are willing to
take real risks and stand for what they

•

believe in, you inevitably have a decay
towards a system of barbarism.

In the last elections, about three-quarters of
Americans Jews voted for Democrats. Why do
you think that is?

NG: First, there is the communitarian
tradition.You have a very substantial
part of the Jewish population that has
historically believed in collective action,
which has believed in government.
There is a resistance to the idea, for
example, that the welfare state has failed
and that you have to find a non bureau-
cratic mechanism for transforming the
poor...It jars people who see an in-
grained compassion at the heart of
their belief.
Second, particularly for an awful
lot of relatively secular Jews, there's
a jarringness to the Republican Par-
ty, which from Reagan on is a party
in which the word Creator really does
mean something, and is wrestling
with, 'How do you reestablish a le-
gitimate, spiritual revival in Ameri-
ca that's not political and not partisan
or sectarian, but recognizes the cen-
trality of God?'
Third, the whole issue of abortion
choice and right to life may make it
harder to appeal instantly to the Jew-
ish community...We think the welfare
state is failing; as that failure is in-
creasingly recognized by people in the
Jewish community, there's a growing
willingness to say that there's a com-
mon ground...
I think the issue is that the cost of
§ secularism in its rawest form may be
so . . great that we have to find a new
vision of it — I'm going to use a sen-
sational, hokey term — a sensitive
spirituality.

How does your belief in God affect your de-
sire to do public service?

NG: When I was [a boy], I sat and
watched my great-grandfather in the
process of dying. It struck me very deeply
that that's how it ends. It's the sort of
moment when you become very cynical
or a believer.
It led to a quest of trying to under-
stand what my duty was, which I
thought was essentially a spiritual one,
not a secular decision. Then, as a teen-
ager we were coming home from Europe
with my family, from my dad's service
in the military, on this large transport
ship. I spent days walking around the
ship, deciding what to do. I was really
kind of in a daze and I asked God what
I should do. I was asking God if this was
the right thing to do, what I'm doing now.

At the AIPAC policy conference last year, you
said that you were impressed with Yassir Arafat.
Do you still feel that way?

NG: He's got an enormously hard job.

He has to defeat Hamas and Islamic Ji-
had and has economic problems and
social problems to deal with all simul-
taneously with remarkably little expe-
rience politically and economically. It's
going to take a tremendous amount of
help from Mubarak and Hussein for him
to get support.
It's very difficult for Israelis to endure
the cost of terrorism...It very much con-
cerns me. You can't have this level of in-
security and level of inhuman happening
without there being a cost.

How do you feel about stationing US. troops
on the Golan Heights to monitor an Israel-Syr-
ia accord?

NG: I wouldn't close the door on it, but
I'm very skeptical. In the Sinai, you have
got an entire desert and you have a long
time to prepare. I don't want to get into
a British commitment to Poland and Bel-
gium in 1914 when they couldn't or didn't
honor their treaties.

Does that mean that the US. should be total-
ly committed to enforcing such an accord if
there is one?

NG: There's much to be said for the idea
that Israel should always be prepared
to survive no matter what anyone else
does. What if you get a weak president
down the road? What if in three presi-
dents you have one that does not value
the Israel relationship as much? Re-
member Eisenhower back in '56. Re-
member what Kissinger and Nixon did
in '73.

Last year at AIPAC you also asked people to
see Schindler's List What was the message of
that film to you?

NG: Actually, I haven't seen it, but I
want to. What I said is that people who
want to see it need to ask not just about
World War II, but today.
There is a tremendous pressure to
ask ourselves what would you do in
Rwanda if it were the week before
500,000 people are about to be chopped
to death, which is a truly horrifying ex-
perience.

When do you think there will be an amendment
to the U.S. Constitution on prayer in public
school?

NG: I don't know if there will be one. The
whole difficulty right now is to find a
broadly defined prayer with Jewish and
Christian leaders. It will be a suggested
prayer.
Many in the Jewish community are
going to be surprised that they have
much in common with the Christian
Coalition. There is no one in the Chris-
tian Coalition that I have spoken with
who wants mandatory prayer...We're
just saying that the government should
not stand in the way of prayer.

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