"I told Mrs. Clinton how much
I respected her and admired her
courage and strength," Syme said.
"I told the president I felt the atti-
tude of fairness and the reservoir
of forgiveness would see him
through this.
"His eyes misted up, he took
my arm, and said 'thank you,
rabbi."'
Although his past as a political
prognosticator is admittedly poor,
Syme feels Clinton's resignation is
not in the cards.
"It's a profoundly Jewish ideal
that the gates of repentance are
always open," he said. "If we deny
everyone to truly repent, we will
have been untrue to our ideals."
At the breakfast, Clinton read
passages from the "Gates of
Repentance," a Reform text given
to him several days earlier by
Miami lawyer Ira Leesfield at a
fund-raiser.
"I was very surprised it received
all this attention," Leesfield said in
an interview. "I shared it with him

A Discreet

Silence

Local politicians and Jewish leaders
are mostly staying mum on the Clinton scandal.

HARRY KIRSBAUM
Staff Writer

L

ocal Jewish leaders and
politicians were•either not
talking or making cautious
wait-and-see statements
concerning the future of President -
William Clinton, whose term official-
ly ends January 20, 2001.
In a carefully worded faxed state-
ment, dated Sept. 10, U.S. Sen.
Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said, "The
a. solemn issue before the House of
a.
Representatives is whether or not
the President has committed an
impeachable offense. It is impor-
tant for our country that the
0 Congress proceed in a bipartisan,
thoughtful and fair way, without
prejudgment. The Starr report's
allegations and evidence and the
Gilda Jacobs
White House response to them
must be considered together.
"The President's conduct clearly
(indeed by his own admission) was
immoral and irresponsible. The
issue before the House is whether
his conduct constitutes an
impeachable offense."
U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-
Mich.) also faxed a statement saying
he would read the Starr report and
the supporting evidence and will fol-
low the facts "wherever they might
lead and whether that leads to an
impeachment proceeding or not.
"If it does, as a member of the
Senate, I'll be keeping my counsel at
that time because that's a very impor-
tant responsibility that I may ulti-
mately have to undertake.
"I do want to say, however, based
on what President Clinton himself,
has admitted to this point, I'm very
concerned. I find the behavior he's
described quite disturbing. Like most

0

President Bill Clinton speaks at the
annual White House prayer break-
fast.
to give him some insight I thought
might be helpful to him. He was
quite moved by the power and the
pointedness of that prayer."
Ironically, Leesfield's daughter
Jennifer was a White House intern
at the same time as Monica
Lewinsky, whose grand jury testi-
mony about her relationship with
Clinton made last week's indepen-
dent counsel report X-rated read-
ing.
In his address, Clinton said the
HELPING CLINTON on page 12

DISCREET SILENCE on page 12

Senator Carl Levin

Senator Spencer Abraham

Doug Ross

9/18

199

Detroit Jewish News 11

