continued from page 13

Jews in the D

14 | MARCH 5 • 2020 

olam, and it’
s about revering the 
miracle that is the state of Israel, 
which — for their generation — 
was a dream fulfilled before their 
very eyes.
”
In Michigan, seen by most 
pundits as a bellwether state for 
the election at large, Bloomberg 
is courting voters like Sandi 
Reitelman, one of the estimated 
70,000 Jews who live in Metro 
Detroit, and buying ads in the 
Jewish News.
“The Jewish values of educa-
tion, caring for others, the feeling 
that we are a family, that we’
re 
honest, is what’
s really important 
to me,” Reitelman, who lives in 
Birmingham, tells 
the Jewish News. “I 
have to believe that 
Bloomberg believes 
and lives those val-
ues, given his philan-
thropic emphasis and 
what he did for New 
York City. It makes me all the 
more open to Mike Bloomberg 
as a candidate.”
Stuart Logan, a 63-year-
old lawyer from Bloomfield 
Township, says, “He focuses on 
what he can do for 
others; he’
s obviously 
not in it for himself.” 
Bloomberg has been 
using his money 
for “menschlichkeit” 
(humanity) and not 
to serve his own ego, Logan rea-
sons. “He’
s a responsible guy, a 
lot of his policies resonate with 
me and I think he’
s open-heart-
ed.”
But Logan has some choice 
words for the other member 
of the tribe vying for the high-
est seat in the land. “Under no 
circumstance would I vote for 
Sanders,” he states. “Sanders 
has traditionally minimized his 
Jewish contacts. It’
s never been 
something that’
s animated him.”

BERNIE SANDERS’
 SUPPORT
Sanders, the longtime Vermont 
politician, current senator and 
Independent with a lengthy 
history of caucusing with 
Democrats, is by all accounts 
the front-runner. He amassed an 
early delegate lead in the nation’
s 
first primary contests and has 
raised more in individual con-
tributions than anyone running 
for president this year, while 
championing progressive policies 
like Medicare for All and climate 
change legislation. 
Sanders was raised by Jewish-
American parents. His father, 
Elias, was an immigrant from 
the former Austro-Hungarian 
Empire who evaded the atroc-
ities of the Holocaust, while 
his mother Dorothy was born 
in New York to Jewish Russian 
immigrant parents. Though he 
leads a secular lifestyle, Sanders 
refers to his connection to the 
religion — although he has harsh 
words for Israel, and announced 
he would skip the American 
Israel Public Affairs Committee’
s 
annual conference held March 
1-3 in Washington, D.C. 
“I am very proud of being 
Jewish. I actually lived in Israel 
for some months. But what I 
happen to believe is that right 
now, sadly, tragically, in Israel, 
through [Prime Minister] Bibi 
Netanyahu, you have a reaction-
ary racist who is now running 
that country,” Sanders declared 
during the Feb. 25 Democratic 
debate in Charleston, South 
Carolina. “I happen to believe 
that what our foreign policy in 
the Mideast should be about is 
absolutely protecting the inde-
pendence and security of Israel, 
but you cannot ignore the suffer-
ing of the Palestinian people.”
In Detroit’
s New Center 
neighborhood, a group of young 
Jewish community organizers 

“Bernie embodies a kind of 
dialogue with Jewish elders 
that I wish we could have 
more oft
 en around here.”

— SUSANNAH GOODMAN ON BERNIE SANDERS

ANTHONY LANZILOTE

Stuart Logan

 
Sandi 
Reitelman

ANTHONY LANZILOTE