62 | APRIL 4 • 2024
J
oseph Lieberman, a
longtime senator from
Connecticut who as Al
Gore’s running mate in 2000
became the first Jewish member
of a major presidential ticket,
died March 27, 2024. He was
82.
A statement sent to former
staffers and reported widely said
Lieberman had suffered compli-
cations from a fall.
A moderate — some would
say conservative — Democrat
turned independent, Lieberman
was known for his attempts to
build bridges in an increasingly
polarized Washington, some-
times losing old friends and
allies along the way.
He also became one of the
most visible role models for
Jewish observance in high
places, in contrast to the largely
secular Jewish politicians who
had preceded him on the public
stage.
In 2011, he wrote The Gift of
Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty
of the Sabbath. In it he wrote
how on Friday nights he would
walk the roughly four miles
from the Capitol to his home in
Georgetown after a late vote so
as not to violate Shabbat — to
the bemusement and admira-
tion of Capitol police.
In announcing that he would
not be running for reelection
in 2012, Lieberman spoke in
emotional terms about what
it meant for the grandson of
Jewish immigrants to be consid-
ered for a role just a heartbeat
from the presidency.
“I can’t help but also think
about my four grandparents
and the journey they traveled
more than a century ago,
” he
said. “Even they could not have
dreamed that their grandson
would end up a United States
senator and, incidentally, a bar-
rier-breaking candidate for vice
president.
”
That legacy, the first Jewish
candidate on a major ticket,
would be the Lieberman leg-
acy to outlast all others, Ira
Forman, the former director of
the National Jewish Democratic
Council, declared at the time.
“It was an electric moment,
”
Forman recalled of Gore’s
choice of Lieberman in 2000.
“It galvanized the feeling that
everything is open to you.
”
The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC
memorialized Lieberman as
“indefatigable in advancing
pro-Israel policy and legisla-
tion.
” He watched his onetime
party drift away from his
beloved Israel, and it pained
him. Last week, in one of his
last public statements, he exco-
riated Sen. Chuck Schumer, the
Jewish senator from New York
who called for new elections in
Israel.
“Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer last Thursday
crossed a political red line
that had never before been
breached by a leader of his
stature and never should be
again,
” Lieberman wrote in the
Wall Street Journal.
Lieberman’s religious ori-
entation also came in to play
when he emerged as a voice
of traditional values within a
party that he feared had surren-
dered the moral high ground to
Republicans.
In 1998, he delivered a floor
speech excoriating President
Bill Clinton for his affair with
an intern, Monica Lewinsky.
He called his one-time friend
“immoral” and said that Clinton
had “weakened” the presidency.
The speech sent out shock-
waves — news networks inter-
rupted broadcasts to go to the
Senate floor — but it also staved
off calls for Clinton’s removal
from office.
It was credited with salvag-
ing the presidency when the
Senate subsequently rejected the
U.S. House of Representatives’
impeachment. Through a
Democrat’s excoriation of
a Democratic president,
Lieberman seemed to have pun-
ished Clinton enough.
‘MASTERFUL’ POLITICIAN
JN Publisher Emeritus Arthur
Horwitz was a fellow con-
gregant and neighbor of
Lieberman in New Haven,
Connecticut, and served in
Joe’s first campaign for elect-
ed public office in the 1970
Democratic primary against
the powerful state Senate
Majority Leader Ed Marcus.
“He led a masterful left-
wing coalition anchored by
Yale students, labor unions
and Black Civil Rights activ-
ists,” said Horwitz. “Then,
with updated U.S. Census data,
he had a hand in drawing new
maps putting Marcus in another
district. The boundary ran right
through Marcus’ backyard.
“Joe was affable, charismatic
and possessed integrity, but his
political chops were not to be
underestimated.
”
Lieberman’s reputation for
outreach to the other side
defined his career in the Senate
after he arrived in 1989, having
been elected after serving as
Connecticut’s attorney general.
His break with Democratic
ranks in backing the first
Persian Gulf War in 1991
helped him later in the decade,
when he rallied Republicans
to support Clinton’s military
actions in Kosovo.
Particularly galling for
Democrats was Lieberman’s
agreement to endorse GOP
presidential candidate John
McCain on the floor of
the Republican National
Convention in Minneapolis.
McCain even considered
Lieberman as a possible run-
ning mate.
“He put himself in a position
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, 82, Shabbat
Observant Vice-Presidential Candidate
RON KAMPEAS JTA.ORG
OBITUARIES
OF BLESSED MEMORY
Former Sen. Joe Lieberman speaks at a panel hosted by the National
Council of Resistance of Iran, Aug. 17, 2022 in Washington, D.C.
ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES