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