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

