Jews Give All to Celebrating Obama

A large screen on the National Mall projects Barack Obama at his presidential inauguration in Washington.

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WASHINGTON

It was a week dedicated primarily to marking the election of the first African-American president in U.S. history, but the ongoing ceremonies were punctuated by several Jewish moments, wrinkles and parties.

Barack Obama's supporters said that it was a historic week for all Americans, and especially Jewish ones, to take pride in.

The sentiment was captured by David Axelrod, a newly appointed White House senior adviser and President Obama's longtime strategic guru, during an appearance at the Jewish Community Inaugural Reception held the night before the Jan. 20 midday inauguration.

Axelrod, who until recently has been shy about talking about his Jewishness, told the crowd of 800 that he was there "to do a little kvelling," and then spoke movingly about feeling a rush of gratification when he saw Jews voting for Obama in overwhelming numbers. He also reached back into his own family story to illustrate the "promise" of Obama's election.

Recalling how his father and grandparents fled Bessarabia after their home was blown up in pogroms, Axelrod noted that they "weren't just looking for a place of safety, they were looking for a place of promise and opportunity."

"They were drawn to America -- America was that beacon," he said, and the inauguration "would have been a great affirmation of that" idea.

"Not just that we elected Barack Obama, but that their son will be 20 feet from the Oval Office, and have a chief of staff named Rahm Emanuel," said Axelrod to cheers.

Obama has surrounded himself with several key Jewish advisers, but no rabbis were tapped to give prayers at the inauguration, as Obama followed in the path of several of his recent predecessors in turning to Protestant clergymen. But three rabbis -- one Reform (David Saperstein), one Conservative (Jerome Epstein), one Orthodox (Haskel Lookstein) -- were slated to offer prayers at a Jan. 21 service, a move that left some observers impressed with the Obama team's attention to the nuances of Jewish communal life.

Still, the inaugural was not without Jewish flourishes: During his invocation, Pastor Rick Warren recited (in English) the opening declaration of the Sh'ema. In addition, one of California's two Jewish senators -- Democrat Dianne Feinstein -- served as the emcee, and Itzhak Perlman took part in an ensemble performance shortly before the swearing-in.

And, according to a source, there was a sizable contingent of American Jews at the Obama family's private church service before the inauguration. Emanuel and Saperstein were present, as was Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union's representative in Washington who attended Harvard Law School with Obama. They were joined by several Jewish supporters, including Lee Rosenberg, Lester Crown, Jim Crown, Alan Solow and Rabbi Jack Moline. Also there was First lady Michelle Obama's cousin, Rabbi Capers Funnye, the leader of a black Jewish congregation in Chicago.

Packed With Jewish Events

The lead-up to the inauguration was packed with Jewish events, the headliner being the bash attended by Axelrod on the night of Jan. 19. The event, an hors d'oeuvres and drinks reception at the Capital Hilton in downtown D.C., was sponsored by nine organizations -- the National Jewish Democratic Council; the United Jewish Communities; the American Jewish Committee; the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; AIPAC; NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia; and the Jewish federations of New York, Chicago and Washington. It was not an official inaugural event, but organizers said that prominent Obama supporters encouraged Jewish communal leaders to follow the lead of other ethnic groups by privately sponsoring such a gathering.

The new faces in the White House: (from left) First lady Michelle Obama, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden.

RNS Photo/Reuters

"You were all shareholders," Axelrod said, and "you're going to be our partners as we move forward and try to fulfill the commitments we have made."

Elie Wiesel also spoke, praising Obama's "absolute passion for human decency," while calling the new president "a friend to the Jewish people."

Wiesel has high expectations for the new commander in chief. He said he was "convinced" that Obama "will bring an end to the tragedy in Darfur," and utilize "his energy and passion" to bring about "peace in the Middle East."

The Nobel laureate added that Obama's election makes him think that his son and daughter will one day be "celebrating the first Jewish president of the United States."

The actress Debra Winger, who campaigned for Obama in Virginia this fall, kept her remarks very brief, saying she hoped "all our prayers are answered."

A short speech was a wise decision because the excitement in the room meant many party-goers wanted to chat more than listen to speeches. Earlier in the evening, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) twice had to ask the crowd to quiet down during his remarks, and it took a very loud demand by someone in the crowd to finally achieve silence for Wiesel -- as well as Axelrod.

The hall was filled with rabbis, Jewish leaders and virtually all of what one might call "official Jewish Washington." Michael Lieberman, the Anti-Defamation League's Washington counsel, counted seven of his former summer interns in the crowd. But a portion of the tickets were made available as well to the general public, so some had come long distances simply to celebrate the new president.

Joanna Charnes left the Sundance Film Festival in her hometown of Park City, Utah, for the nation's capital on Jan. 17. As a resident of a "very red state," she'd spent lots of time campaigning in neighboring Colorado. She also spent hours a day refuting the Internet rumors that circulated about Obama in the Jewish community throughout the campaign.

"I can't stop getting tears in my eyes," she said.

While Washington was partying on Jan. 18 and Jan. 19, leaders of the Jewish Grassroots Action Network were working.

About 25 leaders of the group assembled an "action plan" laying out how they will go about choosing issues, and advocating for them, over the next four years. Then they partied on the evening of Jan. 19, with about 100 guests attending a kosher inaugural ball, complete with a klezmer band, at D.C. synagogue Tifereth Israel Congregation.

The organization grew out of a Jews for Obama group -- running the gamut from unaffiliated to Orthodox -- that formed during the campaign. President Yocheved Seidman said that she hopes to continue the activism that animated so many people over the last year, although she acknowledged that it's easier to get people excited about a campaign rather than policy.

"Throughout the entire campaign, [Obama] said we can't do this alone," said Seidman. Her group hopes to advocate for issues that the president is pursuing when they advance Jewish values.

Assisting the group was Rabbi Yosef Blau, a spiritual adviser at Yeshiva University and president of the Religious Zionists of America. Blau, who wrote an influential article in The Jewish Week last spring encouraging Jews to respond to Obama's effort to reach out to the community, said that he was helping the group to frame its issues around traditional Jewish values, from providing jobs to offering health care.

Blau didn't endorse Obama, but noted in an interview -- and later in a speech to the ball attendees -- that he found similarities between "Obama's sensibility and Jewish sensibility" on the issue of fighting evil. He noted that in the August forum at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddelback Church, Republican candidate John McCain talked about how the United States must defeat the evil represented by the Iranian regime. Obama, on the other hand, said that while the United States must contain Iran, "only God can defeat evil" -- a point Blau found to be "consistent with Jewish tradition."

Cardboard Cutout

"I danced with Barack at the National Synagogue," exclaimed Debra Kirsch late on the night of Jan. 18.

Actually, it was only a cardboard cutout of the president-elect, but Kirsch was one of several hundred people who celebrated Obama's inauguration at a Washington shul that night.

The National Jewish Inaugural Ball at Ohev Sholom--The National Synagogue was the brainchild of Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who wanted to give Jews a place to celebrate the inauguration in a Jewish setting.

Herzfeld noted that night that it was an "inaugural ball according to Jewish law," with kosher food, and men and women dancing separately to a klezmer band.

A promised toast from actor Louis Gossett Jr. didn't materialize -- the Academy Award winner couldn't make it -- but Obama campaign Jewish outreach and Middle East staffer Dan Shapiro did offer a toast to the "wonderful inspiration" that Herzfeld had for the event -- and to the future.

This is a time, Shapiro said, that everyone feels is "full of possibility for our country, for our community, full of possibility for a safe Israel, for a better future than we have had."

"There's a lot of work to do, and we need everybody's help to get it done," said Shapiro, who is likely to get a foreign-policy position in the new administration.

Other toasters included Special Olympics chairman Tim Shriver and "the only Jewish legislator in North Dakota," Eliot Glassheim. The latter said that he gets to recite a prayer in Hebrew once a year at the North Dakota House of Representatives, and "the whole Legislature is dumbstruck and they love it."

Former New York Knick John Starks, another promised guest, was a no-show, but spotted in the crowd were Bahrain Ambassador to the United States Houda Nonoo (who is Jewish), former AIPAC staffer and current trial defendant Steve Rosen, and "Life and Times of Hank Greenberg" filmmaker Aviva Kempner.