{"id":21174,"date":"2015-01-04T16:30:21","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T22:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=21174"},"modified":"2015-01-04T16:30:21","modified_gmt":"2015-01-04T22:30:21","slug":"mario-cuomo-married-strident-liberalism-and-sensitivity-to-the-orthodox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/mario-cuomo-married-strident-liberalism-and-sensitivity-to-the-orthodox\/","title":{"rendered":"Mario Cuomo married strident liberalism and sensitivity to the Orthodox"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RON KAMPEAS<\/p>\n

(JTA) — Mario Cuomo, a three-term New York governor, was the rare politician who appealed to the Jewish tent\u2019s opposite poles.<\/p>\n

A strident liberal with a nuanced understanding of the sense of vulnerability among\u00a0the deeply religious in a secular society, Cuomo died of heart failure on Thursday just hours after his son Andrew was sworn in for his second term as governor. He was 82.<\/p>\n

Lopsided\u00a0Jewish support<\/a>\u00a0helped propel Cuomo into\u00a0the governor\u2019s office in 1982, 1986 and 1990. The state\u2019s large Jewish community joined other liberal constituencies in celebrating the man who emerged in the 1980s as the most prominent vanguard against President Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n

Cuomo,\u00a0addressing<\/a>\u00a0a gathering of Holocaust survivors in 1985, faulted Reagan for all-too-blithely ignoring Germany\u2019s past when the president agreed to mark the 40th anniversary of D-Day at a cemetery containing the graves of SS officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is, even those who are free of anti-Semitism — even those who are almost certainly sincere in their revulsion at the Holocaust — are tempted to forget, to declare this ugly chapter of human history closed, done with, over,\u201d Cuomo said.<\/p>\n

The jibe was of a piece with rhetoric that helped vault Cuomo to national prominence the previous year, when he keynoted the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Reagan\u2019s sunny conservatism was appealing, Cuomo acknowledged, but ignored harsh realities.<\/p>\n

\u201cA \u2018shining city\u2019 is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well,\u201d Cuomo said. \u201cBut there\u2019s another city, another part to the shining city, the part where some people can\u2019t pay their mortgages and most young people can\u2019t afford one, where students can\u2019t afford the education they need and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuomo credited his sensitivity to the needs of the Orthodox to his childhood in Queens, where he served as a \u201cShabbos goy\u201d for a synagogue up the street from the grocery owned by his Sicilian immigrant parents.<\/p>\n

The job clearly left an impression. He recalled sharing the experience with Branch Rickey, the baseball executive who integrated the sport when he hired Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I told him that I had been an altar boy and a ‘Shabbos goy,\u2019 he wanted to know all about it,\u201d Cuomo told a Rickey\u00a0biographer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cuomo created an office of assistant to the governor for Jewish affairs and broke with his party\u2019s liberal wing on a number of church-state issues.<\/p>\n

He helped Kiryas Joel, a haredi Orthodox enclave in Orange County, maintain a separate school district despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to the contrary.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0for his unsuccessful 1994 bid to win a fourth term noted that he established the Kosher Food Advisory Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has consistently pushed for stronger enforcement of kosher regulations,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Cuomo also backed a bill that allowed the haredi Orthodox ambulance corps Hatzolah to expand its service.<\/p>\n

During his 1990\u00a0election campaign, Cuomo beamed when he earned the blessing\u00a0of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who handed him two of the dollars he traditionally\u00a0gave out to supplicants for good luck \u2013 one each for the election and his third term.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is more than I expected, rabbi, and this will require me to give back more, which I will,\u201d Cuomo\u00a0said<\/a>, sporting a silver-bordered black kipah.<\/p>\n

Cuomo\u2019s sensitivity to Jewish issues extended beyond the delicate church-state balance that the observant must navigate. He was an unstinting Israel supporter, visiting the country in 1992.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil you come here, you know the words but don\u2019t understand the music,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cuomo\u00a0banned the state from doing business with anyone who complied with the Arab boycott and expanded business relations with Israel.<\/p>\n

Cuomo criticized New York Mayor David Dinkins\u2019 handling of the 1991 riots in Crown heights, which pitted blacks against Orthodox Jews and resulted in the death of Yankel Rosenbaum. Cuomo appointed an investigative committee, which eviscerated the city\u2019s handling of the riots.<\/p>\n

\u201cMario Cuomo was someone who understood both the needs of the Jewish community on a practical level but also on an emotional one,\u201d said Ezra Friedlander, an Orthodox lobbyist. \u201cMario Cuomo was a man of faith who understood with every fiber of his body the accommodations that government has to provide to communities of faith to flourish, including the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

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