And wait \u2014 at shul, we leave politics at the door, right?<\/p>\n
Aaron Keyak, a congregant at Kesher Israel, the downtown Orthodox synagogue reportedly topping the list for Kushner and Trump, is a Democratic operative who helped<\/a> run an anti-Trump political action committee. He\u2019s been telling whomever will listen that the new top Jewish power couple will of course be welcome at Kesher.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be able to enjoy herring and schnapps with your political opponents when they\u2019re standing next to you at kiddush,\u201d Keyak told JTA.<\/p>\n But after speaking with Keyak, I had some doubts. And on reflection, having been a Jewish congregant and parent in the D.C. area for 16 years \u2014 and also, admittedly, one with 16 years of experience gossiping with other Jewish congregants and parents in the area \u2014 I got to considering how Panglossian this gloss is.<\/p>\n No one wants politics inside the shul. But honestly, in D.C., considering how deeply embedded our political outlooks are in our belief system, who are we kidding?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard of several instances where tensions over national politics have reached the complaining-to-the-Sunday-school-principal level. Seriously. (Consider: An adult whose weekday job involves advancing an ideology \u2013 or who is married to someone with that mission \u2013 spends hours each week exchanging thoughts with 5-year-olds about God and leading a meaningful existence. What could possibly go wrong?)<\/p>\n Here are some occasions where politics on Washington\u2019s mean streets seeped into shuls and holiday celebrations, and vice versa.<\/p>\n * William Safire, the late columnist for The New York Times, in his memoir recalled his annoyance when his synagogue\u2019s rabbi during the Nixon administration issued a call \u201cnot to let our country be divided and polarized by those who use the technique of alliteration.\u201d Safire, then a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, helped write Vice President Spiro Agnew\u2019s (in)famous speech excoriating the \u201ceffete\u201d that included\u00a0the phrase \u201cnattering nabobs of negativism.\u201d (For this citation, thanks to Tevi Troy, the former deputy health secretary under George W. Bush, who writing<\/a> in The Wall Street Journal reviewed the phenomenon of politics insinuating themselves into Shabbat and holiday homilies in 2011.)<\/p>\n * M.J. Rosenberg, a liberal Jewish activist, in 2006 recollected a disruption during Yom Kippur three years earlier, when the rabbi was delivering a pro-peace process sermon at his shul, Ohr Kodesh, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Charles Krauthammer, a fellow congregant and the conservative Washington Post columnist, started yelling at the rabbi. \u201cPeople tried to \u2018shush\u2019 him,\u201d Rosenberg recalled<\/a>. \u201cIt was, after all, the holiest day of the year. But Krauthammer kept howling until the rabbi apologized.\u201d<\/p>\n * Joe Lieberman schepped nachas at his congregation, Kesher Israel, and among the wider Jewish community in 2000 when he became the first Jew to make a major national ticket \u2014 Al Gore picked Lieberman as his running mate on the Democratic ticket.<\/p>\n * Not so much nachas was schepped several years later, when much of the Jewish community soured on President George W. Bush\u2019s Iraq invasion \u2014 and Lieberman remained one of its most assiduous defenders. \u201cIn my synagogues today, we might have Mark the doctor, Jim the journalist and Joe the senator,\u201d Lieberman wrote<\/a> in his 2011 contemplation of Shabbat, \u201cThe Gift of Rest,\u201d before he retired as a senator from Connecticut. \u201cIn synagogue, Joe might complain to Mark of a pain in his knee, to which Mark complains to Joe about Joe\u2019s vote on the Iraq war. And there can be feuds. Jim the journalist, who used to write very positively about Joe, has lately been writing some things about Joe that Joe thinks are unfair. Now instead of greeting each other with a hearty \u2018Good Shabbos!\u2019 when they pass on the stairs, Joe and Jim merely nod their hellos.\u201d<\/p>\n * Ohev Shalom\u2019s rabbi, Shmuel Herzfeld, was famously ejected earlier this year from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference for standing up during Trump\u2019s address and decrying him as wicked<\/a>. Thus Ohev Shalom is reportedly not on Kushner and Trump\u2019s list. But Herzfeld is adored<\/a> by his congregants for advancing reconciliation within the synagogue\u2019s walls. That didn\u2019t keep one of them, prominent lawyer Nat Lewin, from denouncing<\/a> Herzfeld in the Orthodox press in 2008 for the rabbi\u2019s public denunciation <\/a>of labor practices at the AgriProcessors kosher slaughterer. Lewin, noting his membership at Ohev Shalom and crediting Herzfeld with \u201celectrifying\u201d the community, accused him of \u201cjoining the vigilantes\u201d against the business. (Lewin led the defense team for AgriProcessor\u2019s manager.)<\/p>\n * A year and a half ago, at the Rosh Hashanah reception at the vice president\u2019s residence, a group of prominent Democrats were chatting when one lamented that he was not invited to Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer\u2019s home for his Rosh Hashanah reception, until then a regular occurrence. Others in the group said they had the same regret. A round of cellphone calls later, it was clear that every Jewish Democrat in Congress who had said they would vote to preserve the Iran nuclear deal, which Dermer vigorously opposed, had not been invited<\/a>. I\u2019ve been told that some Democrats raised the issue with the embassy, and they were told that the emails were sent, but through a server that tended to deliver emails to spam folders.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing: That\u2019s probably true. I recall at that time getting a frantic pre-party call from the embassy asking me to check my spam folder \u2014\u00a0and there was, indeed, an invitation there. The staffer explained that the embassy was not getting RSVPs and was calling invitees to assure them they were on the list. I did notice a dearth of Iran deal backers at the party that year \u2014\u00a0and I also noted they were back this year. But the impression, however unfair, lingers among Democrats that Dermer cut them out of what was supposed to be a friendly holiday affair.<\/p>\n That\u2019s D.C. for you. And the political\u00a0climate is only worse these days. So if Ivanka Trump wants some solace, forget shul. She\u2019s probably better off shoe shopping.<\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")