Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s introduction to Judaism came during the 1990s at the hands of a “meshugena” Chabad rabbi at Oxford who eventually convinced Booker to become president of the university’s Chabad student club.
“It became this incredible journey,” Booker said Sunday night at Cong. Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck as he described his early encounters with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a columnist for this newspaper.
“What happened at Oxford for me was a gift,” he said. “It showed me the depth of humanity that every culture, if you take the time to study it, can give a window [to].”
Booker’s talk and subsequent Q&A, moderated by Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of the New York Jewish Week and a member of Rinat Yisrael, were to focus on the broad theme of black and Jewish relations. The mayor instead used his experiences with Boteach and his subsequent exploration of Judaism to challenge the more than 300 Jewish and black audience members.
“This is the question — more important than race relations,” he said. “Will we stand up for our highest ideals and our highest values?”
People of all religions and races have an obligation to speak out for social justice and make the world better. This transcends religious and racial differences, he said.
“We are all in this room tied together by something deeper than race or religion,” he said. “Our nation is not finished yet; there is still pain, there is still injustice. We are so critical to the completion of this story.”
Newark Mayor Cory Booker with Teaneck Councilwoman Monica Honis and Teaneck Mayor Kevie Feit after Booker’s talk Sunday evening at Teaneck’s Cong. Rinat Yisrael on black-Jewish relations. Josh Lipowsky
One of Booker’s favorite moments in the Torah, he said, was after Moses came down from Mount Sinai and discovered the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. God threatened to destroy them all and start fresh with Moses, but the prophet argued that if God did that, He should remove him entirely from the Torah.
“This is the power of Judaism to me,” Booker said. “It’s a faith that at every turn screams … ‘You are meant to be part of the world, to mix your spirit and your strength for a specific outcome, to be a light unto the nations.’”
On Booker’s desk in Newark is a collection of statues of Harriet Tubman, conductor of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Tubman was a great leader, Booker said as he described the woman he called his hero, but she did not stand alone. Her success depended on white and black individuals helping her at every turn.
“This is the real story of our country,” he said. “It’s not necessarily about relations between groups. It’s about diverse groups of people coming together.”
Responding to a question from the audience about day schools, Booker said he is frustrated when he sees desperate parents struggling to educate their children. He is “not afraid” of charter schools, religious schools, or home schools, he said, and the American public has an obligation to provide the necessary resources for education.
“Unless we start creating more avenues for choice in America, we’re not going to see change,” he said.
Booker closed by explaining how last week’s Torah portion, Vayetzei, exemplified the need for personal responsibility for the greater good.
“God says to Jacob that this land is your land. He doesn’t say He’s going to make everything great. He bestows individual responsibility.”
Booker drew wild applause and standing ovations from the crowd of Orthodox Jews and blacks throughout the evening.
“He has the right idea,” said Teaneck Councilwoman Monica Honis afterward. “Every single person has to be willing to … engage ourselves.”
“He’s a man of idealism who tells it like it is and issued a call of action for us to return back to our basic values — of the people who built this country and came over to this country escaping oppression — and to embrace a more encompassing vision of equality,” said David Jacobowitz, chair of Rinat Yisrael’s adult education committee.
The committee planned the event in response to a sermon the synagogue’s Rabbi Yosef Adler gave last year in the aftermath of mock elections in local day schools. As The Jewish Standard reported then, a number of students made disparaging remarks about Obama’s race. Adler challenged his congregants to look back at the roots of Judaism, which focused on equality, social justice, and human rights, Jacobowitz recalled.
“I thought one important step might be to invite a person who embodies the kinds of values that Rabbi Adler was speaking of and in a very clear and genuine way,” Jacobowitz said. “Mayor Booker’s reputation is well known. He is clearly a man of ethics and vision.”
A firebomb attack on a synagogue in Rutherford is being investigated as an attempted homicide and a hate crime, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli announced on Wednesday.
“You’re looking at 40 to 50 years in prison,” said Molinelli, addressing the “person or persons who are doing this act” at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
“Turn yourself in and end this now,” he said. “We will ultimately solve this crime and make arrests.”
Around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, several Molotov cocktails were thrown at Congregation Beth El, an Orthodox synagogue on a quiet residential street in Rutherford. One entered the second floor bedroom of the congregation’s rabbi, Nosson Schuman, and ignited his bedspread.
Hundreds of people gathered in the gymnasium of a Catholic college in Rutherford Saturday night, to show support for Rabbi Nosson Schuman of Congregation Beth El who received a firebomb in his bedroom last week.
Schuman suffered mild burns while extinguishing the fire. But on Saturday night he held and strummed a guitar as he sat with his family and area clergy in an arc of folding chairs facing the packed bleachers.
The evening's program mixed the songs of Shlomo Carlebach and Christian hymns with heart-felt remarks from Christian and Muslim clergy, politicians, and residents of Rutherford who were shocked and personally insulted that hate had come to town.
With the Jewish population of Bergen County on heightened alert, some 200 religious and community leaders gathered last night to discuss the recent string of anti-Semitic incidents in the county with law enforcement and government officials and communal leaders. The meeting was held at the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey (JFNNJ) under the joint auspices of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the Synagogue Leadership Initiative (SLI).
Tension has mounted as the incidents have escalated. They began shortly before Chanukah, when vandals defaced a Maywood synagogue with Nazi symbols. Ten days later. a Hackensack synagogue was similarly vandalized.
Then the incidents moved up to a more dangerous level with the attempted arson at a Paramus synagogue in the early hours of Jan. 4. This was followed exactly one week later by a full-blown firebomb attack at Congregation Beth El in Rutherford one week later.
The attack nearly had tragic consequences because the congregation building also houses the home of Rabbi Nosson Schuman and his family. One firebomb was thrown through a window and ignited his bed. Schuman was able to put out flames and then he, his wife, five children, and his father escaped the building, avoiding serious physical injury. The attack, however, left a residue of fear mingled with hope.
“I knew there were people who hated me,” the rabbi said at a press conference following the JCRC/SLI meeting, but he cited the outpouring of interfaith support. “What I see is the beauty of the American people,” he said.
A firebomb attack on a synagogue in Rutherford is being investigated as an attempted homicide and a hate crime, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli announced on Wednesday.
“You’re looking at 40 to 50 years in prison,” said Molinelli, addressing the “person or persons who are doing this act” at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.
“Turn yourself in and end this now,” he said. “We will ultimately solve this crime and make arrests.”
Around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, several Molotov cocktails were thrown at Congregation Beth El, an Orthodox synagogue on a quiet residential street in Rutherford. One entered the second floor bedroom of the congregation’s rabbi, Nosson Schuman, and ignited his bedspread.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution calling on the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report.
Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and James Risch (R-Idaho) initiated the resolution last week after Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, retracted a key conclusion of the U.N. report he helped author on the 2009 Gaza war -- that Israel had targeted civilians as a policy.
Senate President Extends Invitation to Ido Aharoni, Consul General of Israel in NY
Union, N.J. (March 18, 2011) – In a gesture of friendship and cooperation, Senate President Stephen Sweeney has invited Ido Aharoni, Consul General of Israel in NY to appear before the upper body of the legislature at the Senate Chamber on Monday March 21, 2011 at 2 p.m. Aharoni will make a formal presentation to the State Senate prior to the voting session.
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