Joe Lieberman: 7 Jewish Quotes

When Vice President Al Gore chose Sen. Joe Lieberman to be his running mate in the 2000 US election, the choice electrified American Jews. Proudly Zionist and Shabbat-observant, Sen. Lieberman was the first Jew to appear on a presidential ticket from a major party.

Born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1942, Joseph Isadore Lieberman grew up in an immigrant household. All of his grandparents were immigrants who’d escaped antisemitism in Europe to build new lives in the United States. After earning his BA and law degree at Yale, Lieberman served for over a decade in the Connecticut State Senate. In the 1980s he worked as Connecticut’s Attorney General, where he earned a reputation for championing consumer rights and environmental protection. He became Connecticut’s junior US Senator in 1988. When he ran for a second term in 1994, he won in the largest landslide in Connecticut history and went on to become Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Despite his grueling workload, Lieberman was always careful to avoid driving, writing, and turning lights on and off on Shabbat. When he was nominated for Connecticut Attorney General, he skipped the nominating committee meeting as it was held on a Friday night. Whenever there was an important vote in the Senate, Lieberman would stay late to vote, but was careful to do so without using the Senate’s electronic voting system. (Turning lights on and off is an activity that traditional Jews typically avoid on Shabbat.) After the votes, Lieberman would walk the 4 ½ miles back to his apartment in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC, rather than allowing himself to be driven on Shabbat.

In 2000, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman won a half million more votes in the American presidential election than their opponents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. They lost the election in the midst of a fraught recount of votes in Florida. Lieberman continued to serve as a Senator until 2013. After leaving the Senate, Lieberman worked as a policy advisor and professor, teaching classes at Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish school in New York City. In 2011 he published The Gift of Rest, a book about Shabbat that described the traditional way he and his wife Hadassah and children celebrated a typical Shabbat. His step-son spent time learning at Aish.

Here are 7 Jewish quotes by Joe Lieberman, showing how deeply Judaism touched every aspect of his life.

Raised in a traditional Jewish home

Lieberman spoke often about his warm memories of his close-knit, traditional Jewish family and his childhood in Connecticut:

“My Jewish faith is central to my life. I was raised in a religiously observant family. Given to me by my parents and formed by my rabbis, my faith has provided me with a foundation, an order, and a sense of purpose in my life. It has much to do with the way I strive to navigate in a constructive way though every day, both personally and professionally, in ways that are large and small.” - Speech at Brigham Young University, October 25, 2011

“My maternal grandmother, Minnie, or ‘Maintza’ as she was known in Yiddish, was the religious foundation of our home. I associate her with many things, of course, but preparing for Shabbat is high on that list. We spent the first eight years of my childhood living on the second floor of her house. We called her Baba, a Yiddish word for ‘Grandma.’ After we moved into a home of our own, Baba would spend most Sabbaths with us. She would appear at our door on Friday afternoon, Erev Shabbat, with a towel full of pastries or a pot full of some other food she had made for us. I can almost smell the pastries - the sweet, crescent-shaped rugelach - and the wonderful firm, little sugar cookies. She often brought us challah, along with delicious chicken soup.” - The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of Shabbat by Joe Lieberman (Howard Books: 2011)

Shabbat Observance in the Senate

On some Friday nights, Sen. Lieberman stayed late in the Senate to participate in important votes, then walked home rather than ride in a car on Shabbat. Here he recalls how this led to some bemused reactions from his security detail:

“It’s Friday night, raining one of those torrential downpours that we get in Washington, D.C., and I am walking from the Capitol to my home in Georgetown, getting absolutely soaked. A United States Capitol policeman is at my side, as we make our way up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol building toward our distant goal, a four-and-a-half-mile walk. Before leaving my Senate office I changed into sneakers, but now they are full of water.

As we slosh forward, a Capitol police car travels alongside for extra security at a stately pace. But I do not - indeed I cannot - accept a ride in the car.

What accounts for this strange scene? The presence of the two policemen is easily explained. As the Senate’s sergeant at arms, who oversees the Capitol police, once said to me, ‘Senator, if something happens to you on my watch while you’re walking home, it will be bad for my career.’ So that’s why the police are with me.

But why am I walking instead of riding on a rainy night? Because it’s Friday night, the Sabbath, the day of rest when observant Jews like me do not ride in cars….” - The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of Shabbat by Joe Lieberman (Howard Books: 2011)

On other occasions, when he was serving in the Senate, Al Gore insisted that Joe Lieberman stay in his apartment near the Senate. Here, Lieberman described how Gore invited him to stay after a late-night vote in 1989:

“Then Sen. Al Gore…came over to me and said, ‘This is your Sabbath. Isn’t it? Where are you going to stay tonight?’ I said, ‘I am going to sleep in my office.’ (Al Gore replied:) ‘I won’t let you do that. My parents have an apartment across the street. They’re away.’

…I rejected his offer twice. The third time, I accepted! And, that night, he took me across the street. He understood everything; turned on the lights, and turned off the lights when he left…”

Defending the USA and Israel

Sen. Lieberman served as Chairman of the Department for Homeland Security in the Senate. After retiring, he shared that his Jewish worldview helped give him the strength to serve in this role:

His service protecting the United States “had a lot to do with the view in the Torah that there is good and evil in the world. And if good nations lack the means…to defend themselves, evil will triumph.” - Speech at Yeshiva University, October 29 2014

Lieberman was equally impassioned when it came to defending Israel, a country where is daughter Hannah and his grandchildren live. In 2021 he publicly criticized far-left members of the Democratic party, his former party, who have called for an end to American arms sales to Israel:

“We’re not all on the same page. I would say that the ones who are furthest off the page, which is the page of fairness and American values and interests…seem to be unable to distinguish between Hamas - a group that has been put on the foreign terrorist list by the U.S. State Department and an enemy of the United States and our ally, Israel - and on the other side, Israel, one of our closest allies in the world and a democratic party. To jump on Israel, to threaten removal of arms sales to Israel in this kind of conflict is just outrageously unfair.”

Frightened by the rise in antisemitism today

Before his death on March 27, 2024, Lieberman spoke about his dismay at unprecedented levels of anti-Jewish hatred in the United States and around the world today:

“During the 40 years the people of Connecticut elected me to state and federal offices…the great majority of votes I received in all those elections came from people who were not Jewish. There was never even a hint of antisemitism being used against me in any of my campaigns. In the years after the 2000 election, people would ask if I was surprised that I faced no antisemitism in that national campaign. I answered that I was grateful but not surprised because that was my experience in Connecticut. However, I would always add that history taught me that there were definitely antisemites in America, but there was such a strong national ethic rejecting such bigotry that the antisemites and other haters felt pressured to stay silent.

The rise in antisemitism in America in recent years means that something serious has changed. Since the war in Gaza began, public expressions of hatred of Jews has reached a fevered pitch.” - Op-Ed published on January 24, 2024

“He was one of us.”

Lieberman’s rabbi, Daniel Cohen of Agudath Shalom in Stanford Connecticut, recalls that Lieberman was always down to earth and relatable. “He was a senator, but at the same time, he sat in seats like everybody else, he enjoyed the kiddush like everybody else. When he walked home from shul, he got soaked on rainy days. He was one of us.” https://forward.com/news/597331/joe-liebermans-rabbi-on-the-senator-who-was-one-of-us/

I can relate. My family and I bumped into Joe Lieberman and his wife Hadassah a few times over the years. During the 2000 presidential election, I remember seeing secret service members in the synagogue my husband and I attended at the time, Kesher Israel in Washington DC. “Sen. Lieberman must be here this Shabbat,” I told my husband before launching into a lengthy diatribe about my views on the election. “Shhh!” my husband said desperately, motioning for me to turn around. We were standing next to Sen. Lieberman, who - despite my gaffe - was incredibly gracious and pleasant. He was truly “one of us” in synagogue, enjoying the service and kiddush after services with the other members. He always seemed genuinely interested in getting to know new people and in what others had to say.

Last summer, some of my kids ran into Lieberman on vacation. My kids walked to a shul near our hotel on Shabbat for Mincha, the afternoon service. Afterwards, they chatted with a lovely older American couple who turned out to be Joe and Hadassah Lieberman. Again, the Liebermans were incredibly gracious, asking these teens and young adults where they were in school, what they were studying, and about their vacation. It turned out they knew people in common.

In addition to being one of the most influential politicians in recent American history, Joe Lieberman was also at heart an “ordinary” Jew, a mensch who enjoyed speaking with his fellow Americans and fellow Jews and getting to know them. He will be missed.