Respect at Core of Booker's Ties with Jews

[Make Newark Clean]

The Chabad Lubavitchers is sect of Hasidic Jews who believe their now-deceased Grand Rebbe is the Messiah. The sect is outside of Judaism's mainstream. You may remember this group from an incident in 1991, when young Gavin Cato was killed by a motorcade.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Respect at core of Booker's ties with Jews

BY JEFF DIAMANT
Star-Ledger Staff

"Basically, he likes Jews. He has respect for what they stand for," Herson said. "He has a tremendous respect for our traditions, for our religion, for the scriptures. ... We see eye to eye on many philosophical issues."

Of all the political dirt slung in Newark's last two mayoral races, perhaps none was more curious than the claim by incumbent Sharpe James in 2002 that challenger Cory Booker was Jewish.

The claim was viewed in political circles as an attempt by James to both emphasize Booker's newcomer status to Newark and to benefit from perceived anti-Jewish feelings in the city.

Booker, who won the mayor's race in 2006 after losing in 2002, is not Jewish. He is Baptist and says he has never considered converting. Yet James' claim, false as it was, was able to gain traction due to Booker's close relationships with Jewish community leaders and the fact that he has studied the religion in depth.

A 38-year-old with a professed spiritual nature, Booker's introduction to Judaism began 15 years ago at Oxford University after a well-documented encounter with a now-famous Orthodox rabbi, Shmuley Boteach.

Rarely has his affinity for Judaism been more public than now. Last month, the Rabbinical College of America, a school in Morristown for Lubavitch rabbis, posted on its Web site an Oct. 24 speech by Booker accepting an honorary degree there. And he was a featured speaker at two other religion-themed events with large Jewish audiences in New York, Oct. 8 and Dec. 8.

In Morristown, Booker's speech -- not to mention the image of a tall African-American non-Jew wearing a yarmulke -- thrilled the Lubavitch crowd.

He urged listeners "to be Jewish in the fullest, the boldest, most courageous sense of the word." He called a passage in the Book of Genesis, where Abraham challenges God, "the most profound moment to me in the Christian Bible and the Torah." He used a popular Hebrew phrase, "Baruch HaShem," meaning "Blessed is God," which, while an ecumenical sentiment, is not commonly used by non-Jews. He even reveled in philosophies of Jewish sages Hillel and Maimonides, and mentioned former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

"Why do you have this meshuganah goy in front of you," he asked, using Yiddish for "crazy" and "non-Jew" -- an easy if well-worn laugh line for him -- "talking to you about why it is so important that the Jewish people thrive? Because I believe, through lots of sitting and studying with rabbis and exchanging literature of some of the more respected people in my life, that the Jewish people have such an important purpose on earth."

"... I look at a person like Hillel, what he stood for and what he understood: 'If I am not for myself, who will be for me?' 'If I am only for myself, what am I?' 'If not now, then when?' This understanding is the core of Judaism ..."

Admiring listeners included Moshe Herson, the school's dean and one in a string of Lubavitch rabbis to call Booker a friend.

Herson said that when Booker moved to Newark 10 years ago, a Lubavitch rabbi at Yale University, where Booker attended law school, called to say Booker planned to enter politics. After a meeting, Herson decided he liked the young man so much he introduced him to political donors.

"Basically, he likes Jews. He has respect for what they stand for," Herson said. "He has a tremendous respect for our traditions, for our religion, for the scriptures. ... We see eye to eye on many philosophical issues."


MAIMONIDES AND MALCOLM X

The Lubavitchers with whom Booker is friends are among the most religiously observant Jews in the country. They stand out among Hasidic sects for their outreach to less observant Jews, and for forging relationships with non-Jews.

As the story goes, Booker's first encounter with Lubavitchers occurred at Oxford in the fall of 1992. He stopped at a celebration of the L'Chaim Society, a Lubavitch-run organization of Jewish and non-Jewish students, to pick up a woman for a date. She was not there. Persuaded to stay, he sat next to the talkative Rabbi Boteach. Before night's end Booker was dancing -- though not drinking; he doesn't drink.

"It was the beginning of a long friendship," said Boteach, now of Englewood, a bestselling author and host of "Shalom in the Home" on The Learning Channel. "We did end up dancing until 2 or 3 in the night. The next day he came to see me, and we had the chance to talk. From the first moment there was a special relationship between us."

A book exchange ensued.

"Something I insisted with Shmuley was, 'I want to learn more about your culture, but this is not only one way,'" Booker said. "I'd give him a book by James Baldwin, he would give me a book about Maimonides. I'd give him a book by Cornel West, he would give me a book by Elie Wiesel. ... I gave him Malcolm X's autobiography, and I remember that for weeks he was wearing a Malcolm X hat."

Before long, Boteach decided to ask Booker to run for president of the L'Chaim Society. A non-Jewish president would have been a first for the group, and Booker was initially uneasy with the idea. He insisted on a Jewish co-president. He won the vote by acclamation.

Booker was a perfect fit in the society and wore his interest in Jewish spirituality well, said Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor who is Jewish and was a Rhodes scholar and L'Chaim Society member with Booker.

"It didn't surprise me he was interested in Judaism because it wouldn't surprise me if he was interested in anything," Feldman said. "I honestly think if Cory had fallen in with some exciting and interesting Buddhists, they would be saying, 'Wow, Cory Booker was the first non-Buddhist president of the Buddhist Society!'"

After their Rhodes scholarships, Booker and Feldman started at Yale Law School in 1994. With a small group of Jewish students, they co-founded the Chai Society, with Shmully Hecht, a Lubavitch rabbi in New Haven, Conn., whom Boteach had told about them. Booker would often invite Jewish students to its events.

Booker remains close with Boteach. He often is a guest at his house for Shabbat dinners and at times he brings Police Chief Garry McCarthy and other staff.

Boteach is Booker's biggest public fan. At a Dec. 8 panel discussion on religion at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, in which Booker spoke, he called Booker "the most inspiring man I know in my life," a man "many of us believe will go to the highest heights in this country."

The mayor won praise in a different Jewish circle on Oct. 8, as a featured speaker with U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) at a New York celebration for Birthright Israel, which gives Jewish youths free trips to Israel.

The host was Michael Steinhardt, an investor in the conservative-leaning New York Sun, who has given more than $125 million to Jewish causes and has donated to Booker's campaigns.

Steinhardt said he was near Lieberman when Booker spoke: "Joe was awed by Cory. Awed. That's the right word. Because Cory's speech was so resonant and so spiritual in a deep sense."

Booker said he has gone three times, with Jewish friends, to visit the Queens grave site of Menachem Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe. The trip is a spiritual pilgrimage for Lubavitchers, who have flocked there to pray since Schneerson died in 1994.

The mayor wouldn't say what he thinks about while there, but Boteach said they have spoken about it. He said Booker places a personal letter at the site, as do the Jews who pray there, and prays for those he feels need prayers -- and for Newark.


A WIDE NET

Off to the left side of Booker's desk at City Hall is a stack of five books: two Christian Bibles, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita and a Hebrew Bible. On top of them is a U.S. Constitution and African prayer beads. To either side are statuettes of Harriet Tubman.

"I'm very grounded in who I am," Booker said. "I'm a black American Christian. Being very knowledgeable about who I am, it gives me a strong foundation in which to reach out to others and embrace them and benefit from that in a powerful way."

He attends his home church, Metropolitan Baptist, one of Newark's largest, up to twice a month. On most Sundays, as mayor, he attends up to four other churches.

The Rev. David Jefferson, Metropolitan Baptist's pastor since 1995, said Booker is an attentive churchgoer whose interest in Judaism helps him better understand Christianity's roots and, in a different way, helps the city.

"A spirit of inclusion is what our city is in need of," Jefferson said. "The extent to which he has a good understanding of Judaism, it helps him ... show a sensitivity for the faith of other individuals."

Booker's Jewish studies came mostly in the first half of the 1990s, he said. Since then, he has read extensively on other religions -- Hinduism, Islam, Jainism. He traveled to India in 2000, staying in a Bangalore ashram, a community devoted to Hindu spirituality.

Asked to name his most spiritual trip, he said, "Traveling in itself is a spiritual pilgrimage." He then singled out a trip years ago to a Mexican mountain village, saying it had the worst poverty he has ever seen, yet the villagers were idealistic. Booker said he also has prayed or meditated at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.

Before the Dec. 8 panel discussion, at a small VIP wine-and-cheese reception, he followed up Boteach's introduction with a glimpse into his spirituality:

"I have been sustained in my life through some very difficult times, and some incredible challenges, by this idea that there's something more powerful, more magical, more beautiful going on ... than just the biological, (than) just the physical of what we see."


NO REGRETS

The time Booker spends outside Newark has been a sore point for his critics. A child growing up in affluent Bergen County, Booker never lived in the city until 1996, two years before winning election to the city council at age 29.

So why make so many speeches outside Newark to Jewish and other groups if they could hurt Booker's image in the city?

"I'm never going to yield from my connections to other faiths," he said. "I think it does nothing but enrich my Christianity and enrich my connections to the Lord. And I am who I am. As Martin Luther said ... 'Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.'"

Booker also said much of his time spent outside Newark, with Jews and non-Jews, helps improve its image with suburbanites and brings the city business.

His relationships with Jewish leaders, he said, have brought donations and pro bono work to the city. Jewish philanthropists have donated large sums, he said, to the Newark Police Foundation and initiatives to help crime victims.

Boteach said Booker has never shown interest in converting.

"If he had done that, I would have thought it was the failure of our friendship," he said. "Our friendship was based on creating a multiethnic society based on common principles ... as opposed to a conformist uniform society where we all need to become the same."



Jeff Diamant may be reached at jdiamant@starledger.com or (973) 392-1547.

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