Legal Commentary

Joe Lieberman, Bad Jew?

By David Bernstein

I?ve been away visiting my wife?s family in Israel, and didn?t get to blog about accusations emanating from some liberal circles that Sen. Joe Lieberman is somehow a ?bad Jew? for opposing the ?public option.?

Needless to say, it?s completely absurd to suggest that Judaism, of any denomination, takes any position on how to reform the American health care system.  That hasn?t stopped some from trying.  From The Forward:

But Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said his group is focusing on battles where it can make a difference, and winning over Joe Lieberman is one of them. ?Senator Lieberman is looking at the same Jewish texts that we are, and reaching opposite conclusions,? Pelavin said.

This, in a nutshell, explains why Reform Judaism (with which I have some sympathy theologically) is dying  a slow long-term death (estimates are something like 8 Reform Jewish great-grandparents will produce slightly over 1 Jewish great-grandchild?Reform has received a temporary boost because it, unlike its Conservative rival, which is undergoing its own identity crisis over the issue of homosexual rabbis, accepts children of Jewish fathers); its leaders can find a mandate in ?Jewish texts? for nationalizing the American health care industry, which has nothing to do with Judasim, but not for Sabbath or kashruth observance, which have been central to Judaism for 3,000 years.

To be fair, some of Reform?s leaders recognize the problem and are trying hard to change the dynamic, at least on the side of tradition, if not on the side of trying to wean establishment Reform away from identification with political liberalism.  But to the extent Reform Judaism offers its constituents the New Deal as its Torah and Barack Obama as its prophet, it?s hard to see why someone should bother being involved in Reform Judaism as opposed to, say, the Democratic Party.
UPDATE: I?ve edited the post to correct my misimpression that Pelavin is a rabbi.  His immediate boss at the RAC, however, David Saperstein, is a rabbi.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on December 24, 2009 (boomark / email).