Newark's Visionary Mayor on the Future of the American City, a Politics of Hope, and Shmuley Boteach

Cory Booker. Image courtesy flickr user oraclemonkey.

That decline began in 2002, when a young reformist named Cory Booker posed the first significant electoral challenge to James’ mayoralty in nearly twenty years. A light-skinned Rhodes Scholar from the suburbs, Booker didn’t fit the mold of the Newark politician. Although the city was suffering endemic crime and poverty under James, Booker’s background left him vulnerable to harsh attacks. “You have to learn to be an African-American, and we don’t have time to teach you,” James infamously said. Throughout the bitter campaign, James sought to further discredit Booker by insinuating that he was both gay and Jewish.

These accusations helped James win by a narrow margin. Their effectiveness may have relied, in part, on Booker’s very real longstanding relationship with the Jewish community.

Cory Booker’s introduction to Judaism came through Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, now the media-savvy host of the TLC reality show “Shalom in the Home,” but then a Lubavitch campus rabbi at Oxford University. Booker was close with Boteach, and became president of Boteach’s campus group, called the L’Chaim Society. Eventually, displeasure among the Lubavitch movement’s London leadership at the participation by non-Jews in the Society led Boteach to leave Lubavitch. He mentions his relationship with Booker frequently in articles and speeches, calling him “the most effective non-Jewish exponent of Judaism in the entire world.” Booker has remained involved in the Jewish community, recently giving speeches at a Chabad Chanukah party and a Taglit-Birthright Israel party.
 
Today, Booker is the mayor of Newark, decades after the bulk of the city's Jewish population fled to the suburbs. When James declined to run for reelection in 2006, Booker won with 72% of the vote. He is a rising star in the Democratic party, often mentioned in the same breath as Barack Obama as the embodiment of a new generation of post-racial African-American politicians. Although his record in Newark is still being written, his rigorous reform of the city’s police department already seems to be paying off. This year, Newark went 43 days without a murder, the longest such period in four decades.

New Voices spoke with the mayor over the telephone. He was in his car with Anthony Jackson, one of three troubled Newark youths he has been mentoring since his election.

What made you decide to join Oxford’s L’Chaim Society in the first place? How did your relationship with Rabbi Boteach begin?

Well, you could say it was a conspiracy of the divine. I was invited by a woman to have dinner at [the L’Chaim Society], but she actually stood me up. I stumbled into a scene from the movie Yentl, a lot of black hats and beards and, even though I didn’t know what a tzitzit was, it just looked like a bunch of strings hanging out of people’s pockets. A woman came and sat me down in the only seat that was open around banquet table, right next to the rabbi. It was in many ways b’shert, we had a connection right away. He and I became fast friends. We began exchanging books; I would give him books by black authors and he would give me books by Eli Weisel, Maimonides. His faith really helped to deepen my own faith in the divine, and I began to be very inspired by it. I brought people from all different backgrounds back for Shabbat dinners; black, white, Jewish, non-Jewish. Friday nights, the place to hang out at Oxford University was the L’Chaim Society.

In your 2008 State of the City speech, it sounds like you’re chanting an inverse "Dayeinu," the Passover song which translates to, "It would have been enough." Do you know the song?

[Laughs. Sings:] Day day einu, day day einu…

Exactly. In your speech you invert the formula, listing accomplishments and then saying between each one, "It is still not enough." Were you aware of the parallel? And what, for you, will be enough?

Not at all. You’ve brought it to light.  Our generation cannot be satisfied with the world as it is now. America is a country with so many challenges. We have 25% percent of the world’s prisoners, we produce 25% of the carbon emissions. We are not yet the nation that we dream of. And yet we are the inheritors of the tremendous legacy of collective sacrifice. We have to manifest that sacrifice now, and we can’t be satisfied with incremental changes. We’ve got to be willing to do what’s necessary to create massive transformation. I’m committed to that and I don’t want our city to sell itself short. We have so much potential in Newark if we all rally for it.

During the 2002 mayoral election, Sharpe James implied that you were white, Jewish, gay, and a Republican. This tactic seems pretty reprehensible.

Sharpe James was using not just my deep relationship with the Jewish community, he was using every sort of narrow and divisive attack he could think of, trying to appeal to the lesser angels of our constituency. You heard things that smacked of anti-Semitism, that were, in my opinion, narrow visions of what it means to be an African American.  I think in many ways a main part of his campaign was not talking about issues or ideas; a lot of it had to do with trying to define me as the Other. He underestimated the Newark people, and was harking back to a politics that’s more about smear and fear than inspiration and hope.

This past October, you spoke at a Birthright Israel event at philanthropist Michael Steinhardt’s home in New York. What brought you to the event?

Michael Steinhardt is a dear friend. When a friend calls on you to deliver a message of hope, to deliver a message of spirit, to inspire young people to stand up in this world and to be courageous enough to be who they are and to live their values to their fullest extent, I'm definitely going to answer that call.

What role do colleges in Newark play in helping the local community? What are relations like between the city and campuses?

There are countless ways in which the colleges and universities empower the city, and vice versa. From students getting involved in mentoring programs, to college professors helping out with difficult challenges or ideas, to the universities providing a huge source of employment for my residents who work there. The partnership is robust and it’s deep and my administration especially has been reaching out to engender those connections.

Are there any new programs that you’re working on with the campuses?
What I’m focusing on right now are the mentoring efforts. When I was studying I know how powerful of an impact [mentoring] had on my life, and I believe it could have a big impact on college students. We've created a phone number that can connect any interested mentor with different mentoring programs.

I know that you were personally mentoring three boys. Are you still involved with them?

Well, you just heard me talking to one of them. We just pulled into my driveway, so he’s like, I’m out. I was with Anthony Jackson, the youngest of the three. We took a bunch of high school students out to lunch today to discuss issues involving their school, then we went to see a movie where we met up with a bunch of Obama campaign volunteers.

 I’ve read that one of the first conversations you had with Barack Obama was about the “power of cities.” I wonder if you could describe what you meant by that.

I don’t want to overstate our conversation, but I think there was an understanding between the senator and myself that many people have viewed cities in a paradigm that does not empower urban America. In this paradigm cities need help and they need charity and they need a constant infusion of resources. And I think the new paradigm is that cities can create robust opportunity. They can be the economic engines of regions, as well of states and our nation. And as soon as we start reinventing that paradigm and re-imagining our local economy, we can make a transformative change. Making a critical investment in our cities can yield tremendous dividends in terms of jobs, in terms of economic dynamism, in terms of wealth creation, in terms of eradicating poverty.

Is there another city that you see as a model for Newark?

There are definitely lots of other mayors around the country that I admire, that we’ve worked with to better understand their ideas and their efforts and see what we can learn to improve Newark. From [New York City] Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg to [Chicago] Mayor [Richard M.] Daly to former [Philadelphia] Mayor [Ed] Rendell, these are all people who have been thought partners for me or inspirations to me for various different projects. But there’s no one city that in any total way has been the inspiration for Newark. I think that Newark’s trying to forge its own path. Our mission statement really is to set a national standard for urban transformation.

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.