This past election cycle, I worked as a field organizer for Tony Knowles’ U.S. Senate campaign in Alaska. In our North Anchorage field office, one out of every two organizers was Jewish. And I think that’s no coincidence. For many of them, like so many Jewish campaign workers across the country, I truly believe their Jewish roots contributed significantly to their political consciousness – and to the reason they chose to work for a Democratic candidate in a very cold, very red state.
But when I mentioned to a couple of them that, in all seriousness, I felt like I was doing God’s work by being up there, I was met with disdain. They looked at me like I was some religious fundamentalist. Somehow, to my coworkers, the nitty-gritty of partisan campaign work just wasn’t “Jewish.”
Herein lies the problem. The American-Jewish community has never shied away from making politics a religious issue when it comes to fighting poverty, supporting civil rights, or protecting a women’s right to choose. As Jews, we protested and marched. As Jews, we wrote letters and litigated. But when it comes to the penultimate political battleground – an election for office – so often we leave our Judaism at the door. How is marching for reproductive choice “Jewish,” but campaigning for a pro-choice candidate “not Jewish?” How is lobbying my Republican Senator for increased education funding (which I know he will never support) “Jewish,” but voting him out of office “not Jewish”? Why can’t Jews be partisan – as Jews?
I know many people will squirm at this idea, and of course, not all Jews are of the same political affiliation. But for those majority of Jews who identity with the Democratic party, we must find creative means of harnessing our religious values in support of specific politicians who can make those values into reality. The Republican Party and their conservative Christian base demonstrated the power of this type of organizing with a resounding victory in the 2004 election. While their priests carefully avoided giving a public endorsement for a candidate, their membership regularly held bible meetings in their own homes, where they discussed Jesus H. Christ and George W. Bush. They used church membership directories as calling trees for campaign fundraising. They made partisan political action the most fundamental realization of a religious belief. And they did this all, proudly, as Christians.
We will need to find our own methods, but we must do the same. The resurgence of small community-based chavurot could provide a fertile starting ground, though clearly even that mingling of politics and prayer could be problematic. Perhaps new organizations can form that bring together openly Jewish values behind a particular party or candidate, without endangering the integrity of our synagogues or federations. At the very least, we must start a conversation about how we can make Judaism politically potent again in an era of deeply partisan religiosity.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said, after marching to Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1964, “It felt like my feet were praying.” As I walked the cold streets of East Anchorage this past fall, knocking on eighty doors a night to support a candidate who stood for so many of the issues that I see as “Jewish,” well, I felt like my feet were praying too.
Now we must find new ways to make our prayers louder – even if it means making them partisan.
