By Donald
H. Harrison
An American flag composed of students holding red, white and blue fabric
greeted U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) when the former Democratic
vice
presidential candidate arrived on the grounds of the San Diego Jewish
Academy on Tuesday, Feb. 19.
As he listened with his hand over his heart to the students singing
Cara
Freedman's "We are Your Song, America," Lieberman well may have remembered
the tumultuous ovation that greeted his formal nomination at the 2000
Democratic National Convention to be the next vice president of the
United
States.
Free to choose
Free to stand by our
convictions.
Share our views
Without fear of old restrictions.
Christians, Jews
Live together, no afflictions.
To work and build and roam.
Pay our dues,
Strive with honor and with glory
Not to lose
Sight of what this flag's for,
we'll
Spread the news
This is now our territory.
We are finally home!
"It was touching and moving for me to see the flag and hear the
songs,"
Lieberman confided to SDJA students after the performance. "I started
to
tear up -- I have to figure out why I did that -- but part of it was
the
combination of being here at this Jewish day school and the flag, and
this
wonderful idea -- I'm not going to quote the words exactly -- but the
line in
the song that got me was that Owe are finally at home' or something
to that
effect, and America has given all its citizens, including Jewish Americans,
extraordinary freedom," he said.
"I would say that Jewish Americans have more freedom in this country
than
anywhere in the 5763 years of our history, with the possible exception
of
the state of Israel," he added. "It is a remarkable thing to say, and
of
course, I have experienced it personally in the 2000 campaign, when
I was
honored to be the first Jewish American to run for national office."
The song is the title selection of an original musical, We Are Your
Song
America, of which Freedman, SDJA's artistic director, is both the playwright
and composer, and which will be presented March 14-17 at the downtown
Lyceum
Theatre. But it also was the trigger for many campaign memories that
the
almost-successful vice presidential candidate shared with students
and
members of the Scholars Circle, a group of parents who help underwrite
the
Academy.
About a week before Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential
nominee, selected him to be his running mate on the 2000 national ticket,
Lieberman reminisced, a Jewish woman in her 70s urged him not to accept
the
nomination if chosen.
"I am just worried about the reaction of the country to a Jewish person
in
this kind of office," Lieberman quoted the woman as saying. "And of
course
that was generational," he added, "because the reaction was the best.
After
I was selected there was a lot of discussion.in the media about the
fact
that I was Jewish, and observant Jewish, but at the end of the campaign
there was no discussion of it, and that was just the way that we hoped
it
would be. Because I wanted to be judged on my merits or demerits as
a
person."
Lieberman, wearing a kipah as is the custom for males on the grounds
of the
Jewish day school, told the students about a book being written by
the
Catholic theologian Michael Novak. "He argues in this book that the
vision
of God in the mind of the creators, the founders of this country, was
the
Old Testament God, the God of nature, the God of creation," Lieberman
said.
"The whole history of our country is based on equality because we are
equally created by God, no matter what your color, your religion, your
nationality, whatever, you have equal rights to rise as far as your
talents
will take you," he added.
"American history, like all history, including Jewish history, has been
a
journey to try to realize the ideal of opportunity stated in the Declaration
and in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution."
Initially, he noted, women did not have the right to vote; African-Americans
as slaves were counted in the census as fractions of white people,
"but over
time, we became a more perfect union."
That brought Lieberman to another campaign memory: "Another thing that
was
so touching to me, my wife and my family that year was not just the
way that
we were accepted, but what our candidacy meant to other groups working
their
way up in America: Latino Americans, African Americans who felt empowered
by
what had happened to us. If we can do it, they can do it. They'll be
next."
People of deep religious convictions, not only Jews, "were encouraged
that I
was prepared to talk about my faith, and that my faith wasn¹t
a barrier to
my own activities in public life," he said.
"I say this to Jewish students, Christian students, Muslim students:
OYou
don't have to choose between your faithfulness to your religious observance
and the old dreams you have of a secular career of success. This country
is
wonderfully tolerant."
Lieberman's own daughter is an eighth-grade student at the Hebrew Academy
of
Greater Washington, an institution similar to the San Diego Jewish
Academy.
Sometimes, Lieberman reflected to the students, with the freedom that
America offers, traditions get thrown out. The challenge is "how do
you keep
young people as they grow up in touch with the richness and their unique
religious tradition and still have them fully involved in the life
of
America?"
The senator, who is now a Jewish American icon, turned to his fellow
day
school parents.
"What you have done here in building the school ... is kiddush haShem
-- a
sanctification of God's name. It is also an act of patriotism -- American
patriotism -- because the message sent out is with a sense of right
and
wrong, with a sense of values."
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