In an interview to be aired next week on HDTV Michael Bloomberg has told Dan Rather that “nobody’s going to elect me president of the United States.” Only partial transcripts of the conversation are available, and it is hard to tell why the Mayor of New York came to this conclusion. It is also hard to tell whether the mayor actually believed this conclusion. But as far as conclusions taken out of context and made by PR-savvy politicians go, it strikes me as the right one.
This past Monday I suggested that Mr. Bloomberg--whose body of work in New York City over the past five years has not been unimpressive--might have a difficult time winning over conservative Christian voters. The mayor is affiliated with Reform Judaism--an affiliation whose depth and profundity some Jews have questioned. It was my contention that even if Bloomberg were deeply immersed in the teachings and values of Reform, those teachings and values might not go over well in the American heartland.
This begs the question: would any Jewish candidate, from any Jewish denomination do any better? A reader might conceivably respond: “No. The American electorate is simply not ready to place a Jew in the White House.” And if my imaginary interlocutor enjoys grand rhetorical gestures as much as I do, s/he might pile it on as follows: “Nor are the voters of this nation ready to extend this courtesy to a woman, a gay person, an African-American, or any other non-white, non-male, non-Christian citizen.”
As regards Jews, and strictly Jews, I do not share this opinion. For years I have been telling my undergraduates that Jews are different. By this I mean many things, some of them not exceedingly profound. But a central component of my argument is that Jews are very different from one another. In High Modernity there exists a beguiling (and, I insist, quite healthy) diversity that characterizes the Jewish people.
Take, for example, the difference between Michael Bloomberg and Joseph Lieberman. I will not engage in pointless discussions about who is the more authentic or representative member of the faith. What I will say is that Conservative Christians will be far more receptive to an orthodox Jewish candidate such as Lieberman, than one who comes out of the Reform tradition such as Bloomberg.
Think back to 2000. When the senator from Connecticut was selected as Al Gore's running mate many feared that his candidacy would bring the anti-Semitic crackpots out of their fortified bunkers and remote mountain dwellings. Thankfully, this did not come to pass. As for God Talk, Lieberman performed swimmingly. He dropped Scripture bombs left and right. He invoked God on a quotidian basis. He questioned the idea of “freedom from religion.” He even publicly and gleefully cited the gospels, thus becoming the first orthodox Jew in recorded history to do so without a weapon pointed in his direction. It was liberals, Jewish and non-Jewish, who were exasperated by Lieberman, not Christians from Middle America.
My point is this: the Faith and Values game as currently played in American presidential politics is played by rules that favor (and were drafted by) Conservative Protestants. Candidates, however, from other religious traditions (e.g., Orthodox Judaism, traditional Catholicism) who share the latter’s skepticism toward secularism, modernity, and liberalism can score points when they reach into their own creedal beliefs on the campaign trail. Politicians from more secularized religions (e.g., liberal Catholics, Reform Jews, certain Mainline Protestants, atheists) perform under a handicap that ranges from mild to severe.
Jacques Berlinerblau is the Rabbi Harold White Chair in Jewish Civilization in Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior advisor to the Center for Jewish Civilization, where he was director from 2006 to June 2020. Berlinerblau has published on a wide variety of issues ranging from the sociology of heresy and modern Jewish intellectuals to African-American and Jewish-American relations.
