by Zev Chafets
I mentioned to them that my next stop would be Washington, D.C., where I was scheduled to meet with Ben Waldman. Jerry Benjamin searched his encyclopedic memory of American political operatives and brightened when he recalled the name. “Ben Waldman did Jewish political organizing for Reagan in ’84,” he said. “What’s he up to these days?”
“He’s in charge of Pat Robertson’s Jewish campaign,” I said, happy to be one up on the A.B. Data whizkids. They looked at each other in amused wonder. “Pat Robertson’s Jewish campaign,” said Benjamin. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
In political circles, Ben Waldman is known as Pat Robertson’s Jew. It is a common usage—I heard other people mentioned as “George Bush’s Jew” or “Jack Kemp’s Jew,” as if Jews, like chartered airplanes, are standard issue for presidential candidates.
Actually, Jews are intensely involved in virtually every aspect of American politics. In 1986, there were eight Jews in the U.S. Senate—many from states with very small Jewish populations (one, Edward Zorinsky, has since passed away)—and twenty-eight in the House of Representatives. And in twenty-seven of the thirty-six Senatorial races, at least one of the candidates (and often both) had a Jewish campaign manager or finance chairman.
Many of the Jews in politics are professionals who happen to be Jewish and have no particular connection with the Jewish community and its concerns. On the other hand, there are political people who specialize in being Jewish. Some, like the AIPAC activists, lobby for Israel. Others work directly with candidates, as fundraisers or Jewish issues experts; Ben Waldman is that kind of political Jew. In the fall of 1986, there were dozens like him in Washington, but none of them was working for Pat Robertson; I went to see him because I wanted to find out what that was like.
We met in a restaurant not far from Capitol Hill. Waldman looks like the kind of Jew Pat Robertson could relate to, a handsome, fair-haired man in his mid-thirties, with startling blue eyes and the reasonable, patient manner of someone who expects not to be believed. As a boy, growing up in Claremont, California, he wanted to become a Conservative rabbi. Instead, he went into conservative politics.
Waldman’s political baptism came during the 1980 presidential race, when he ran Ronald Reagan’s “Jewish campaign” in California. “You can’t believe how much hostility there was,” he told me. “We went door to door in the borscht belt on Fairfax Avenue in L.A., and people spit at us. Literally. They said Reagan would be bad for Israel.”
In 1984 Waldman headed Reagan’s national Jewish campaign, stressing the president’s pro-Israel record. It proved to be an insufficient argument. Jewish voters appreciated Reagan’s support for Israel, but the Democrats neutralized it by playing up the influence of the radical right on the GOP. “Church-and-state killed us in ’84,” he said in an analytical tone. “It was a negative contest between Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson, and we lost.”
For his efforts in 1984, Ben Waldman was rewarded with a middle-level administrative job on the White House staff. But he was dissatisfied. In August 1986 he was contacted by Robertson, who invited him out to his headquarters for a chat. Waldman was impressed, and he signed on.
“Actually, working with Pat makes a lot of sense for me,” he said, sincerity shining from his blue eyes. “I was raised a Conservative Jew, but I’m more to the right on Jewish issues these days. I believe in the Bible literally, in creationism. I believe in the Orthodox interpretation of the Bible.”
My gaze fell to the cheeseburger he held in his hand. “My wife is a convert and she doesn’t understand kashrut,” he said apologetically, “but in my beliefs, I’m very close to Pat.”
If it was hard to convince Jews to support Ronald Reagan, getting them to vote for Pat Robertson seemed a truly imposing challenge. Waldman told me that his main problem was one of education. “Jews are incredibly bigoted in their attitudes toward born-again Christians,” he said. “For one thing, they think they’re all the same—they don’t know that they vary greatly among themselves. Christians like Pat don’t understand Jews, either. They have a deep-seated religious love for Jews, and they are hurt when it isn’t reciprocated.”
Waldman was well aware that many Jews considered Pat Robertson’s vision of a Christian America to be a threat to them. “My favorite uncle stopped talking to me when I went to work for him,” he said sadly. “He called it anti-Jewish. It’s true that many Jews don’t feel comfortable with Christian verbal affirmations of God’s glory. We don’t do that—we’re a more subtle religion. Most Jews don’t know what their prayers mean, anyway. But they misunderstand Pat and his program.”
Ben Waldman’s job is to make them understand, and he had marshaled some novel arguments for the task. “There’s a panic in the Jewish community today about intermarriage,” he said. “In my own extended family, almost all of my cousins, twenty or so, married non-Jewish spouses, and that is very typical today. Some converted and some didn’t. But even the ones who did, a lot of them don’t really consider themselves Jews. Our greatest threat is that we are losing the traditional Jewish family.”
According to Waldman, Christian prayer in school is the solution. “Prayer in school or teaching Christian religion is positive for Jews because it reinforces our sense of being different from the gentiles. And that’s what the Bible commands us to be—different,” he said in a tone of utmost piety.
Another Waldman innovation was his Brooklyn strategy—a plan to attract Chasidic votes for Robertson. “I’m not saying we have widespread support there or anything, but there is potential,” he said. “They tend to be very conservative, anti-communist, like Pat. And they share a lot of his beliefs—they are pro-life, pro-federal aid for parochial schools, anti-ERA, and of course very pro-Israel. Pat is probably closer to them on most issues than any other candidate. After all, they’re both fundamentalists.”
It was a strange scene to contemplate—fresh-faced, born-again Robertson-for-President volunteers in red, white, and blue blazers and straw hats canvassing among the Sotmar and Lubavitch Chasidim of Brooklyn; strange, but not impossible. In many ways, America has become a post-satiric society. Nothing is too sacred to be trivialized or too improbable to be true. I thought of Macy’s Baptist rabbi; Elie Wiesel, tossing out the first ball at a World Series game; McDonald’s Fievel Mousekewitz Christmas Stocking promotion and I wondered: Why not Yiddish bumper stickers that say VOTE FOR A CHRISTIAN AMERICA in Williamsburg?
The boys from A.B. Data, politicians like Ben Waldman, and the Jew hunters of AIPAC have very different interests and approaches, but they all have one thing in common—they are involved in national politics. They deal in large issues and aim for big results. But I was also curious about grass roots Jewish politics. For a closer look I took a train up to Lawrence, Long Island, deep in the heart of the Ninth District, to Carol Berman-for-State-Senate headquarters.
The Ninth District was my last stop during the 1986 campaign. Berman, a Jewish Democrat and former state senator, was locked in a tight race with incumbent Dean Skelos, a Greek Orthodox Republican, who had defeated her in 1984. The Ninth District is in Nassau County, home of the formidable Republican machine that produced Senator Alphonse D’Amato. Democrats start out there at a disadvantage, and to compensate the party sent in Cliff Williams, a political gunslinger from Queens, to run the campaign. Williams, in an inversion of Ben Waldman’s role, was Carol Berman’s goy.
I found him at campaign headquarters, located on the second floor of a shopping center. When I arrived, the small, improvised office was in chaos, with teenage volunteers frantically stuffing envelopes and hollering into telephones. As soon as I walked in I was buttonholed by two middle-aged couples on their way to Israel. Refusing to believe I wasn’t with the Bermanites, they demanded that I tell them how to file an absentee ballot.
I was rescued by Williams, who turned the couples over to a staffer and ushered me into a cramped panel-board office, which looked like the cell of a slovenly monk. A fat man with an unbarbered mustac
he and the unflappable calm of the true political pro, he made small talk for about thirty seconds before getting down to his favorite topic. Like all New York politicians, he began his assessment of the campaign with a tour d’horizon of the district’s ethnic composition.
“We’ve got approximately two hundred fifty thousand people in the Ninth—one hundred sixty thousand registered voters,” he said, and began ticking off the percentages on his stubby fingers. “We’re almost forty percent Jewish, eighteen percent Italian, twenty percent Irish, and the other twenty percent or so are white Protestants. That’s what I am,” he added, an ethnic disability that may account for the fact that he had recently lost his seat in the state assembly.
Berman’s official campaign theme was that she would be a full-time state senator, while Skelos, a practicing attorney, would not. Her subtext, direct and unmistakable, was an appeal to Jewish solidarity. This, Williams explained, was based not on parochialism but on cold political calculation.
“To be blunt, we got an Irish problem in this campaign,” he told me. “Okay, we got the endorsement of the Irish-American Congress, but that sounds more important than it is. A lot of Irish people still have a problem with Jews.”
Williams said that his working assumption was that half the Irish people in the district were anti-Semites who would vote against Berman out of bigotry. That sounded high to me and I said so, but he shook his head. “There’s one difference between you and me,” he said. “I’m not Jewish, and these people talk openly around me. Believe me, Carol’s going to lose a lot of Irish votes because of the Jewish angle. Coupled with the fact that most Italians will vote Republican, Berman will have to do well among the Jews—better than she did in 1984.”
The defeat of 1984 was viewed by Bermanites as an aberration of historic dimensions: “Reagan swept the entire country,” said Williams. “I mean, it was a Republican year. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he actually came to the Ninth District. The president. He had dinner with a local rabbi and visited his synagogue. A local Republican rabbi,” he added darkly.
“Was Reagan’s endorsement really that important?” I asked. Williams, who had been told that I had worked in politics in Israel, blinked at the question. “Yeah, you could say it was important,” he said. “It was the first time in history that an American president appeared in a synagogue. You could call that important.”
The Reagan visit made me wonder what other endorsements might matter in a Jewish district. Cliff Williams stared into space, considering. “Let’s see … Shimon Peres. Abba Eban. Sharansky. In parts of the district, Menachem Begin. That’s about it,” he said.
“Those are all Israelis,” I reminded him. “What about American Jewish leaders?”
“American Jewish leaders?” he asked, unfamiliar with the notion. “Ah, I guess George Schultz is pretty popular. I can’t really think of anybody else.”
In addition to the Reagan factor, Berman had also been hurt in 1984 by a Skelos campaign circular to Jewish voters. “They sent out this letter saying that Carol was practically an enemy of the Jews because she hadn’t denounced Louis Farrakhan,” Williams said indignantly. The charge was unfair; worse—much worse—it had been effective. This time, the Berman campaign was determined not to be out-Jewed by the Greek.
There was a grudge-match edge to the campaign that I had detected a few weeks earlier when I first contacted the headquarters of the two candidates. The Berman people had suggested that I accompany her to Candidates’ Night at a local B’nai B’rith chapter.
“Will Skelos be there, too?” I asked.
“No way,” a Berman aide told me, her voice ringing with contempt. “He’s been ducking Carol all over the district. He’s afraid to debate, especially at a B’nai B’rith gathering. I doubt if you’ll see him at all. He does most of his campaigning by mail.”
The Skelos forces had been equally scathing. “Dean is at his best at these gatherings,” a spokesman told me on the phone. “He’s extremely popular in the Jewish community. But don’t look for Carol Berman—she’s afraid to appear on the same platform with Dean Skelos. She’s been avoiding him for weeks.”
“That’s what they told me about your guy,” I said, eager to stir up a little trouble. The spokesman snorted in righteous indignation. “We don’t avoid anyone. We’ll be there, you can bet on that. But don’t be surprised if Carol Berman has a headache that night.”
Naturally, I timed my visit to the Ninth District to coincide with the Great Debate. I mentioned this to Cliff Williams and told him that I would be going over to Skelos headquarters before the event. He didn’t try to dissuade me from fraternizing with the enemy, but he did give me some reading material to fortify me. One pamphlet began with a quote from Carol Berman: “For years we relied on our ‘friends’ to protect us and our way of life. We learned that in the end we had to rely on ourselves. Our friends forgot us. I will never forget. I can’t forget.”
“Don’t you think it’s just a little blatant?” I asked. “It’s almost as if she’s blaming Skelos for the Holocaust.”
Williams shook his head in vigorous disagreement. “It’s perfectly legitimate for Carol to remind the voters that she’s Jewish. Especially since she’s running against an opponent who spends all his time pandering to Jewish voters. You go over there, you’ll see what I mean.”
On my way out, I was introduced to a spry old man named Harold Forma, the Democratic leader of Woodmere, a Long Island town. Forma told me that he has been in politics for sixty-one years, ever since he broke in with Tammany Hall on the Lower East Side.
Woodmere is a predominantly Jewish area, and Forma predicted that Berman would carry it ten to one. This seemed like an extravagant goal until he explained that, in the past, the town had sometimes voted for Democrats twenty to one.
“We’ve got good voters out here, but this boy Skelos has made some inroads,” he said. “The guy practically sleeps in a yarmulke.”
“Will it do him that much good?” I asked.
“Well, crime is the biggest talking issue out here, but abortion and especially foreign policy are the big voting issues, particularly for Jews. By foreign policy, I mean Israel. And Skelos has put in a lot of work on foreign policy, know what I mean?”
I thanked Forma for his analysis and asked him if he would be at the B’nai B’rith showdown.
“Naw, I’m getting an award someplace else. Outstanding community leadership, et cetera, et cetera. And you know what, boychik. I paid for it, believe you me.” He laughed, a man who knows his value in the political marketplace.
After talking with Williams and Forma, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find Senator Skelos dressed like a Chasid and eating a gefilte fish. But his office in Rockville Centre proved to be a model of Republican decorum. Conservatively dressed young people sat behind desks arranged in two rows, speaking softly to one another and typing away at silent word processors. The room was carpeted, and the overall effect was that of a suburban savings and loan association. Only the walls, decorated with a calendar from Yeshiva Toras Chaim, plaques from the Nassau County Podiatry Society and the Marco Polo Lodge, and signed photographs of Skelos with Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, and Jack Kemp revealed the political nature of the office.
Skelos welcomed me cordially and told his secretary to hold his calls. He is a boyishly handsome man in his late thirties with a face that looks like it was designed in a laboratory for post-Kennedy political aspirants.
Carol Berman is originally from Brooklyn, but Skelos is a native son, born and raised in Rockville Centre, who settled in his old hometown after law school. As a young attorney he joined the county Republican machine and progressed rapidly. In 1982 he ran against Carol Berman and lost; in 1984 he won. Now, only a few weeks away from the rubber match, he seemed poised and confident.
Part of that confidence was based on his Jewish support. There aren’t many Greek Orthodox in the Ninth, and over the years Skelos had sought to expand his ethnic base by becoming a kee
n student of Jewish voters. Not surprisingly, he had nothing but good things to say about them.
“Jewish citizens are literate and smart,” he said over the hum of the air conditioner. “They read campaign material and they care about the issues. Most of all, they want a positive campaign. I think Carol Berman’s negative campaign against me is a boomerang. She wraps herself in Jewishness, and I think a lot of voters object to that. Jews are Americans, and they vote and think as individuals, which is why I, a Republican, got thirty-five percent of the Jewish vote in the last election, and almost fifty percent here in Rockville Centre where they know me best.
“If you want to know what Jewish voters really want, I can sum it up in one word—respect. Respect for their traditions, their institutions, their sensitivities.”
Skelos is nothing if not respectful. For example, he refrained from campaigning on the high holidays, and closed his office on Succot and Simchat Torah for good measure. During his term in the state senate he opposed testing at state universities on Jewish holidays, worked to stop price-gouging of kosher turkeys on Thanksgiving, and fought to withhold tenure to a professor at Stony Brook who denied the existence of the Holocaust.
His only major disagreement with his Jewish constituents has been over the abortion issue. “I’m against abortion, even though most Jewish voters are pro-choice,” he told me. “I’m honest with them about my position, which is a way of showing them respect, and I think they respect me in turn,” he said.
Skelos agrees with Harold Forma about the importance of foreign policy in the Ninth District. In 1984 he traveled to the Soviet Union, accompanied by a local rabbi, as the guest of the Long Island Committee on Soviet Jewry. Two years later he went on a junket to Israel that was organized by the local Jewish Federation. The trips were lavishly documented, and Skelos proudly showed me photos of his grinning self with Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Shamir, Natan Sharansky, and an array of lesser notables.