Ladies and Gentlemen, The Next Rabbi of the United States!"

Feldman, Emanuel

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE NEXT RABBI OF THE UNITED STATES!" EMANUEL FELDMAN Saturday night, July 10 "How come he chose youV In one form or another, this is the question I've been asked all...

...The Carter people make the error of thinking that there is such a thing as "Jewish leadership" which can speak for the masses...
...John Glenn is speaking...
...I figured you are Reform, at least Conservative...
...But I am singularly unimpressed with the idea of his meeting with the NYBR.- Such things do little good...
...I feel that he is a good man, deserving of support, and his record as Governor, particularly on matters of race, and relationships with Jews, has been good...
...Just another bearded rabbi on the streets of New York...
...The "Why you...
...It will be so terribly close...
...The crowd below recedes into the distance...
...story that Carter has said that if he were Jewish, he'd be Orthodox...
...He expresses his appreciation at my getting up so early to meet with him...
...And on July 20, the St...
...But I soon realized that it was genuine pride...
...Well," I say, "you can see me every Shabbos morning, live and in color...
...This innocent acknowledgement utilizes my presence much more effectively than any statement I might have made here...
...But I am annoyed...
...That in itself may have meant a thousand votes...
...I'm not Orthodox, but my father was, you know...
...Tell me, you couldn't have made it a little bit longer...
...Yes, he has an iron self-discipline, he is known to shun such frivolities as television and light talk, he can be very stubborn and tough-minded, he can be aloof and distant at times, but this morning he shows that at his core he is all southerner, exuding that natural charm of the region which is so akin to Yiddishe chen...
...His one foray into Brooklyn during Succot, his 13th Avenue visit in Boro Park, his stop at a yeshiva—these earned him tremendous support...
...Estelle turns to me: "Celebrity...
...I nod...
...The whole thing has an air of unreality about it...
...July 16 By all accounts, last night's benediction by Martin Luther King, Sr., made the most profound impact of the convention...
...Some friend...
...But how they are open to manipulation...
...I am beginning to understand the question now: "Why did he choose you— since you are Orthodox and not supposed to be involved in such matters...
...The transformation is now complete...
...Fickle, thy name is fame...
...He has about him that certain southern charm and gentleness...
...Everyone is claiming credit for the Carter victory: unions, blacks, Jews...
...Today in shul, many mazal to vs...
...July 25 TV may be powerful, but the printed press is frightening...
...Even the taxi drivers seem civil...
...Today I saw the National Jewish Post with a line about my being Carter's "spiritual confidante," and that has been followed by other local Anglo-Jewish periodicals chiming in with me as a "long-time intimate of the Carter family...
...Well, Ah sho' was proud of Georgia when Ah heard you speaking...
...What, you have a Shul down there in Georgia...
...Now, briefly, I understand why men willingly give up everything in order to spend their lives on podiums like this, in front of cameras like these, poised before microphones, bantering easily with the rich and the recognized, being catered to and attended and escorted and pampered...
...truth is what the media say it is...
...Carter had just lost the Maryland primary to Jerry Brown, with heavily Jewish districts in Baltimore voting for Brown by 7 to 1, and Carter's people suddenly realized that their man had not been reaching Jewish voters at all...
...Ford has made tremendous inroads into the Jewish Northeast...
...What if I stumble or freeze or forget or am blinded by the lights...
...Did I have to take an entire day just to stand in the rear of the hall and applaud at appropriate moments...
...Meetings with leadership are fruitless...
...With the media, reality has nothing to do with fact or with truth...
...I was proud you wore your yarmulke...
...There may be no D.C...
...They will appreciate one who has been born again...
...But "How come you...
...What's the simcha...
...Carter boards, all smiles...
...Jimmy in the White House...
...But I failed to get the Carter people to schedule him to do similar things...
...It is a kosher meal...
...And up there, majestic in their glass-enclosed castles in the air, lording over all, sit Cron-kite and Brinkley and Reasoner in splendid isolation...
...I don't think Jimmy has made a single speech in Brooklyn...
...No, I'll manage without it...
...I am ushered into his cabin and we talk for about twenty minutes— not about religion...
...I am amused...
...For New York Jews, Georgia is still the home of the Ku Klux Klan, an amalgam of Gone With the Wind and Tobacco Road mixed with a sprinkling of mint julep...
...Nice, nice...
...The Americana Hotel, where my wife and I stay, is official Carter headquarters, and it is alive 24 hours a day...
...The fact is that for the last three months I have been making one-day trips to various Jewish groups around the country on Carter's behalf...
...Tante Lilly, close to her eighties, converted two entire Ford-leaning Brooklyn apartment buildings to Carter...
...I have only a few minutes left...
...Strauss whispers, "Don't worry, Rabbi, as soon as you start they'll quiet down...
...But one has to be a southerner to feel at ease with it...
...Do they want me to make a brief statement as to why I support him...
...From the booth at the airport, where incoming delegates are greeted and provided with transportation into the city, to the welcoming committee in the hotel, to the arrangements for one's physical comfort—everything is done with dispatch, efficiency, and, most shocking of all—since this is New York— courtesy and consideration...
...If they claim that I am Carter's father confessor, then I am precisely that...
...Mary McGrory in the Boston Globe of July 16 refers to me as "the Rabbi of Atlanta, one of a party of Georgia Jews dispatched by Carter to the Convention to convert Manhattan doubters...
...But no matter...
...I sit on the podium and watch the glitter and excitement...
...Incidentally, I am finding that the more Orthodox a Jew is, the less is he concerned about Carter's religion...
...Pardon me for asking, but didn't you give the prayer last night on the TV at the convention...
...Tonight, I asked a good friend what the "how come you...
...By this evening, several people have heard of my brief visit...
...And he makes Jews nervous, because when they hear him he conjures up images of Bible-thumping, Jew-hating preachers, mythical Senator Claghorns, and real-life George Wallaces...
...She is terribly distressed that she missed seeing me on TV...
...of November...
...Down there in Georgia...
...As always, he comes across much better in person than on TV...
...Here is life, here is ferment and vitality...
...And now the thought of forty million viewers sinks in...
...While waiting for him to arrive, the steward, guessing that I am a rabbi, offers me breakfast...
...One is New York City...
...This is a camera convention...
...Jews are too independent to take directions from above...
...Great...
...It is now six o'clock...
...They understand...
...One New York rabbi said to me: "I was a chaplain at a southern army base during the Korean War, and believe me, there is nothing worse than a Southern Baptist when it comes to Jews...
...Rebecca's BiblicaPplaint runs through my head: im ken, lama zeh anochi...
...October 14, 7:00 A.M...
...They call it a ba'al t'shu-vah...
...A last minute blitz was needed in New York, and I am afraid he will lose the Jewish vote and possibly New York itself...
...the second is that vast expanse of wilderness which lies on the other side of the Hudson, that amorphous area known as Outoftown...
...Might-have-beens keep haunting me...
...The Convention The security check at Madison Square Garden reminds me of Israel, where such things are an everyday occurrence...
...And.there we were, watching you, and you looked so...
...One comes over to me and says, "He'll never make it, Manny, he'll never make it...
...EMANUEL FELDMAN Saturday night, July 10 "How come he chose youV In one form or another, this is the question I've been asked all week...
...One more time, and I'm a true celebrity...
...It turned out that his naive, innocent, bumbling strategists were right after all...
...Mother has a complaint: "Once in a lifetime you speak to millions of people...
...For many New Yorkers, there are only two cities in the world...
...Today, only one person on the street recognized me...
...I have been getting mazal tov calls from all over...
...I know many of the rabbis here...
...Do you want to go to the holding room now...
...I saw it, and it was magnificent: it was in the emotional, sing-song, classical black revivalist holy-roller tradition...
...He looks good, his smile is warm...
...But here you are, fully Orthodox, and involved in politics...
...November 3 Jimmy has won...
...July 11, New York City, Convention Eve I am amazed at the efficiency with which the supposedly chaotic Democrats have organized things...
...The more I deny it, the more they think I am hiding something...
...Jimmy is meeting with the New York Board of Rabbis on Tuesday...
...I suppose the assumption is only poetic justice...
...In the space of two short weeks I have undergone a classic media transformation: from an Atlanta rabbi delivering a prayer, I have been apotheosized by the press into a Carter intimate, confidante, spiritual adviser, and aide...
...Inside, the TV cameras dominate on platforms soaring a hundred feet in the air...
...You follow Representative Jordan...
...Reality is what they say it is at any given moment...
...In the lobby, the desk clerk: "Hey, I saw you last night...
...November 1 Tomorrow, the election...
...Emanuel Feldman, rabbi of Congregation Beth Jacob, Atlanta, is a vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America...
...I'm standing in the back of the crowded hall...
...No," he laughs, "I just recognized you from last night...
...What am I doing here...
...Here, the searching, the inspection of bags, the assigning of credentials, catch most people by surprise...
...This also explains why I am probably the only one who does not have a stiletto or two in his back by now...
...Really, you have two or three hundred young people in Shul every Shabbos...
...As we part, he says, "I certainly do appreciate the help you are giving me, and I hope I will be worthy of your trust...
...The campaign has not gone well at all...
...Would I be able to come along...
...Do I know you...
...Because my nephew in Atlanta says he's good...
...Where they put on your makeup and set up your tele-prompter...
...National concerns, the wider issues of life in general—these are the domain of the non-Orthodox...
...So when his people asked me to help out, I readily agreed—even though I had never been politically active before...
...Jimmy is the epitome of all this...
...I want to tell you how proud we all were...
...The plane is revving up to leave for Rochester for a swing through the Northeast...
...She is beside herself with remorse...
...July 13 In the hotel elevator this morning someone asked, "Didn't you give the prayer last night...
...He is a southerner, and so are Maddox and Wallace...
...And all along I thought I was delivering a simple prayer...
...In May, there was a midnight flight to New Jersey to meet early the next morning with a group of rabbinic and lay leaders...
...some have even bowed their heads...
...And those thousand, I am certain, convinced other thousands...
...For now, this is reality...
...The police smile and are helpful, and the crowds around Madison Square Garden are suffering the inconvenience of the blocked-off streets and the roped-off areas with detachment if not good humor...
...August 23 A member, not a regular worshiper, calls me...
...His response was clear: "Well, usually you expect this kind of thing to be done by some well-known Reform rabbi, a national leader, someone with a large following...
...I am brought back to reality by the voice of an usher behind me: "Rabbi, you are scheduled to go on about 11:30...
...I step forward...
...Some of Carter's staff people have asked me to take a more active role, to come into the headquarters several days a week...
...everything outside the Garden is tinsel and artificial...
...Near him are Governor Hugh Carey, Mayor Beame, Congressman Carl Albert, the famous and the near famous...
...Although the campaign of late has not been going very well, Carter manages to appear calm, relaxed, unhurried...
...I am having a brief personal meeting with Jimmy this morning, aboard the campaign plane...
...Forty million TVs are tuned in...
...And from this Georgia there now comes forth a total stranger, and he's a Southern Baptist yet, and he speaks with a southern accent and talks openly of his religious beliefs...
...Still, the question...
...He is out in California trying to prop that state up...
...I'll try not to disappoint you...
...Yes...
...Tonight my parents called...
...The spotlights are hot, they dazzle the eye...
...Averell Harriman sits a few feet away, gaunt, lost in thought...
...Jimmy is scheduled to appear at six...
...By then the destiny of the world is not on their minds...
...The press, the media: ultimate protectors of human liberty, undisciplined panderers...
...Everyone is assuming as a matter of course that I am moving to Washington...
...But this gathering crystallized something for me: Jewish nervousness about Carter is due less to the campaign's inability to reach the Northern Jew than to Jewish Northern provincialism, particularly New York provincialism...
...What's a holding room...
...Nice town...
...jobs at all for anyone...
...The camera lights moveth...
...Though a thousand miles may separate them, Atlanta and Memphis and Savannah are as one to the New York mind...
...Typically, I have seen a white Southern bus driver stop in the middle of city traffic to wait for a huffing old black woman as she rushes up the street...
...I demur, saying politely that I am not his spiritual anything, that Governor Carter has his own minister...
...Always thoughtful, he asks if I would like to come along...
...As one member put it, "Our rabbi is going public...
...Ms...
...What is the meaning of a "born-again Christian...
...Instant fame...
...Forty million people: that's a mighty large minyan...
...Gradually, I've developed a stock answer: "Carter is religious, so he chose a religious rabbi...
...As the woman leaves, I turn to my wife: "That makes three...
...The speakers' podium is high above the people, totally out of touch with them...
...And now I comprehend the power of TV, awesome, complex, overpowering...
...has rather disconcerting overtones...
...Yesterday, a writer for the New Republic called and the same conversation ensued: he wants to have some insight into Carter's "born-again Christianity...
...August 24 There has been a summer lull, and little overt campaign activity...
...You never know who might want one...
...On Peanut One...
...But our information is otherwise...
...Southerners are, somehow, by nature, instinct, and breeding, courteous and considerate...
...Later tonight (3 a.m...
...There is no stopping it...
...Hometown rabbi makes good...
...of July has become the "Why not you...
...This seems to satisfy people, especially those who have heard the (apocryphal...
...Carter is Jimmy to all Georgians...
...It is serious business, and exciting to watch it unfold...
...Louis Post-Dispatch called me: they are doing a story on Carter's religion, and as his spiritual confidante would I care to make a comment...
...In stores, on the street, literally dozens of such encounters...
...job ambitions...
...I have become very personally involved in this election—although I am probably one of the few among those who have done any campaign work who has no D.C...
...August 2 Rarely have I seen so much to-do being made about something of such fundamentally minor significance as a benediction, but the letters are still coming in, and the general theme of the mail—all of it from Jews—is a sense of pride...
...Good mornings" to strangers on the street are still commonplace...
...Power and honor are heady, and it is not hard to understand the temptation to sacrifice so much in order to reach them...
...Below me, wrapped in cables and wires and batteries, are the electronic reporters, swarming over the floor in search of an interview or two...
...If Jimmy wants a Jewish voting bloc, let him go to Williamsburg and visit the Sat-mar Chassidim, and to Eastern Parkway to touch the hands of the Lubavitchers...
...question really means...
...I try to assure, to calm their nervousness...
...I mean, would they ask the same question if some other rabbi had been chosen...
...The fact is that rabbis, communal "leaders," heads of Jewish organizations, speak only for themselves...
...Why not...
...I don't believe it...
...and Alabama and Tennessee and Georgia are peopled both by coarse country bumpkins and mean bigots who hate by day and lynch by night, a violent and mysterious blend of Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell and late-night TV movies...
...There is a certain crazy logic in it...
...My celebrity status is in serious jeopardy...
...Jewish...
...The New Jersey meeting brought it all out— the nervousness, the doubts, the suspicions: is Carter saying the right things about Israel only because of his Baptist beliefs, and EMANUEL FELDMAN will he change if his pastor tells him to change...
...But I am worried...
...It is not difficult for me to understand why public figures often learn to distrust reporters...
...the serious business does not dampen the spirits of the revelers in the hall outside our room...
...Smiles are not unusual, even in the bustle of Atlanta, which occasionally tends to acquire the fast pace of the East...
...Now and then a buzz of excitement as a familiar face approaches: a Senator, a Governor, face caked with pink TV makeup, smile at the ready, eyes darting to the right and left, looking for friends, enemies, reactions, impressions, opportunities...
...One paper feeds on the next, and contagion spreads...
...The extent and the depth of the Jewish reaction is striking...
...They were right...
...August 31 I arrive at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, the scene of the Carter meeting, at five p.m...
...How is he different...
...I really should not single out any of you distinguished religious leaders," he begins, "but I do want to acknowledge the presence today of my good friend Rabbi Feldman who took the trouble to fly all the way up here from Atlanta to be with me here tonight, and I appreciate it deeply...
...The entire community is aflutter: Manny Feldman will be delivering the benediction at the opening session of the Democratic National Convention next Monday...
...Ah, Jimmy, you are such a perceptive politician...
...Jimmy ought to be sent to the streets of Boro Park, he ought to see the grass roots Jews, shake their hands, and he will win them over, for they are begging to be convinced...
...Listen, how can you have a president of the United States, the most powerful office in the world, with a name like Jimmy...
...But he does not come to me for spiritual advice or counsel...
...But the truth is that my wife Estelle's huge Brooklyn family won it for him...
...One writer even called it daring...
...Neither Carter's New York people nor Carter's Atlanta people seem to know what role, if any, they want me to play...
...I explained that I am perfectly willing for them to use me—but occasionally, wisely...
...The remark is typically Jewish...
...A few weeks later I was asked to attend a similar meeting, this time in New York City...
...My use of certain Hebrew words during the prayer surprised some people...
...No, the NYBR wants to handle this alone...
...People are not giving me a second look...
...On the subway at 42nd Street, going up the steps, a black man stares at me: "Rabbi Feldman from Atlanta...
...Why me, indeed...
...Pahdon me, suh, aren't you the rabbi who gave the prayer for Jimmy the other night...
...He might as well be alone in his space capsule: no one is listening...
...Tante Lilly, what job do you want...
...One joke making the rounds is that my appearance won 100,000 New York Jewish votes for Jimmy, but that Daddy King's fire and brimstone lost the same 100,000...
...No, Rabbi, it's not the same...
...It is getting close to Yom ???, but I accept, fully realizing that the presence of a Georgia rabbi—an Orthodox one—will, let's face it, give him what he sorely needs: a certain legitimacy and credibility among northern Jews...
...Shuttling between their boroughs and Manhattan, between their homes and the "mountains," New Yorkers are as sheltered and kleinshteteldig as the villagers in a Sholom Aleichem story...
...Carter may be a victim of stereotypes, but he is not alone: the Orthodox rabbi supposedly concerns himself only with kash-rut and Shabbat...
...Multiply this by the rest of Estelle's huge mishpacha, and you have, by simple geometrical progression, the 200,000 vote margin by which Carter took New York and thus the election...
...If so, why am I here...
...All around, occupying the upper tiers of the galleries, are the working press sections...
...I ask staff personnel if they want me to introduce him...
...There has been no lull in the phone calls, however...
...I saw you...
...All the faces except Harriman's are plastic with TV makeup...
...But I do not want to become that political a rabbi...
...On 53rd Street and 7th Avenue a Jewish woman stops us...
...So the stereotype persists...
...It was a big night for the South, and Ah wanna thank ya, hear...
...At first, I couldn't figure it out...
...New York was close, yes, but he took it, and he did in fact have to concentrate his energies on the West Coast...
...Jordan is giving a rousing talk...
...I confess: I enjoyed the notoriety...
...I used to live in Atlanta once...
...I am unable to accept...
...Would he not turn the White House into a center for evangelism...
...Jews want to know who Carter really is...
...In the midst of all this, history is somehow being made, and America is about to begin the process of choosing a leader who could well affect the destiny of the world...
...No, that has been taken care of...
...Jimmy begins to talk...
...Robert Strauss comes over: "As soon as she finishes, step up to the mike and say your prayer...
...July 12...
...I'm not Orthodox, but I was still proud...
...the definition of "good" is "that which is good for the networks...
...Look," I say, "I know him, I like him, I support him, I think he'll be a good President...
...For the chairman of the Democratic National Committee everything is businesslike...
...Again the same doubts, the same need for reassurance...
...As I begin, some of them have quieted down...
...And so it goes for the rest of this day...
...Barbara Jordan finishes...
...Probably a diamond dealer from 47th Street...
...Carter appears, in a gaggle of Secret Service men surrounded by TV and press photographers...
...An interesting sidelight, after the meeting: one of those in attendance, a social worker, pulled me aside: "You are blowing my mind...
...What, you have a mikveh down there too, and a day school, and a yeshiva, and Shabbos observers...
...Truth is what appears in the press...
...The inevitable questions come to me: "Is it true that Carter has offered you a White House job...
...Never before have I been on the inside of a circus looking out...
...August 27 A call from Carter headquarters...
...If I come to New York to say a prayer and Mary McGrory says I have come to New York to convert Manhattan doubters to Carter, she and not I will be believed...
...Perhaps it is just a ritual political statement, but in his eyes there is something open and believable...
...As others stereotype thee, so shalt thou stereotype others: the eleventh commandment...
...My unease evaporates as quickly as it came...
...I protest my innocence, and he protests that he has information that I am Carter's rabbi...
...July 14 Well, not so overpowering at that...
...I am still unsure as to what my specific duties are to be this evening...
...A round-the-clock TV camera crew is ensconced at the entrance, relentlessly scanning the famous, the near famous, the would-be famous, and the once famous as they crisscross the crowded lobby in hopes of being picked up by a camera...
...Oh," he answers, "we keep a few kosher meals on the plane at all times...
...July 15 In the Atlanta airport, a heavy-set, rednecked Georgian, a living stereotype, stops me in the main lobby...
...For here they are at my doorstep, asking to be used, begging to be lied to, pleading for an interesting angle, an original approach, something that will keep them one jump ahead of their competition...
...In the past, yarmulke-less rabbis have done such things, but evidently the sight of rabbi, beard, yarmulke, Hebrew, touched a dormant chord...

Vol. 2 • September 1981 • No. 4


 
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