Jews for Buchanan

...I do pay a price for that...

...Forbes switches immediately to debatespeak...

...His reaction seems curiously free of elation...

...As a writer, Buchanan makes his points in a "brisk, provocative, highly quotable way...

...It was 1978, and Levin was a 24-year-old rabbinical student in New York...

...Though he is an ordained rabbi, he last had his own congregation six years ago...

...Maybe I'm not supposed to say that as a chair of the campaign...

...Buchanan, he says, "has the courage to maintain principles that every American felt were absolutely normal prior to World War II...

...Another prominent rabbi, a school principal from the Midwest, even plans to be a Buchanan delegate...

...Jews for Morality is a grassroots organization in the fullest sense of the word," he explains...

...They're not interested in coming out to New York and meeting with Jews and rabbis...

...Today, Levin is a grizzled veteran of those wars...

...At one point Levin, who for years made something of a hobby out of heckling local officials at political events, lectured Koch to his face...

...I think their attitude is avoid [all things Jewish] as much as possible," Levin says...

...The daughter of Auschwitz survivors, she finds his position as Buchanan's cochair "a little hard to deal with," Levin says...

...Levin says the campaign helped to show the rest of America that "not every Jew is some guy who's a card-carrying member of the ACLU, who's taking God out of the public schools, who's promoting abortion, who's standing in the vanguard of the homosexual rights movement...

...Asked what it means to be national co-chair of the Buchanan campaign, Levin replies, "Your guess is as good as mine...

...Coupled with the fact that "it doesn't take much these days for the Anti-Defamation League to see anti-Semitism hiding behind every bush," Levin says, it's no wonder his political enemies have tried to tar Buchanan with charges of bigotry...

...In 1984, he became a Republican and ran against Steven Solarz for Congress...

...He appears to have met Buchanan himself only briefly at a few political events and has not seen or heard from the candidate since they both appeared at a sparsely attended press conference last summer to announce Levin's appointment as co-chair...

...As of last week, however, Levin's name was still listed on the campaign's stationery...

...No doubt they are...

...The distance seems to be by design...

...Oh, for heaven's sakes," replied the candidate last month when asked by a New Hampshire radio station if he harbored bias against Jews...

...I'm sorry they're giving out my name," says Medved, who concedes he has had dinner with Buchanan and found him charming enough...

...Even the Buchanan camp itself seems strangely uncomfortable about the question of Jewish support for the campaign...

...You will unfortunately have a liberal segment of my coreligionists that will already be frightened of this person-as a matter of fact, they're probably very frightened of Yehuda Levin...

...Levin has at various times led anti-abortion rallies, worked for tougher pornography laws, and protested against the North American Man-Boy Love Association...

...Asked for a list of prominent Jews who back Buchanan, deputy press secretary K.B...

...One well-known New York rabbi speaks at length and eloquently in defense of Buchanan...

...At a deli in Boro Park, a heavily Orthodox section of Brooklyn, a Hasid in a beaver-skin hat overhears Levin talking about the campaign and approaches the table...

...The Buchanan campaign lists Levin's current occupation as the president of Jews for Morality, a group that Levin has claimed has 10,000 members...

...My message to the Buchanan people is this: 'Call me when you want me, and I'll be there.'" So far, they haven't called...

...But Levin drives on oblivious, ignoring the fuzzy shapes that loom just beyond the hood as he recalls the day he first took an interest in politics...

...I saw these very strange-looking people, dressed very, very crazy," says Levin, who is wearing a fedora, a black suit, and tennis shoes...

...Or perhaps more accurately, he is being used by Patrick Buchanan to wage a battle-to distance Buchanan from the allegations of anti-Semitism that have dogged him since at least the late 1970s...

...He still sounds shocked as he remembers the event...

...He isn't clear about whether or not he gets paid for the job...

...It was my introduction to the culture wars...

...Levin's political activities apparently didn't leave much time for anything else...

...I don't think he's Hitler, but I certainly wouldn't vote for him for president...

...Almost on a lark, Levin decided to go...

...He admits he doesn't campaign or raise money for the candidate...

...A hearing was being held at City Hall on impending gay rights legislation...

...For a while, he hosted a Jewish-oriented radio show on a local station...

...How, for instance, does he feel now that his candidate has broken from the pack, confounding pundits by beating Bob Dole in the New Hampshire primary...

...It is not exactly clear what he has been doing since...

...Yehuda Levin, with his clearly identifiable religious title, makes a handy comeback to detractors, living proof that the Buchanan campaign is mainstream and bigot-free...

...That environment, says Levin, is journalism...

...Jews for Buchanan by Tucker Carlson HOPE YOU RE NOT THE FEARFUL TYPE, says Yehuda Levin, Orthodox Jewish rabbi and national co-chair of the Buchanan for president campaign, as he maneuvers his aging aqua Oldsmobile through the streets of the Flatbush section of Brooklyn...

...I'm not going to put out a poster on my car that says 'Vote for Buchanan,'" he says...

...He does, however, suggest that anyone looking to understand the depth of Buchanan's appeal in the Jewish community contact conservative movie critic Michael Medved...

...We don't have quotas here...

...Levin's latest political involvement seems every bit as hard to pin down as his employment...

...If Buchanan himself dismisses questions about anti-Semitism as ridiculous, Yehuda Levin offers a more elaborate defense...

...It's hard to know exactly what Levin means by this, although it soon becomes clear that "philosophically" supporting a candidate is not the same as plain supporting him...

...Instead, he looks embarrassed...

...Frankly, I still think he's a long shot," Levin says, pausing...

...His ear-locks swing as he angrily denounces Buchanan as a bigot, a hater whose rise should be frightening to Jews everywhere...

...Those who do know don't seem impressed...

...Of course the rabbi doesn't say such things in public...

...In fact, Levin has had virtually no contact with the campaign at all, apart from a sprinkling of phone conversations with Buchanan's sister Bay and various of her assistants...

...He spoke at Pat's American Cause dinner...

...Or even liking him...

...He is going to say things to get the most bang for his buck...

...Similar reactions have kept other Jewish Buchanan supporters-and there are some-equally mum about their positions...

...We don't break it down," he says...

...Levin has spent much of his time over the last 15 years agitating on behalf of the social causes that give liberals of any religion nightmares...

...Buoyed by his relative success, Levin challenged Ed Koch in the mayor's race a year later...

...I thought, 'What the H is going on here?' I had never seen anything like this...

...Unfortunately, it was misspelled...

...Each clipping has been lovingly laminated...

...Levin, who is married and has eight children, says he now works for Get Free, an organization that helps Orthodox women obtain religious divorces from their husbands...

...Back in Brooklyn, Yehuda Levin clearly is becoming ambivalent about the campaign...

...They haven't been interested in doing interviews with Jewish media, even things that I've tried to broker for them and could assure them they'd get a fair shake...

...Levin clearly is baffled by the inattention he has received...

...In fact, it is impossible to see, a mixture of rain and fog having turned the wiper-less windshield as opaque as a shower curtain...

...The wipers are on the blink and it's kind of hard to see...

...Actually, Yehuda Levin is the only one...

...Levin doesn't own a television, nor does he bring non-Jewish newspapers into his house, so he first heard the news from New Hampshire while listening to the radio...

...So he'll make a comment about [Israel's] 'amen corner'-something," Levin says, "that's widely known in Washington" anyway...

...He did surprisingly well, winning 35 percent of the vote, as well as an endorsement from onetime syndicated columnist Joseph Sobran (the subject of complaints more serious than those against Buchanan that he peddles anti-Semitism...

...They were militant and shouting and raucous...

...After years of fighting for conservative social values, he is waging his latest battle on behalf of Patrick Buchanan...

...He, too, is doing his best to keep his support secret...

...We've got rabbis on the board of our campaign...

...On the other hand, Levin himself doesn't really seem that enthusiastic about Buchanan...

...many go back to the early 1980s...

...Far from being an anti-Semite, says the rabbi, Buchanan is more like a victim-of liberal Jews "afraid of a Gentile who asserts his religious, racial, or cultural identity too clearly...

...Reached at his house in Los Angeles, Medved hardly comes off as a Buchanan booster...

...But the Buchanan campaign is hoping he'll be enough...

...People do not understand...

...If the news came out about his support for Buchanan, he confides in low tones, "I'd lose my job...

...Even Levin's wife seems to have strong reservations about Buchanan...

...Levin does not put up a defense...

...Levin says that "philosophically" many of the Orthodox in Brooklyn support Buchanan...

...Liberal Jews," he says, "have done a significant job demonizing Buchanan and scaring people by getting half-quotations of what Buchanan has said, or taking things out of context, or not presenting Buchanan in the environment in which he must be understood...

...Levin ran on the Right-to-Life ticket and to nobody's surprise didn't do very well-though he did succeed in driving the incumbent crazy, calling him, among other things, a "homosexualist...

...Call him up-he's Orthodox Jew, too...

...Pressed, he describes himself merely as a spokesman for the organization, which he admits doesn't exist in any formal sense-no charter, no tax-exempt status, no physical headquarters...

...Medved, says Forbes, "is good friends with Pat...

...As proof, he produces a manila envelope stuffed with newspaper stories that mention his name...

...As a Jew, you're an embarrassment, you're a disgrace, you're a step away from excommunication," he says he shouted at Koch...

...He doesn't advertise his involvement with the campaign, and few of his friends and neighbors seem to know about it- although, he says, "it's coming out now much more than before," since his involvement has been "uncovered" by a local Jewish newspaper...