Tikkun Olam & Tzedakah = Bernie Sanders

[Lodestar]

Some thoughts about Bernie Sanders, the essence of the man
from an article by the Guardian during Mar. Florida
primary.

Professor Ira Sheskin, director of the Jewish demography project and a professor of geography at the University of Miami, noted though that regardless how frequently Sanders attends synagogue, his message is deeply influenced by Judaism. “The role of man is to repair the world and make it a better place, and charity, helping the widow and the orphan, those are kind of core Jewish values generally no matter how religious people are,” Sheskin said. “ After all, Bernie Sanders is a secular Jew, he’s not at all religious, but he knows exactly what tikkun olam and tzedakah are, and his opinions fit within that.”

BERNIE -

“Look, my father’s family was wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust. I know about what crazy and radical and extremist politics mean. I learned that lesson as a tiny, tiny child when my mother would take me shopping, and we would see people working in stores who had numbers on their arms because they were in Hitler’s concentration camp.”

He concluded: “I’m very proud of being Jewish and that is an essential part of who I am as a human being.”

Rabbi David Paskin, who leads the congregation at Temple Beth David, a conservative synagogue in Palm Beach Gardens, said of the Vermont senator: “Does he or does he not make a big deal of his Jewishness? I was happy with the way he described his Jewishness. He really is a reflection of 87% of the Jews in America, secular Jews who are biologically Jewish but don’t express it in any significant way.

“There’s something to be said for us as a Jewish community to have arms open enough to embrace his Judaism or his lack of wanting to talk about it, because those are the Jews we have in the world. Does it make him more qualified? No. But would I like to see a Jew in office? Damn right I would.”

To others, the fact that Sanders’ religion is a non issue is important in and of itself. Steve Cohen, a Democratic congressman from Memphis, told the Guardian: “It’s wonderful that it has not been raised as an issue and shows how far America has come.”


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/14/sanders-jewish-candidate-florida-primary-hillary-clinton

[elleng]

1. “The role of man is to repair the world and make it a better place,

and charity, helping the widow and the orphan."

Shalom

[Segami]

2. I love that!

[Segami]

3. kick