Politics and personal values are said to be mutually exclusive or at the very least rare – and if Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) has his way that estrangement will continue.
The Jewish politician recently accused a group of his co-religionists the Brooklyn-based Sephardic Voter’s League of racist tactics. Their crime? They distributed a letter that endorsed City Council candidate Isaac Sasson of Queens because he represents our values and our way of life.
Oh and as extra humus on the pita the group in addition to actually fulfilling its mandate of analyzing a candidate’s positions also wanted to help make history by enabling the election of the first Syrian-born Sephardi or non-Ashkenazic Jew to the City Council. (Sasson would end up losing to incumbent council John Liu.)
But listen to Ackerman: There’s a name for people who won’t support people of other races he proclaimed with righteous indignation to the Jewish Week. He described the group’s move as being a very base appeal on the basis of religion and ethnicity.
Ackerman would be correct – if that’s what the league said. But it didn’t. Instead of emphasizing the negative it accentuated the positive. Each and every one of us wants to see our values reflected in our elected officials. Don’t we?
In a city like New York racial politics is nothing new of course. Neither is the endorsing of candidates by special interests – unions minorities – with language like he speaks our language or he’ll fight for us. But Heaven forbid that in a political context a political group should utter the word values or even hint that its views are informed and animated by something other than a secular worldview. Do so and well unholy hell breaks loose.
Sasson for his part said: I’m proud of Jewish values which are values of justice and compassion. A lot of other people share those values.
Indeed they do. And that’s precisely why Ackerman’s portraying the Sephardic Voter’s League as racist is not only hypocritical it’s downright destructive.
Why?
Because unlike say the pro-union politician who agitates for one cause at the expense of another values cross religious denominations.
An observant Jew will almost certainly share more day-to-day views with a believing Catholic or evangelical than an atheist who just happened to be born to a Jewish mother. That a candidate could easily be described by practitioners of other faiths as to cite the letter of the Sephardic Voter?s League represent[ing] our values and our way of life should without the least bit of disingenuousness be evidence of this.
Religious affiliation should never be the litmus test to electability. At the same time however focusing on an individual’s strong faith as a plus should never be treated as a stigma.
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