c. 1997 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ Members of Congress have ended their summer vacation and returned for the final months of the first session of the 105th Congress. So has Rabbi David Saperstein.
In the coming weeks, the ubiquitous rabbi _ to many, the quintessential Washington religious lobbyist _ can be expected to turn up everywhere: testifying before congressional committees, present at White House bill signings, huddled with a lawmaker here and a policymaker there, and then holding forth at a news conference.
Saperstein, a rabbi, attorney, author and director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, revels in the political process. But unlike many of his colleagues _ secular and religious, left and right _ he has faith in the system and refuses to share in the cynicism about government this town so often seems to breed.”People’s cynicism about Washington really belies my experience,”he said, admitting he still gets a chill every time he walks into the U.S. Senate.
Approaching a quarter of a century of advocacy work in the nation’s capital _ no small feat in a city where power and alliances shift daily and people come and go with the political tides _ Saperstein is lauded for being able to articulate a strong stance on virtually any issue in such a way that neither alienates his opposition nor diminishes his argument.
Seated in his office near Embassy Row recently, during a quiet moment in the whirligig of legislative wars, Saperstein did not hesitate to say his faith animates his work. “God did something extraordinary with humankind, giving us the ability to understand the difference between right and wrong and the ability … to serve as partners with God,”said Saperstein, who has served as director of RAC _ the political arm of the theologically liberal Reform Jewish movement _ since he was 26 years old.”What a wondrous thing, to get to be a partner with God.” Even in defeat, Saperstein’s abiding love of the political process enables him to find a silver lining and, when pressed, he cites only one grave disappointment in all his years of advocacy work.
The Supreme Court, he said, made an”egregious blunder”last June when it struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Amendment, a law restricting the government’s ability to interfere with religious practices that he and a panoply of religious activists had fought hard to enact.
Typically, however, Saperstein is not defeated by the ruling and, looking ahead, said he thinks the court will reverse itself within a decade.
In contrast to that one disappointment, Saperstein, who recently celebrated his 50th birthday, ticks off the numerous accomplishments he feels”blessed to be a part of”_ 24 pieces of civil rights legislation passed during the Reagan and Bush administrations, the religious community weighing in on world hunger in 1974, and its advocacy on behalf of the anti-apartheid movement in the mid-1980s.
The latter led to that rarity of events for a lobbyist _ arrest at a protest in front of the South African embassy.”He’s very effective because I think on the one hand, he has the moral will, and on the other hand he has the political savvy,”said Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who has collaborated with Saperstein on issues of economic justice, including raising the minimum wage and preventing cuts to nutritional programs. That combination of morality and savvy, Wellstone said, has given Saperstein”lasting power”in Washington.
Other longtime Washington religious advocates say they admire the seemingly endless energy of a man they consider a natural leader.”We used to chuckle a bit because one just does not find David Saperstein without words,”said James Hamilton, who retired last year as director of the Washington office of the National Council of Churches.
Hamilton said Washington’s ever-shifting power configurations leave Saperstein unfazed.”David had the energy and the skill, the ability, to roll with that,”he said.
Saperstein is perhaps best known for his ability to appear at a news conference beside somebody one day, and then to debate them fiercely the next.
A marked illustration of this talent is the fact that many of his allies in the fight to pass RFRA, including the National Association of Evangelicals and the Christian Coalition, are fierce opponents on the issue of a proposed constitutional amendment that aims to restore prayer to the public schools and otherwise expand religious expression in public institutions.”His understanding of the Establishment Clause (of the Constitution) is not mine,”said Forest Montgomery, counsel for the office for governmental affairs at the NAE. Nonetheless, Montgomery said, the two later collaborated on a 1995 publication,”Religion in the Public Schools,”which outlined what is permissible and impermissible when it come to religion in the schools.
Others said they believe it is Saperstein’s faith that sustains his political activism.”For him, faith means action,”said the Rev. James Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, a Washington-based religious liberty agency representing several Baptist denominations and a 25-year-old friend of the rabbi.”His greatest contribution is that he’s made clear that it’s scriptural values and not hostility to religion that motivates his commitment to religious freedom.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
Saperstein said his greatest hope is that Americans realize their potential and put their values to good use.”This is the first generation that can come close, if it has the moral will to do it … to bringing about the messianic time that we’ve dreamed about,”he said.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has shared the podium with Saperstein at numerous news conferences in their 22-year relationship.
Lynn remembers a news conference protesting the May 1995″Contract with the American Family,”a Christian Coalition initiative that featured an early version of the proposed constitutional amendment permitting prayers in public school.
Lynn recalls that Saperstein, one of the last speakers at that conference, stepped up to the microphone, placed a yarmulke _ a skullcap worn by religious Jews _ on his head and recited a Jewish prayer.”He used that to illustrate to the camera crews that were starting to drift off into the ether that this is very real … to remind them that these were religious voices,”said Lynn.
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Saperstein grew up in the Reform Jewish tradition of social activism as an expression of the theological notion of”tikkun olam,”or a repairing of the world. His parents were his earliest mentors.”My sense of what it meant to be a Jew was forged by watching them put their Jewish ideals to work in the service of an array of social justice causes,”wrote Saperstein in”Partners in Tikkun Olam,”a chapter in a collection of essays published in 1997 in honor of the 70th birthday of leading Reform intellectual Eugene B. Borowitz.
Saperstein’s parents _ his father is also a Reform rabbi _ often traveled to struggling synagogues to offer support. They also led a team of clergy to Selma, Ala., in 1965, when the school integration issue was at its heated peak.
After graduating a year early from Hebrew Union College in New York and being ordained into the rabbinate, Saperstein became the rabbi of Rodeph Sholom Congregation in New York.
Within two years, however, Saperstein left the synagogue. Following the untimely death of Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath, who was head of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) _ the Reform Jewish movement’s body of rabbis _ a personnel shuffle left the Religious Action Council without a director. Saperstein, who had recently led a High Holy Days hunger strike to protest the 1972 U.S. bombings of Cambodia, was tapped for the job.
Even though other job opportunities have arisen, Saperstein said he would never enjoy another position more than his current post, feeling his place is leading his”troops”in whatever battle presents itself.
To illustrate, he recalls a time when then-Sen. Pete Wilson’s, R-Calif., office called and pleaded with him to”call off your troops”that were flooding Wilson’s office with faxes and phone calls protesting a proposed school-prayer amendment.”Reform Jews tend to be very active,”Saperstein said, smiling at the memory.”That is one of the secrets of what success we’ve achieved here.”
MJP END LEBOWITZ
