Hartford

Joe Lieberman thinks Jewishly; note his lovely comment to Jason Horowitz re his support for Israel as an underlying issue in the Dem. primary—

Mr. Lieberman paused, stepped toward the blue sedan that would speed him to a meeting outside of Hartford and said, "That's too big a question to answer on one foot. We should come back to answer that one."

Lieberman was referring to the famous episode involving Rabbi Hillel, where he and another rabbi were challenged by an unbeliever to tell him all the teachings of the Torah while standing on one foot. The other rabbi threatened to chase the man away, but Hillel accepted the challenge:

"What is hateful to you, do not do unto others. That is the meaning of Torah. All the rest is commentary."

Good to think about these days...

Jason Horowitz did what I asked someone to do, stuck Israel right into the Connecticut Senate race:

Asked specifically if he felt that the wave of opposition to his candidacy had anything to do with his religion or his support for Israel, Mr. Lieberman paused, stepped toward the blue sedan that would speed him to a meeting outside of Hartford and said, "That's too big a question to answer on one foot. We should come back to answer that one."

As I reported for the Nation, Bernard Steinberg, director of Harvard's Hillel center, brought this issue up unprompted to me: "I talked to someone in Harvard development and asked what the fallout had been, and he said, 'It's been seismic.'"

Martin Peretz in The New Republic, "anti-Israel and even anti-Jewish animus"), desires to punish the university for Summers's departure and so plays the money card. "...[M]y own impression of wealthy alumni who were once my students is that Summers made them more generous... I know of at least three gifts in the $100 million range that were very likely to materialize and now are dicey."

"I got kicked out of Aspen.... In early 2002 they held a conference on relations with the Muslim world. For two days nobody mentioned Israel. Finally, I said, 'Look, this is a Soviet-style debate. Whatever you think about this issue, the entire Muslim world is shouting about it.' I have never been asked back." In 2004 Lieven published a book, America Right or Wrong, in which he argued that the United States had subordinated its interests to a tiny militarized state, Israel.

Tom Topousis examines the awkwardness of Gretchen Dykstra's national non-fundraising tour for the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. In Hartford, Ron Nobli, a labor union official, tells him, "We would have dug into our own pockets right now" -- except Dykstra wasn't asking.

The No. 1 saying in philanthropic circles is that the No. 1 reason why people give money is because they are asked.

-Matthew Schuerman

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