Like most everyone else, I was shocked and saddened when I heard about Sen. Joe Lieberman’s passing last spring. Though his lifelong public service as an Orthodox Jew made an impact on me, as far as I knew, I had no personal connection. Imagine my surprise when my son’s school, a thoroughly Israeli outfit — to wit, my son is the only English speaker in his class of 28 — sent out a condolence letter about a student’s grandfather, Sen. Joe Lieberman!
This only boosted my preexisting interest in seeing the newly released documentary on his life, “Centered: Joe Lieberman,” produced by the Hidden Light Institute (HLI). A few weeks ago, I was grateful to attend a premiere at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, which honored co-producer Rob Schwartz later that evening in recognition of the global impact of HLI’s first documentary, “Upheaval,” on Menachem Begin. Attendees included former Knesset members, the CEO of Rafael Defense Systems, former Ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew, as well as Lieberman’s family and former neighbors.
One of the more remarkable facts about this film is that it almost never happened. Why? Because Lieberman, ever the mensch, found it unbecoming. He resisted. It needed to be educational, not merely entertainment, he insisted. Only after the producers promised to create an accompanying curriculum on civics and bipartisanship for hundreds of schools across the U.S. did Lieberman acquiesce.
The documentary delivered some remarkable revelations, such as what Bill Clinton said in a direct call to Lieberman after Lieberman’s unprecedented public rebuke of Clinton on the Senate floor over the Lewinsky scandal, when he broke not just with his party but with the prevailing political silence; Lieberman’s reflections on the Iraq invasion 20 years later; how he spent the night of his nomination for the vice presidency (Hint: whatever you think, it’s not that!); and candid reflections on the decision to move on from his first marriage.
But even the more “mundane” biographical aspects of his political career leave a powerful message in their wake. As a kid, I became inspired by Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who switched parties mid-career and voted against his party multiple times, both before and after the switch. A quick search taught me that Campbell and Lieberman were two of only five senators to switch parties over a 50-year period. They were men of principle. Their votes reflected their inner beliefs, regardless of how they were “supposed” to vote.
As Lieberman put it, “Country comes before party.” Or, as I learned Lieberman was wont to sing, “I Did It My Way,” to borrow from Frank Sinatra. God knows we could use more such political leadership today.
Part of the documentary traces the odd road Lieberman traveled from being a Supreme Court decision away from being vice president on the Democratic ticket in 2000 to a speaker at the Republican National Convention in 2008.
His main critique of Obama in 2008, aside from inexperience? That not once during his Senate term had Obama reached across the aisle to advance legislation. We further gain insight into the longstanding relationship between Lieberman and John McCain, the 2008 Republican candidate, and the implausible fact that Lieberman was nearly McCain’s vice presidential candidate.
Lieberman’s steadfast Shabbat and kashrut observance at the highest levels of political office is legendary, but what I certainly did not know was that tinfoil on Passover played a key role in the courtship of his second wife, Hadassah.
Stephanie Strauss, director of Yeshiva University Israel, manages to find time to moonlight as vice chair of Hidden Light Institute, and put a passionate Torah frame on the film in introducing its showing in Jerusalem. The Torah portion that week, she pointed out, was when Yosef revealed himself to his brothers. “Through his faith, values and leadership, our Yosef — Joseph Lieberman — revealed time and time again who he truly was: a light to the American people and to us, his brothers,” she said. “Further in the parsha, the brothers return to their father Jacob and excitedly share that ‘Od Yosef Chai’ ‘Joseph is still alive!’ Through ‘Centered,’ we are proud to ensure that Joe Lieberman’s life and legacy will continue to live on.”
Last but not least, Hani Lowenstein, Lieberman’s daughter, introduced the film. Barely a month earlier Hani and her husband, Daniel, had a son, Yosef Yisrael, named after her dad. “I can just see him sitting at our dinner table in Jerusalem this past February, which turned into his makeshift desk on visits, watching one of the cuts of the film,” she reflected. “On his desk back home,” she continued, “there was a sign which read ‘Never, never, never, quit.’ Tonight, I challenge each of us sitting in this room to not only enjoy the documentary, not only to learn from it, but to be moved by it, to be moved to action. Consider what you care a whole awful lot about and remember to never, never, never quit in pursuing your goals to create positive change around you.”
This mantra, to “never, never, never quit” was no mere slogan for Lieberman. As much as there is to learn from his life, the film would have been even more powerful were it to highlight what we can learn from his final illness and death. Alas, it was too late, as Lieberman’s sudden passing came when the film was already finished. But as his son, Matt, noted shortly after his passing, the family, and possibly even Lieberman himself, did not even know his full diagnosis or life expectancy as he battled a terminal illness for six years.
“My dad wasn’t about death; he was about life — and living it,” wrote Matt. Even in his final months, he made an international trip attending a grandson’s bar mitzvah in Israel, the annual security conference in Munich, as well as a business trip to Washington. “If he’d known his life expectancy in 2018 and shared it with us, to a significant extent these past six years would have been counted down. That’s not how my dad lived … consequently, he lived life at 110% until the end.”
For information about the film, visit https://www.centeredfilm.com/regal-cinemas
