River Edge—Joining Rosenbaum Yeshiva of North Jersey’s scholarship reception this year was Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who came out from behind the podium to “talk tachlis” with the crowd. Slinging around Yiddish phrases like he was born to it, Booker entertained the crowd with his knowledge of Torah learning, his clear love of the State of Israel, and his powerful support of values-based education programs. Quoting sources as diverse as the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rabbi Hillel to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his speech was both welcome and well received.
Booker’s first priority was commending the school’s leadership.
“The very future of our community stands with the education of our kids,” said Booker, indicating his support of charter schools and public school education alternatives such as school voucher programs. “Why can’t a kid go to a school that’s successful for them?” he asked. Booker added that he learned when he first started out as Newark’s mayor that part of the education children receive must include ideals and values, and that this process extends to the workplace and beyond. “You can’t just hire for excellence, you have to hire for values. This is a school that has a commitment to a values-based education,” he said.
The senator reminded the audience that he was introduced to Yiddishkeit when he attended a Simchat Torah celebration at the L’Chaim Society at Oxford in the fall of 1992, when he was a Rhodes Scholar. Clearly accustomed to telling this story, Booker told of his first meeting with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, acknowledging him in the RYNJ audience. He shared that over a process of exchanging books and learning about each other’s cultures and backgrounds, Boteach and Booker developed a friendship based on love and mutual respect, and the friendship continues to this day.
Turning to the topic of Israel, Booker explained that he first visited Israel in 1994, and has since returned many times. On his first visit to Israel he visited Yad Vashem, and talked of his refusal to “stand idly by” and allow a genocide like the Holocaust ever to take place again. He referred the phrase in Leviticus, “I will not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.”
“The idea that this powerful nation should stand aside while genocide is taking place. There are people intent on destroying Israel. This past summer Hamas was building tunnels with cement given to them to build schools, for no purpose other than to kill Jews. We can’t stand idly by,” he repeated.
Booker added two further priorities: “We need to give more funding to Israel for the Iron Dome. And if someone tells you who they are, believe them. Iran is the chief national sponsor of terrorism globally. We should see them for the threat they really are. We must do everything possible to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Booker concluded by congratulating the honorees, who were 13 members of the school’s faculty who are also alumni of the school. The scholarship campaign raised a record $766,000 for RYNJ scholarships.
By Elizabeth Kratz
