For young Jewish college students, Joe Lieberman is, at best, a historical curiosity. In the pantheon of political movers and shakers, the religiously observant former senator from Connecticut — who died a year ago this week — is best known for almost being the first Orthodox Jewish vice president of the United States.

But Joe, as his friends called him, was so much more than that. For Orthodox Jews working in the political and public policy space, Lieberman was a mentor, a friend and an inspiration. He wasn’t just a politician who happened to be Jewish; we have plenty of those. He was Jewish first and a politician second. His Jewish values breathed life into his political values — not the other way around. And he embodied those values on the national stage without losing himself or his connection to our community.

“My Jewish faith is central to my life,” Lieberman said at a speech at Brigham Young University. “I was raised in a religiously observant family. Given to me by my parents and formed by my rabbis, my faith has provided me with a foundation, an order, and a sense of purpose in my life. It has much to do with the way I strive to navigate in a constructive way through every day, both personally and professionally, in ways that are large and small.”

The world is a worse place without him in it, and our body politic feels the vacuum left by his death. Where is the next Joe Lieberman? If anything, we have an abundance of anti-Joe Liebermans in Congress. In this time of crisis for global Jewry, some Jewish members of Congress have worked against the Jewish community’s interests.

At the same, the other side has an army of antisemitic and anti-Zionist activists protesting on college campuses and eager to be the next AOC, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. They are funded and trained by nefarious groups who often get their money from terrorist-supporting regimes. They are what our political future looks like if we do nothing.

This poses a question for Orthodox Jews. How do we raise and inspire the next Joe Lieberman?

How do we equip them with the skills and the motivation to take this leap into the political morass and, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, “keep their religious wits about them?”

OU Advocacy Center, where I have spent 25 years of my life advocating for Orthodox Jews in Washington, recently launched a new program called the LIAT (Leadership in Advocacy Training) Fellowship that introduces Jewish college students to the world of community advocacy.

We launched the first fellowship class earlier this year with 16 students from an array of colleges ranging from Columbia University to University of Texas at Austin for a six-month curriculum. The program will conclude in the spring with an immersive week-long session in Washington where students will engage with policymakers, White House officials and leading advocates.

Students will hear from Jewish members of Congress, but also those they can see as more immediate role models — Jewish Hill staffers and executive branch members, lawyers and lobbyists — with whom they’ll discuss and learn how the work of advocacy gets done.

The goal of the fellowship is not merely intellectual; it’s practical. We will tackle hands-on questions like: How do you run for public office? How do you deal with a hostile media? How do you build a coalition around a particular issue? How do you get a bill passed? They will graduate with new knowledge, skills and relationships that last well beyond college.

This is a wake-up moment for us. We don’t have the luxury of sitting on the political sidelines, hoping our friends fight for us. Of course, we are grateful for our many friends in federal, state and local government, but we need more than friends. We need our own army of advocates who represent our voices and values on the political stage.

We must invest now in the development of future leaders, the next generation of Joe Liebermans, Jack Lews, David Friedmans and Deborah Lipstadts, who will be well-prepared advocates for Israel and the Jewish people.

Nathan Diament is the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center (OUA). Twitter: @ndiament