"The Remarkable Life of Joe Lieberman: A Political Icon"
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From 1989 to 2013, Joseph Isadore Lieberman (/ˈliːbərmən/; February 24, 1942 – March 27, 2024) was an American politician and attorney who represented Connecticut as a senator. In the 2000 US presidential election, he was the Democratic Party's choice for vice president. He was a previous member of the party. He was formally registered as an independent Democrat during his last term in office, and he participated in and presided over Democratic Party committees.
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In 1970, Lieberman was elected as a Reform Democrat to the Connecticut Senate, where he held the position of Majority Leader for three consecutive terms. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, but from 1983 to 1989, he held the position of Attorney General for Connecticut. He defeated the Republican by a small margin.In 1988, Lowell Weicker, the party's incumbent, won the U.S. Senate race. He was re-elected in 1994, 2000, and 2006. In the 2000 presidential contest, he was the Democratic Party's choice for vice president. He faced off against Vice President Al Gore, the front-runner, and made history by being the first Jewish candidate on a major party presidential ticket in the United States.[2][3]
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As senator, Lieberman introduced and championed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 and legislation thatresulted in the Department of Homeland Security's establishment. His resistance to the public health insurance option was essential in getting it removed from the final bill that President Barack Obama signed during the Affordable Care Act (ACA) fight, when he was the vital 60th vote needed to approve the legislation.[7]
Early political career
Vice presidential campaign
Compared to Gore, Lieberman was perceived as being a more conservative Democrat in terms of ideology. Some see Gore's selection of Lieberman as an attempt to disassociate himself from the problems surrounding the Clinton White House due to Lieberman's criticism of Clinton's personal conduct.[24] The Gore-Lieberman ticket lost a fiercely contested election that
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Lieberman met his first wife, Betty Haas, at the congressional office of Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT), where they worked as summer student interns. They married in 1965 while Joe Lieberman was in law school. They had two children – Matt and Rebecca. Betty, who is also Jewish, later worked as a psychiatric social worker. In 1981, the couple divorced. When asked about the divorce in an interview with New York Magazine, Lieberman said, "one of the differences we had was in levels of religious observance", adding, "I'm convinced if that was the only difference, we wouldn't have gotten divorced."[138]
In 1982, he met his second wife, Hadassah Freilich Tucker, while he was running for Attorney General of Connecticut. Hadassah Tucker's parents were Holocaust survivors.[10] According to Washington Jewish Week, Lieberman called her for a date because he thought it would be interesting to go out with someone named Hadassah. (Hadassah is the name of the Women's Zionist Organization of America).[139] From March 2005, Hadassah Lieberman worked for Hill & Knowlton, a lobbying firm based in New York City, as a senior counselor in its health and pharmaceuticals practice. She held senior positions at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven, the American Committee for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International (APCO), Pfizer, National Research Council, Hoffmann-La Roche, and Lehman Brothers.[140]
Joe and Hadassah Lieberman had a daughter, Hana. In 2018 she made Aliyah to Israel with her family.[141] Lieberman also had a stepson from Hadassah's previous marriage, Ethan Tucker. Lieberman's son, Matt, graduated from Yale University and from Yale Law School.[142] He is the former head of the school of Greenfield Hebrew Academy in Atlanta.[143] He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2020 United States Senate special election in Georgia.[144] Rebecca, Lieberman's daughter, graduated from Barnard College in 1991, and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1997.[145] Ethan Tucker, son of Gordon Tucker, graduated from Harvard College in 1997 and received his rabbinic ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.[146][147]
Lieberman described himself as an "observant" Jew.[2] In 1965 he married Betty Haas, a Reform Jew. After the death in 1967 of his grandmother, a deeply religious immigrant, he found renewed interest in religious observance. His second wife, Hadassah, is also an observant Modern Orthodox Jew. "Hadassah calls herself my right wing", said Lieberman.[138] In Lieberman's 1988 upset of Republican Party incumbent Senator Lowell Weicker, Lieberman's religious observance was mostly viewed in terms of refusal to campaign on the Jewish Sabbath. This changed when Al Gore chose Lieberman as the running mate; a Lieberman press officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "He refers to himself as observant, as opposed to Orthodox, because he doesn't follow the strict Orthodox code and doesn't want to offend the Orthodox, and his wife feels the same way."[148]
The Liebermans kept a kosher home and observed the Sabbath.[149] In one notable instance, then-Senator Lieberman walked to the Capitol after Sabbath services to block a Republican filibuster.[150] Lieberman said that there was currently "a constitutional place for faith in our public life", and that the Constitution does not provide for "freedom from religion".[151] He attended Kesher Israel Congregation in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol – B'nai Israel, The Westville Synagogue, New Haven, Connecticut.[152] He also attended Congregation Agudath Sholom in his hometown of Stamford. Lieberman was an admirer of the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. He said of Schneerson, "I was impressed by this man, by his obvious spirituality, by his soaring intellect, by the extent to which he was involved in the world."[153] He said he had studied the commentaries of Rabbis Joseph Ber Soloveitchik and Abraham Isaac Kook.[10]
Lieberman was the first person of Jewish background or faith to run on a major party presidential ticket.[154] Lieberman said that he liked to sing and was a fan of Frank Sinatra, whose song "My Way" was the theme of his first Senate campaign.[10] He sang the classic Jewish tune "Eshet Hayil" to his wife every Friday night.[10] On March 27, 2024, Lieberman died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, aged 82, from injuries that he sustained in a fall at his home in the Bronx.[155][156][157]
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