Friday, June 10, 2011

Senator Sighting

Joseph "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut and a member of the Democratic Party.

In the 2000 United States presidential election, Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President, running with presidential nominee Al Gore, becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major American political party presidential ticket. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election.

Bob Strauss was a member of the organization "Joe Lieberman for President" that supported Senator Lieberman's primary candidacy in 2004. Bob Strauss attended the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles at which Senator Lieberman was nominated to run for Vice President of the United States with nominee for President, former Vice President Al Gore, a protege of Vernon Jordan's.

Senator Lieberman's wife, Hadassah, is the child of Holocaust survivors. She was born Hadassah Freilich in a refugee camp in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Her father was Samuel Freilich, a lawyer and rabbi from Munkács, in the Carpathian Ruthenia (now Mukachevo in Ukraine). Her mother, Ella (Wieder) Freilich, had survived both Auschwitz and Dachau. Hadassah was named for her maternal grandmother, who died at Auschwitz. Samuel Freilich brought his family to the United States in 1949, settling in Gardner, Massachusetts, where he was the rabbi of Congregation Ohave Shalom.

The following is the text of an email I sent to my sister after I sighted Senator Lieberman on Connecticut Avenue in 1994.

FAX NO. 609 235 5569
transmittal for Mrs. Estelle Jacobson c/o Mr. Edward Jacobson
______________________________

Dear Stell,

Tell Malcolm to tell Senator Lieberman that that was me in the yellow striped shirt at 9:45 AM this morning near Adas Israel Congregation.

It's not every day you see a U.S. Senator carrying a lulav!

Happy Succoth!

GF

Wednesday 9/21/94