In 2017, Cynthia Erivo, clad in white like a bride, took the stage at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center to perform “Take Care of This House.” It was opening night of the National Symphony Orchestra’s season, and Erivo was singing First Lady Abigail Adams’ solo from the little-known Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

That show, an ode to the first century of the White House’s existence, premiered in 1976, and has a rocky history: It closed on Broadway after only 20 performances, including previews. But the musical, while imperfect, was daring — a recounting of American history that featured a series of presidents, their first ladies, and their Black servants. Erivo sang in the first year of President Donald Trump’s first term. Then, having a Black actor on the Capitol’s most prominent stage sing the part of a white first lady — in a song that promises a Black servant he has a part in the American dream — felt like resistance.

Yes, the political tide might have been turning away from the heartfelt messaging of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, which suggested women and people of color were as central to American history as any white, male president. But in the world of culture, Erivo’s performance proclaimed, that kind of equal respect was still the true American dream.

Is it still?

Where Jacqueline Kennedy’s Garden, also known as the First Lady’s Garden, once bloomed, there is an expanse of yellow-brown dirt. The First Lady’s Office, shaped by Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosalynn Carter, is a heap of twisted metal. Where the corridors of power once linked the presidential operations of the West Wing to the visitor’s office — the point of public access to the public’s house — there is an expanse of scarred, dusty red brick, the innards of the house exposed.

Amid Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing, the rubble where part of the most familiar facade in the country used to stand feels like a rebuttal to the simple exhortation Adams’ character expresses in “Take Care of this House.” “Keep it so clean,” she sings, “The glow can be seen / All over the land.”

Bernstein held a troubled but profound attachment to the vision of a United States that lived up to its founding promise of liberty and justice for all. That oft-broken pledge was a theme of West Side Story: “America,” with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, is an unusually effective, and entertaining, argument both for and against maintaining hope in this country. Bernstein’s support for the civil rights movement was so well-known that it occasionally backfired, with Tom Wolfe famously asking if the composer’s activism was just a way of accenting his own glamour.

But the picture of a better country — a country that was true to its professed ideals — has rarely sounded as unglamorous, or as meaningful, as it does in “Take Care of This House.” Adams coaches her servant carefully: Make sure the doors are locked and the surfaces are shined, and be ever alert to anything even mildly amiss.

Whatever Bernstein’s failings as an activist, he understood something essential about what the White House means. It is an example of the best of the U.S. because it is humble: Not a palace, but a place that successive generations — especially First Ladies, and their unsung servants — have strived to make beautiful. Some people may visit the White House to gawk at the extravagance, or to feel the rumbles of the machinery of power. I suspect more do because they are drawn to their own sense of ownership of it — the idea that they, too, could have a small part in making it great.

Will Trump’s new ballroom make it greater than the First Lady’s Garden did? Greater than the quiet energy that came from standing between walls that had witnessed the making of history?

It’s true that luxury and ease are also manifestations of a kind of American dream — a different one than that which Bernstein and Lerner articulated. But today, watching Erivo sing Adams’ paean to the beauty of a carefully kept home, my heart aches. All that work, over all those decades, and the end is a landscape of desolate rubbish, with the suggestion of gaudiness to follow.

When I think back to my own visit to the East Wing of the White House in 2015, I think about the last lines of Bernstein and Lerner’s song: “Take care of this house / Be always on call/ For this house / Is the hope of us all.”

I felt a sort of soft awe back then. I wonder if that feeling is one I’ll ever have again.

The post Leonard Bernstein wrote a love song to the White House; now it’s an elegy appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Two days after Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove delivered a sermon urging congregants to vote against Zohran Mamdani, rabbis across the country were asked to sign a letter quoting him.

By the time it was published Wednesday, 650 rabbis and cantors had done so, adding their names calling out the “political normalization” of anti-Zionism among figures like Mamdani, the New York City mayoral frontrunner.

By Friday, the letter had more than 1,000 signatories, making it one of the most-signed rabbinic letters in U.S. history.

But Cosgrove, the senior rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side, was not one of them.

“As a policy, I do not sign group letters,” he said in an interview. 

“My fear of such letters is they can flatten subjects and reduce complex issues to ‘Who’s on a letter and who’s not on a letter?’” he added. “There are other platforms that rabbis can give expression to their leadership.”

As the letter has ricocheted across the country and escaped from rabbis’ inboxes to their congregants’ social media feeds, it has ignited a wave of scrutiny, plaudits and recriminations. Some people have voiced relief or disappointment in seeing their rabbi’s name on the list — or on not seeing it. 

“Jewish communities are circulating spreadsheets of who signed and who didn’t,” wrote Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein in an essay describing what she said was “a painful public reckoning” taking place both publicly and privately.

“I am not sleeping. These red lines are so dangerous,” responded Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Hermann, of Manhattan’s Society for the Advancement of Judaism, in one of dozens of comments representing a wide range of views. Hermann devoted her Yom Kippur sermon earlier this month to calling on her community to “become an antidote to the polarization and fragmentation in our broader Jewish community and society.”

Now, facing renewed pressure from their congregants over the letter, some New York City rabbis are articulating alternative strategies for responding to a political moment that many Jews are experiencing as fraught and high-stakes.

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl wrote to all members of Central Synagogue, the Manhattan Reform congregation where she is senior rabbi, to explain why they would not find her among the letter’s signatories.

“As a Central clergy team, we have spoken from the pulpit in multiple past sermons and will continue to take a clear, unambiguous position on antisemitism, on anti-Zionist rhetoric, and on sharing our deep support for Israel,” she wrote.

But, citing the importance of “separation of church and state,” Buchdahl wrote that “it is up to each of us to vote our conscience.”

“There are political organizations, including Jewish ones, where electoral politics is the core mission. Get involved,” she wrote. “Central Synagogue, however, is a Jewish spiritual home and we want to keep it that way. It remains our conviction that political endorsements of candidates are not in the best interest of our congregation, community, or country.”

Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of the Conservative synagogue Congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side sent out a letter of his own to congregants. He said he would not be voting for Mamdani but did not believe it was his role to tell them how to vote. And he raised concerns about what he said was the “shearing off of liberal from conservative liberal communities,” saying that Jews of all political outlooks should be able to pray and act together. 

“The Torah commands lo titgodedu, traditionally interpreted to mean, don’t fragment yourselves into factions,” Kalmanofsky wrote. “I fear this happening to Jews. Frankly, I fear it more than I fear an anti-Zionist mayor.”

Rabbi Adam Mintz, who leads the recently rebranded Modern Orthodox congregation Shtiebel @ JCC, said he’d signed a smaller letter from Manhattan Orthodox rabbis urging the importance of voting. But Mintz felt this letter was outside his role.

“I’m a rabbi. I don’t want to take a political stand,” he said. “I understand that some people feel strongly and they want to take a political stand. I think that’s OK, but that’s not my role.”

Rabbi Michelle Dardashti of Kane Street Synagogue, an egalitarian Conservative synagogue in Brooklyn, did not sign the letter, either. She instead took a different approach to addressing her congregants in the lead-up to the election, hosting about 80 of them Tuesday night for an evening of dialogue. 

Members representing a spectrum of views took turns sharing questions and concerns ahead of the election. Dardashti said congregants, despite conflicting views, were “deeply engaged and passionate, and spoke beautifully and respectfully.”

“I understand my rabbinic role to be one that creates space for people to learn from each other’s different experiences, and therefore perspectives,” she said.

Some Jewish leaders and groups outright opposed the letter and its message, rather than considering it an ill-advised strategy. Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish organization that endorsed Mamdani, released a statement excoriating the letter and its signatories for distracting from what it said was the real issue: Donald Trump.

“These Jewish leaders are doing Trump and the MAGA movement’s work for them: dividing our pro-democracy movement at a time when we need to be united to beat back fascism,” the statement read.

Josh Whinston, a rabbi in Ann Arbor, Michigan, expressed skepticism on social media about the letter’s origin and intentions, and noted that he did not sign it.

“This was not a call for moral clarity; it was a political move aimed at influencing a local race in New York City,” he wrote.

Upon first reading it, Whinston wrote that he “agreed with parts of what it said,” and that he “considered signing.” But, hoping to learn more about the Jewish Majority, the group behind the letter, Whinston wrote, “The site offered no substance. There was no mission, no vision, no leadership, no staff.” 

The Jewish Majority’s goal, as stated on its website, is to counterbalance left-wing “fringe groups” like Jewish Voice for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which they say “weaponize the Jewish identity of some of their members to call for policy recommendations that are rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community.” 

The executive director of the Jewish Majority, Jonathan Schulman, is a former longtime AIPAC staffer. In an interview, Schulman said he wrote the letter’s first draft before it underwent rounds of edits from about 40 rabbis of different denominations. 

The inspiration came when “Rabbi Cosgrove’s sermon started making the rounds,” he said, adding, “By Sunday morning, rabbis were reaching out to me saying, ‘This is the kind of sentiment we’re feeling all over the country.’”

Unlike Cosgrove’s sermon, which included an endorsement of Andrew Cuomo, the letter does not mention either of Mamdani’s opponents. It does, however, say that political figures like “Zohran Mamdani refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide,” and calls on Americans to “stand up for candidates who reject antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric, and who affirm Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.” 

Schulman recalled being told, “‘There’s the issue of Zohran Mamdani and calls to globalize the intifada and all this, but there’s anti-Zionist candidates running for mayor in Somerville, Massachusetts, in Minneapolis, Seattle — this is becoming normalized, this is becoming mainstream.’”

Rabbi Mark Miller of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is one of the rabbis who helped edit the letter. He said part of his goal was to help clarify its nature as being national rather than local. 

“This was not an attempt for the rest of us to get involved in New York politics,” Miller said. “It’s highlighting it, but the issue is that everywhere we are, this is a concern.”

Signatories on the letter include rabbis from across the United States, and even outside the country. 

Rabbi Brigitte Rosenberg, the senior rabbi of a Reform congregation in St. Louis, signed the letter, and said the message about anti-Zionism resonated with her on a national level.

“Mamdani was the big race that was talked about in this, but it’s come up in other races, right?” Rosenberg said, pointing to the comeback bid of “Squad” member Cori Bush to represent St. Louis in Congress.

Rabbi Jeremy Barras from Miami said a number of his congregants have residences in New York, and “they’re just terrified.”

“But I would’ve signed it if it was the same issue in any city in America,” Barras said. “It just happens to be true that we’re a little more sensitive because so many of our families have connections in New York.”

Both Barras and Rosenberg said they couldn’t remember an open letter signed by this many rabbis. There have in fact been examples of open letters being signed by 1,000-plus rabbis, including an appeal to open Palestine to Jews in 1945; a 2017 letter calling on Trump to support refugees and a letter from earlier this year demanding Israel stop “using starvation as a weapon of war.”

Yehuda Kurtzer, co-president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, affirmed that open letters like the one distributed by the Jewish Majority are nothing new, and said there is “definitely a tension that emerges” for those expected to sign. Endorsements from the pulpit, on the other hand, are “new terrain,” he said, noting the Trump administration’s decision to stop enforcement of an IRS rule barring political endorsements from religious institutions.

“We felt pretty strongly that rabbis should not generally do this, and there’s a whole variety of reasons,” Kurtzer said. “It’s a plausible scenario that politicians will start doing quid pro quos with religious leaders around their needs. Once you do it once there’s an expectation that you’ll do it all the time.”

Some of the rabbis who signed say they weren’t making a partisan political statement. Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side and the leader of a Zionist organization within the Reform movement, acknowledged “worries” about alienating some congregants. But, like others who’ve come out against Mamdani, Hirsch said it was non-partisan to speak out against someone whose rhetoric could compromise Jewish safety.

“There’s always the risk that people will understand you in a partisan way, especially since we’re living in such a hyper-partisan atmosphere now,” Hirsch said. “But it’s a risk that we have to take because the stakes are so high.”

Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El made a similar point. “I’m not going to tell people who they ought to vote for. But I do think it’s important for me to let them know what I think they ought to be thinking about when they vote,” he said, pointing to issues like “the well-being of the State of Israel and the safety of the Jewish community.”

For Cosgrove, whose synagogue is located 20 blocks from Davidson’s, the division that’s arisen since his sermon is something to grieve.

“It deeply saddens me that, in a moment where the Jewish community should be thinking about the external threats that our community faces, that we should be spending an iota of energy on that which exacerbates any fault lines,” Cosgrove said.

The post As 1000+ rabbis sign anti-Mamdani letter, others decry mounting ‘red lines’ in Jewish communities appeared first on The Forward.

Andrew Cuomo believes he’s made an effective case to Jewish voters, particularly those opposed to Zohran Mamdani or concerned about his statements on Israel. In an interview on Friday, Cuomo insisted that “the truth” will help him pull off an upset in the election for New York City mayor, despite lagging in all public polls.

Cuomo said that since his defeat in the Democratic primary, there’s an increased awareness of Mamdani’s rhetoric and positions, which will be key to the former governor’s success.

“Look, I think there’s so much information out there now that the voters know the emes,” Cuomo said, using the Yiddish word for truth. “And the emes is the reason I’m going to win.”

Mamdani’s positions on Israel have roiled New York’s Jewish community — the largest outside of Israel, as he has faced scrutiny for: refusing to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada,” calling the Gaza war a “genocide,” and pledging to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited the city.

Earlier this week, Mamdani made a direct appeal to Brooklyn’s Hasidic community, an influential constituency that often votes based on rabbinical guidance and supported Cuomo in the primary and Eric Adams in 2021.

In an open letter written in Hasidic Yiddish and published in Yiddish-language newspapers, Mamdani highlighted his plans to combat antisemitism and his proposals on affordability and childcare vouchers. Mamdani pledged on Wednesday to retain police commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, which was viewed as a gesture to reassure Jewish New Yorkers worried about rising antisemitism.

Cuomo said that in his conversations with Jewish leaders and voters, he has “sensed a real fear” of what would happen if Mamdani got elected.

“The level of concern in the Jewish community is frighteningly high,” he said. Cuomo suggested that anxious Jewish voters “are more motivated than I have ever seen them in politics.”

Cuomo spent Friday meeting with Orthodox leaders in Flatbush, where he earned the endorsement of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, the same influential group that Adams credited with helping secure his 2021 victory.

The former governor also addressed remarks made earlier in the day by Mamdani, who accused his opponents of targeting him because he’s the first Muslim favored to become mayor of New York. “I thought that if I behaved well enough or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani said in a speech outside a mosque in The Bronx. “I was wrong.”

Cuomo pushed back, saying his campaign against Mamdani is rooted not in religion but in the democratic socialist’s own record. “I think Mamdani has created great fear among the Jewish community and many other communities,” he said. “He is affirmatively offensive. It has nothing to do with his being Muslim. It has to do with what he says.”

Also on Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who had until now resisted weighing in on the mayoral race, endorsed Mamdani. In a statement, Jeffries said Mamdani has promised “to focus on keeping every New Yorker safe, including the Jewish community.”

A recent Quinnipiac poll showed Mamdani trailing Cuomo by 31 points among Jewish voters, while maintaining a double-digit lead citywide. Just 22% of Jewish voters view Mamdani favorably, while 67% hold an unfavorable opinion. The survey found that a plurality of likely voters share Mamdani’s views on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Early voting in the election begins on Saturday.

The post Mamdani has created ‘great fear,’ and Jewish voters are ‘more motivated than I have ever seen,’ Cuomo says appeared first on The Forward.