Photo: Kruter Photography
One of the perks of a career in journalism is getting to meet people of prominence whom men and women who are not journalists probably do not get to meet.
At the same time, one of the downsides of a career in journalism is getting to meet people of prominence whom men and women who are not journalists probably do not get to meet.
Oftentimes, seeing the real person, in an unfiltered way, without their PR advisors shaping their image or controlling their narrative is quite revealing—in a negative way.
Oftentimes these people—politicians and professors, athletes and academicians—turn out to be, to put it bluntly, not the nicest folks. People you’d like to forget.
Then there was Joseph Lieberman.
The retired senator, who died last week at eighty-two, was a man everyone who met him likes to remember.
He was a mentsch. Someone without pretense; someone who took his Jewish religious obligations and beliefs seriously but was never pompous about his personal practice.
Success did not go to Lieberman’s head. He reached nearly the pinnacle of political heights in this country—nearly elected, with Senate colleague Al Gore heading the Democratic ticket, to the office of US vice president in 2000. This was an achievement unthinkable a generation or two ago, for a Jew in this country, let alone one who described himself as an “observant Jew.”
I had the chance to interview him several times, on the phone and in person, before and after his unsuccessful run for the second-highest elective office in the US.
He was always accessible and gracious—traits not to be taken for granted from someone who, because of his political prominence, could have saved his time for the TV networks and well-connected authors. I was small fry, writing for a Jewish weekly; but he always returned my calls.
In person, his speaking style was the same as it was behind a podium; the same while speaking to one person as to a crowd—soft, deliberate, pausing to weigh his words when answering a question, no shouting or preaching.
How, I would ask myself, was a person so unpretentious able to survive in the shark tank of national politics?
The probable answer—people, voters, Senator Gore, even opponents—recognized integrity.
Though he had strong, well-documented opinions about many political topics and many politicians, many of whom had criticized him over the years, I never heard him utter a negative word about anyone.
A fellow journalist who also had the opportunity to interview Lieberman several years ago (my journalist friend had met many more famous people in politics and entertainment than I could imagine) described what it was like to speak with the then-senator. “It was like speaking with my grandfather.” Warm, heimish, Lieberman asked about my friend’s life, and talked about his grandchildren. My friend, he told me, almost forgot that he was interviewing a very famous, very powerful person.
My last interview with Lieberman was a few months ago. Surprisingly, during our conversation, sitting across from him at a small table in his office, he made some knowledgeable comments about my writing career. My long-time job as a staff writer at the Jewish Week in New York had ended three years earlier, a victim of Covid, and I was keeping busy as a freelance writer.
He was always accessible and gracious—traits not to be taken for granted from someone who, because of his political prominence, could have saved his time for the TV networks and well-connected authors.
We had never been in touch that frequently; I didn’t expect him to know anything about what I was doing; but he did, commenting about my frequent appearance in the pages of Jewish Action.
We moved on to other subjects, including the dangerous situation in Israel following the Hamas attacks on October 7. He was clearly worried about Israelis’ security.
My interview done, I put down my notebook and took a deep breath.
“I have an entirely different subject to discuss,” I said. I described the visit that my parents had made to my Queens apartment in 2000 when Gore, the Democrats’ nominee to succeed Clinton in the Oval Office, had not yet decided whom he would select as his running mate—and Lieberman was reportedly in the running. I was in my bedroom, listening to the radio. The announcement came that Gore had picked Lieberman. It was big news—a Jew on a major party presidential ticket.
I came out of my bedroom and said two words: “It’s Lieberman.”
Mom beamed. In her eighties then, she jumped so high. The daughter of Jewish immigrants from a shtetl in then-Poland, she had never thought she’d live to see the day when a Jew would make history as Lieberman was doing.
I told this to Lieberman.
Then, making a personal request, the type I, as a professional journalist who rarely crossed the line with a celebrity from the professional to the personal, did exactly that.
“My mother would love to speak with you,” I said. Mom was then 102, living in the Houston area in a rehabilitation center. “Would you be willing do that?”
Lieberman agreed immediately.
I dialed Mom’s number.
“I’m in Joe Lieberman’s office now, and he would like to say hello,” I told my mom.
I handed him my phone. “Hello, Mrs. Lipman,” he began. Then he thanked my mother for her “support,” asked about her health, and engaged her in conversation about her life and family, and about the “honor” he had had as a candidate for vice president, and about other topics, for several minutes. Like he was speaking with an old friend.
I could sense Mom smiling.
I thanked Lieberman, and went home. After a few days, I sent him a thank you email: “My mother wanted me to tell you how much she appreciated you taking a few minutes to speak with her this week,” I wrote.
Lieberman emailed me back a few days later. “Thanks Steve,” he wrote. “Any day I can make someone’s mother happy is a good day.”
Steve Lipman is a frequent contributor to Jewish Action.