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| Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff in Berlin (JTA) |
That should come as no surprise. Whether one is Jewish or not, if visiting those memorials and talking with elderly survivors does not touch you deeply, I have to question your humanity.
Doug Emhoff is a Jew. What is significant about a Jew doing this is that it is likely that they had relatives who perished or suffered during the Holocaust. That makes the impact of that experience far more personal than it does to those that have not. JTA described his experience as ‘emotional and intense’.
The following is in part a brief description by JTA of Doug Emhoff’s ‘crusade’ against antisemitism that generated his trip:
As second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff has made combating antisemitism his main focus. He has toured U.S. college campuses to talk about it, has led numerous events with Jewish organizations and even convened a group of top Biden administration advisers to discuss the topic.
But this week, he found himself in territory that made his campaign more visceral — including the town in southern Poland that his grandparents fled to avoid persecution.
During a five-day trip across Poland and Germany, Emhoff immersed himself in the 20th century history that wreaked havoc and tragedy on so many Jewish families. He met with Holocaust survivors — some who fled Ukraine — toured several Holocaust and other Jewish-themed sites and had a Shabbat meal with Polish-Jewish leaders.
“They found opportunity and freedom,” Emhoff said of his grandparents, “and now, 120 years later, their great-grandchild is the first Jewish spouse of a United States president or vice president, who is working to combat hate and antisemitism. That’s something, isn’t it?”
Yes, as noted, all the media coverage was positive. Deservedly so. I’m sure that Emhoff reaction to that trip was unlike any other experience he has had. He was actually moved to regret not having spoken up when he had in the past experienced some antisemitic humor by colleagues that did not know he was Jewish. At the time - he just let it slide.
I have no clue what kind of Jewish education Emhoff had – or if he had any at all. That he now takes pride in his Jewish heritage as a result of this trip is certainly a good thing. But what goes almost unnoticed is the implication of his last comment. Which is his apparent pride in the significance he attaches to the fact that he did this as the husband of the Vice President of the United States.
While I agree with that point, it has not escaped me that she is not Jewish and that he is intermarried. And he attaches no significance to what a tragedy that is. Not that I would expect him to since he seems to be happily married. But it is still no less a tragedy.
I’m sure that Doug Emhoff is a good man and seems to have exemplary Midos. I’m sure that he now cares more deeply about his Judaism than he has in the past. Which is of course a good thing viewed in isolation. But that he does not place any significance on his own intermarriage tells me that he does not really understand the importance of perpetuating Judaism into the future though his children.
Even if all of his children by a first marriage were Jewish (..which they apparently are not) I am equally sure that he will not be having any children with his current wife. We cannot - should not - ignore the harmful symbolism he generates with his positivity over his high profile marriage to a non Jew.
I know that wasn’t his intention. But there it is in all its ‘radiant glory’.
So as much as I applaud his crusade against antisemitism and appreciate the intense emotional reaction to his trip (which I believe to be 100% genuine) I am disappointed that he has not had the education to realize how wrong his current marriage to a non Jewish woman is.
Not that I expected him to have an epiphany about that. But Ironically it is his very real emotion to that trip and connecting it by inference to his non Jewish wife in a positive way that he ends up helping to ’Kasher’ intermarriage.
Although I’m sure this was not his intention, it nevertheless tragically, places yet another nail into the coffin of non Orthodox Jewry in America.
