c. 2007 Religion News Service

NEWARK, N.J. _ Of all the political dirt slung in this city’s recent mayoral races, perhaps none was more curious than the claim in 2002 that challenger Cory Booker was Jewish.

The claim was viewed in political circles as an attempt both to emphasize Booker’s newcomer status (he moved to the city from the suburbs in 1996) and to benefit from perceived anti-Jewish feelings in the city.

Booker, who won the mayor’s race in 2006, is not Jewish. He is Baptist and says he has never considered converting. Yet the claim, false as it was, was able to gain traction due to Booker’s close relationships with Jewish community leaders and the fact that he has studied the religion in depth.

A 38-year-old with a professed spiritual nature, Booker was introduced to Judaism 15 years ago at Oxford University after a well-documented encounter with a now-famous Orthodox rabbi, Shmuley Boteach.

Rarely has his affinity for Judaism been more public than now. In October, Booker accepted an honorary degree from the Rabbinical College of America, a Lubavitch seminary in Morristown. Booker was also a featured speaker at two other religion-themed events with large Jewish audiences in New York in recent months.

In Morristown, the image of a tall African-American non-Jew wearing a yarmulke thrilled the Lubavitch crowd. Booker urged listeners “to be Jewish in the fullest, the boldest, most courageous sense of the word.” He used a popular Hebrew phrase, “Baruch HaShem,” meaning “Blessed is God,” which is not commonly used by non-Jews. He reveled in philosophies of Jewish sages Hillel and Maimonides.

He even broke out his Yiddish.

“Why do you have this meshuganah goy in front of you,” he asked, using Yiddish words for “crazy” and “non-Jew,” “talking to you about why it is so important that the Jewish people thrive? Because I believe, through lots of sitting and studying with rabbis and exchanging literature of some of the more respected people in my life, that the Jewish people have such an important purpose on earth.”

Admiring listeners included Moshe Herson, the school’s dean, who met Booker a decade ago after an introduction from a rabbi at Yale University, where Booker attended law school.

“Basically, he likes Jews. He has respect for what they stand for,” Herson said. “He has a tremendous respect for our traditions, for our religion, for the scriptures. … We see eye to eye on many philosophical issues.”

As the story goes, Booker’s first encounter with Lubavitchers occurred at Oxford in the fall of 1992. He stopped at a celebration of the L’Chaim Society, a Lubavitch-run organization of Jewish and non-Jewish students, to pick up a woman for a date. She was not there. Persuaded to stay, he sat next to the talkative Rabbi Boteach. Before night’s end Booker was dancing _ though not drinking; he doesn’t drink.

“It was the beginning of a long friendship,” said Boteach, now a best-selling author and host of “Shalom in the Home” on The Learning Channel. “We did end up dancing until 2 or 3 in the night. The next day he came to see me, and we had the chance to talk. From the first moment there was a special relationship between us.”

A book exchange ensued.

“Something I insisted with Shmuley was, `I want to learn more about your culture, but this is not only one-way,”’ Booker said. “I’d give him a book by James Baldwin, he would give me a book about Maimonides. I’d give him a book by Cornel West, he would give me a book by Elie Wiesel.”

Before long, Boteach asked Booker to run for president of the L’Chaim Society. A non-Jewish president would have been a first for the group, and Booker insisted on a Jewish co-president. He won the vote by acclamation.

Booker was a perfect fit in the society and wore his interest in Jewish spirituality well, said Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor who is Jewish and was a Rhodes scholar and L’Chaim Society member with Booker.

“It didn’t surprise me he was interested in Judaism because it wouldn’t surprise me if he was interested in anything,” Feldman said. “I honestly think if Cory had fallen in with some exciting and interesting Buddhists, they would be saying, `Wow, Cory Booker was the first non-Buddhist president of the Buddhist Society!”’

Booker is often a guest at Boteach’s house for Shabbat dinners, and Boteach remains Booker’s biggest public fan. At a Dec. 8 panel discussion on religion at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, in which Booker spoke, he called Booker “the most inspiring man I know in my life,” a man “many of us believe will go to the highest heights in this country.”

Booker said he has visited the Queens grave site of Menachem Schneerson, the Lubavitcher rebbe, three times. The trip is a spiritual pilgrimage for Lubavitchers, who have flocked there to pray since Schneerson died in 1994.

The mayor wouldn’t say what he thinks about while there, but Boteach said they have spoken about it. He said Booker places a personal letter at the site, as do the Jews who pray there, and prays for those he feels need prayers _ and for Newark.

Off to the left side of Booker’s desk at City Hall is a stack of five books: two Christian Bibles, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita and a Hebrew Bible.

“I’m very grounded in who I am,” Booker said. “I’m a black American Christian. Being very knowledgeable about who I am, it gives me a strong foundation in which to reach out to others and embrace them and benefit from that in a powerful way.”

He attends his home church, Metropolitan Baptist, one of Newark’s largest, up to twice a month. On most Sundays, as mayor, he attends up to four other churches.

Metropolitan’s pastor, the Rev. David Jefferson, said Booker is an attentive churchgoer whose interest in Judaism helps him better understand Christianity’s roots and, in a different way, helps the city.

“A spirit of inclusion is what our city is in need of,” Jefferson said. “The extent to which he has a good understanding of Judaism, it helps him … show a sensitivity for the faith of other individuals.”

Since he began studying Judaism in the early 1990s, Booker said he has delved into Hinduism, Islam, Jainism. He traveled to India in 2000, staying in an ashram, a community devoted to Hindu spirituality. Booker said he also has prayed or meditated at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.

“I have been sustained in my life through some very difficult times, and some incredible challenges, by this idea that there’s something more powerful, more magical, more beautiful going on … than just the biological, (than) just the physical of what we see.”

Some critics contend Booker spends too much time outside the city. So why make so many speeches to Jewish and other groups if they could hurt Booker’s image in the city?

“I’m never going to yield from my connections to other faiths,” he said. “I think it does nothing but enrich my Christianity and enrich my connections to the Lord. And I am who I am. As Martin Luther said … `Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”’

(Jeff Diamant writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

KRE/PH END DIAMANT