As a queer woman with a strong opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine, I felt represented by Sanders’ advocacy on behalf of reproductive rights and the LGBTQ+ community, and his strong record on Palestinian liberation; as I watched Sanders agitate for the disenfranchised, I realized Judaism wasn’t just about the family I was born into, but about the beliefs I lived by.
By the time Sanders reemerged as a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination last February, I, like many, was disillusioned by so much of what I saw at work in the world. One thing that kept me going was a quote from my namesake and fellow Jew, Emma Goldman: “No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution—revolution is but thought carried into action. Every effort for progress, for enlightenment, for science, for religious, political, and economic liberty, emanates from the minority, and not from the mass.” The other was Sanders’s own brand of revolution.
I believed in Sanders’ revolution; I still do. I was, and am, inspired by his ability to bring together people of all ages, genders, races, ethnicities, and classes with the simple slogan “Not me, us.” As a young millennial who came of age in the internet-addled, post-irony era, I thrilled to see my peers expressing genuine hope for an America that valued those whose interests had historically been ignored.
It will also never stop being meaningful to me that our strongest contender for America’s first Jewish president also refused to attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference in 2020, denouncing “leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.” Sanders was unafraid to oppose Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on what Sanders called “the suffering of the Palestinian people” under Netanyahu’s rule, and it didn’t make him any less a Jew; in fact, if we’re going with the Talmud-derived notion that “to be Jewish is to ask questions,” Sanders’s dogged challenges to those in power—from Netanyahu to Trump—certainly fits.
“As I hope all of you know, this race has never been about me,” Sanders said in a live address announcing the termination of his campaign on Wednesday. That statement lives at the heart of the Judaism I want to embody: the kind that fights for tikkun olam, or “repair of the world.” Sanders’s person-centered coronavirus response—which included regular public addresses expressing support for the downtrodden and disadvantaged, from the elderly to those incarcerated, at a time when he was unlikely to gain much politically them—was the greatest example of tikkun olam that I’ve ever seen in politics.
When I Zoom with my chosen family to celebrate Passover on Friday, I’ll sing “Dayenu” with Sanders on my mind. If he had just advocated for Medicare for All, it would have been enough. If he had just supported the Green New Deal; if he had just gone above and beyond for our nation’s most frequently forgotten members—the working class—it would have been enough. Instead, Sanders fought for all of that and more, tirelessly and with the kind of zeal born out of true conviction; as a Jew, and as a voter, I’ll never forget it.