Biden Fundraising Letter Features Rabbi’s Story About Senator Making Shiva Call
Vice President Joseph Biden speaks during a memorial service for the late former Israeli president Shimon Peres at the Adas Israel Congregation October 6, 2016 in Washington, DC. Image by Alex Wong/Getty Images
By Ron Kampeas September 9, 2019
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Delaware rabbi wrote a fundraising endorsement for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign citing his appearance at the shiva for a constituent of modest means.
Rabbi Michael Beals was leading a minyan in 2006 for Sylvia Greenhouse, who lived in a senior living facility in Claymont, a town at the northern tip of Delaware. The minyan was taking place in the laundry room because Greenhouse’s apartment was too small to accommodate the 10 supplicants required for prayers during the period of mourning, or shiva.
Beals was surprised to see Biden, then the state’s senior senator, entering the laundry room. Afterward Beals, of Congregation Beth Shalom in Wilmington, asked Biden why he had come.
Biden explained that Greenhouse had sent his campaign $18 every Senate election since his first in 1972. Eighteen is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word for “life,” “chai.”
“There were no news outlets at our service that day — no Jewish reporters or important dignitaries,” Beals wrote in the appeal distributed by the campaign of the former vice president. “Just a few elderly mourners in a basement laundry room.”
A photo of Biden posing with Beals is attached to the appeal.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
