Sen. Cory Booker speaks to reporters as he leaves the Senate Chamber after delivering a record-setting floor speech — more than 24 hours — on April 1. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

By Benyamin Cohen April 2, 2025

As the clock ticked 7:19 p.m. Tuesday, Sen. Cory Booker made history with the longest Senate speech on record — more than 24 hours and not yet finished. It was a display of remarkable endurance, a solo marathon Booker framed as a moral call to action against a second Trump presidency.

Booker, wearing both an American flag and a yellow hostage pin on his left suit lapel, was wrapping up a speech peppered with references to faith, mercy and redemption. He quoted Hebrew scripture. He invoked Abraham’s call to God: “Hineni — Here I am.”

At 7:20 p.m., I dialed up Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Booker’s former rabbinic confidant and perhaps his most colorful critic. He wasn’t impressed.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“I taught him 10,000 hours of Torah,” Boteach said. “His best speeches were the Jewish ones. But it became a parlor trick. I used to write his Hebrew quotes phonetically.”

To hear Boteach tell it, he helped build Booker into a Jewish communal hero: making him president of the L’Chaim Society at Oxford, raising “tens of millions of dollars” for his early campaigns, taking him to synagogues across the United States. Boteach said he also introduced Booker to major Jewish donors, including Michael Steinhardt and the Adelsons.

Now, the rabbi said, he doesn’t know who Booker is.

What broke their bond, Boteach said, was Booker’s 2015 vote for the Iran nuclear deal. “That was the beginning of the end,” Boteach said, describing it as not just bad policy, but a moral betrayal. “It gave $150 billion to a regime that funds Hamas, Hezbollah, and pledges a second Holocaust.”

He begged Booker not to vote for it. “I told him, you don’t have to be pro-Israel. But you can’t be pro-evil.”

Boteach, who skyrocketed to fame counseling celebrities like Michael Jackson and appearing as “America’s Rabbi” on The Oprah Winfrey Show, ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 as a Republican. He won the primary, but lost in the general election in the largely Democratic district.

Boteach is a supporter of President Donald Trump and is friends with Robert F. Kennedy, Trump’s health secretary.

During his marathon speech, Booker leaned into the language of morality and scripture. He used Jewish concepts to underscore his points about democracy, justice and the dangers of authoritarianism. It wasn’t the first time. Booker has long turned to Jewish wisdom in his public remarks.

Boteach isn’t buying it. He said Booker’s biblical fluency lacks backbone.

“Corey can speak nonstop for 24 years, and they’ll have to rewrite the Bible for this new miracle,” he said. “But it will get him nowhere until he gets up and says, ‘The biggest mistake of my life was funding the new Mullah Nazi regime of Tehran.'”

Booker broke Strom Thurmond’s record, a feat he acknowledged with irony: “To hate him is wrong,” he said of the late senator. “I’m not here because of his speech. I’m here in spite of his speech.”

The implication was clear: Where Thurmond filibustered against civil rights, Booker stood for civil decency.

When Boteach’s mother died in 2023, Booker came to the shiva and asked how to rebuild their friendship. “We don’t need to rebuild our friendship,” Boteach said he told him. “You and I love each other. We always will.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount