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Dear chevra,
Below you will
find a letter directed to Senator Joseph Lieberman, concerning his intention of
supporting a filibuster to prevent an up-and-down majority vote on the
health-care bill.
If you agree with its basic sentiments, please write
us right away. (Please forgive the rush that prevents making changes in the
text. The Senate will be voting soon.) We want to make this letter public as
soon as possible with a siz able number of signatures from members of the
American Jewish community, in the hope of bringing him to change his position.
You can sign by copying this
"coupon," filling it out, and emailing it to office@shalomctr.org right
away.
Thank you! May your Hanukah continue to be
filled with light.
Shalom,
Arthur
Rabbi
Arthur Waskow
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
___
Please sign my name to the letter to Senator Lieberman.
Name (with
title) ________________________________________________________
Organization
(for identification only) _______________________________________
Address
_________________________________________________________________
City/
State/ ZIP
__________________________________________________________
Senator Joseph Lieberman
United States
Senate
Senator:
We are
rabbis, cantors, and other committed Jews. Many of us were delighted in 2000
when you were nominated for Vice-President and proclaimed to all that you were
an observant Jew, carrying into the highest level of public service the values
of the Jewish people.
Now we see with deep distress that you have
announced that you will not support the bill before the Senate to bring health
care in America even part way toward the universal and affordable coverage that
is assumed in every other industrial country, including Israel. You have
announced that you intend to join a quasi-filibuster against even taking an
up-and-down vote on the bill if it contains either a "public option" provision
or one extending the universally praised Medicare system to some younger people.
Doing this would thwart the will of a majority of the Senate, the
majority of the American people, and the majority of the American Jewish
community.
In our eyes, this is not the behavior of an "observant" Jew.
"Tzedek tzedek tirdof, justice justice shall you seek," is among the
Torah's most important commandments. And in pursuit of justice, no autonomous
Jewish community has ever allowed the poor to go without healing. It is clear
that the present health insurance system based on private insurance companies is
broken in every aspect except assuring enormous profits to itself. It costs
Americans the highest medical costs in the world while providing mediocre health
care as measured by life expectancies, newborn death rates, and other indices
across the developed world.
We recognize that major health insurance
companies are headquartered in Connecticut and that you may view your
obligations to them as constituents as an important political responsibility.
Yet thousands of Americans die each year unnecessarily because they are refused
coverage by or are unable to purchase insurance from these same
companies.
So we believe your obligation of
pekuach nefesh, saving life, saving the lives of
the flesh-and-blood citizens of Connecticut, shaped in flesh and blood in God's
Image and subject to damage of that same flesh and blood that requires healing,
is an even higher obligation than you owe to your insurance-company
constituents. Indeed, two-thirds of your flesh-and-blood constituents support a
health-care bill that includes a strong public option. 
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