It may only be coincidence, but both Vice President George Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis received blessings from Orthodox rabbis when they were officially nominated as their party’s candidates for the presidency.
The Wednesday night session of the Republican National Convention, which will name Bush as the GOP standard-bearer, will end with a benediction from Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center.
“A nation’s greatness comes not from the weight of its wealth, but from the height of its ideals; not from that which is found in her vaults, but from that which is inherent in her values,” Hier was scheduled to say in his prayer.
At the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta last month, the July 20 session in which Dukakis was nominated ended with a benediction from Rabbi Morris Schmidman, executive director of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Boro Park.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
