Behind the Headlines: Clinton Acquittal Brings Relief to Activists Ready for Some Action

President Clinton’s acquittal has brought a palpable sense of relief to scandal-weary Jewish activists, who, like many across the country, have been waiting for the impeachment cloud to lift.

The relief comes at least in part from the fact that the president, who has been considered highly responsive to the concerns of the Jewish community, is now assured of completing his term in office.

But there is also an expectation that the end of the entire affair will generate new momentum to finally get real work done.

As Clinton turns from the ignominy of impeachment to the task of trying to resurrect his legacy, many of his legislative and foreign policy priorities can be expected to dovetail with the Jewish community’s agenda — in areas including the Middle East, social spending, education, religious liberty and civil rights.

In fact, his efforts in those areas during the remaining two years of his term may provide a significant boost to Jewish interests, just as the community’s lobbying efforts on behalf of mutual interests may, in turn, help Clinton.

Ironically, the post-impeachment political dynamic may provide the best bet yet for bipartisan cooperation between the Clinton administration and the Republican-led Congress, especially as both search for ways to restore their public standing.

Although deep partisan divisions and lingering animosity from the impeachment process, coupled with a looming presidential campaign, may still make it difficult to achieve compromise, most Jewish lobbyists are optimistic about the prospects for positive advances in the 106th Congress.

“It’s time now to heal the wounds that have been caused by this disastrous process in which so many bear responsibility, and it’s time to move on to addressing the urgent problems that America faces,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Jewish lobbyists are anxious to start moving their agenda on Capitol Hill, which includes bolstering Social Security and Medicare, protecting patient’s rights, strengthening the nation’s hate-crimes laws, extending new protections for religious practice and securing aid to support Israel and to implement the Wye peace agreement.

“People have been so removed and so distanced form the whole Washington scene, it’s been so distasteful, that we need to focus people on Washington issues that are something other than Monica and Ken Starr,” said Michael Lieberman, the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington counsel.

“I think we’ll be delighted to immerse ourselves back in the policy issues that we’re trying to move forward.”

In a bit of fortuitous timing, activists from around the country will be gathering in Washington next week for the annual plenum of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella body representing local community relations councils and most of the organized community. They are scheduled to arrive just as Congress, newly freed of all impeachment-related responsibilities, reconvenes to take up legislative work

Concern that they would not even be able to schedule meetings with key members of Congress has turned to what JCPA’s Washington representative, Reva Price, called optimism about convening at a “prime time” when everyone is geared to focusing on “the issues that matter.”

Beyond the politics and lack of legislative movement, some Jewish and rabbinic leaders said that from a Jewish viewpoint they were deeply troubled by the impeachment process and the independent counsel investigation that prompted it.

Rabbi Paul Menitoff, executive vice president of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, said the best thing to come out of Clinton’s acquittal was that it would stop Kenneth Starr “dead in his tracks.”

“Whenever you have an effort to hound people and to really badger them in ways that most respectable prosecutors wouldn’t pursue, that’s not good for the Jews or any other minority group,” Menitoff said, calling Starr’s approach “McCarthyesque.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) touched on a similar point in the speech he delivered on the Senate floor during impeachment deliberations. In underscoring his reverence for the Constitution’s protections from “partisan prosecutions,” the Jewish senator invoked his family’s experience fleeing Nazi Germany.

Another rabbi, Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom synagogue in Encino, Calif., said the way the trial was conducted by the House managers “violated one of the central aspects of Judaism itself.”

He said the managers, who were responsible for prosecuting Clinton in the Senate, appeared to “gloat” in his shame.

“To shame somebody in public is considered as if you had shed his blood,” Schulweis said, adding that Judaism teaches that everybody sins and instead “we ought to look forward and encourage his rehabilitation.”