A special memory presentation in honor of the late Sen. Joe Lieberman was held at the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem earlier this summer, featuring many dignitaries, heads of state, and one of his daughters who made aliyah six years ago. Sen. Lieberman had a long list of admirers. The event was telecast on Zoom and moderated by Paul Gross, the Senior Fellow at the Heritage Center. It featured current U.S. Ambassador Israel Jack Lew, human rights leader Natan Sharansky, CEO Ruth Abramzon, and historian Gil Troy.

“Joe had a deep concern for the Jewish people,” said Israel President Herzog as he began the proceedings in a televised appearance. “I am here now to express gratitude and feel lucky to embrace Joe [late in his life at the Munich Security Conference]…Joe has much to teach us about discourse. He’s a person of great ruach —of spirit.”

Jack Lew added, “Joe was my friend. We met in Connecticut, and he was that rare [politician] who was the same in public and in private. He was tireless, indefatigable, and deeply rooted in tradition.” In quoting the Ethics of the Fathers, the ambassador prayed for his friend’s soul: “May you be confronted by the mourners of Zion.”

Natan Sharansky, the current Chairman of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, spoke effusively of his very pious friend.

“It goes without saying — being a Jew, and a man of the world…Joe Lieberman was so, so Jewish. He was so proud of it…He helped me a lot [with Jewish education]; to keep it simple [and] keep it moral,” said the one-time jailed Soviet dissident. “He had a good sense of humor that was sarcastic about his people, about Israel. I think there were no Jewish causes in which Joe was not involved, from strengthening connections between Israel and the diaspora and fighting anti-Semitism, through the Holocaust and the Babyn Year Memorial center in Kyiv, and the Shabbat Olami initiative and many, many others.”

Chana Lieberman Loewenstein, the senator’s daughter who made Aliyah six years ago, also eloquently eulogized her father in underscoring that in addition to the mandatory political stops while in Israel, he also traveled to meaningful cities to the Jewish people, like in Hebron.

“His familial connection to Israel traces back to his great uncle…born in 1896, he came to [the Holy Land] in 1912,” Lieberman Lowenstein said. Though her father’s uncle would be killed in 1918, she said her dad also had a cousin who was “one of the founding generations of the State of Israel and fought in every war [he was able to], even when exempt.”

“My father’s sudden passing left [our whole family] equally shocked, but we are certainly taking cues from my Dad, who is not one to let things freeze from action from doing [and] persevering,” added Lieberman Lowenstein. “So that is our charge as well: to react as he would want us to.”

In the political arena, Rob Schwartz, Lieberman’s chief of staff, said that he “had a front-row seat with Joe. He practiced bipartisanship and acted with civility; [a reminder] with how we all act in today’s vitriolic times.”

Within Jewish circles of D.C., Lieberman had been a long-time congregant at Kesher Israel, and he purposely lived in Georgetown, so that he could be close to the shul. While usually not working on Shabbat, Lieberman famously made an exception in 2009 when he walked from his home to the U.S. Capitol to vote against a Republican attempt to cut Medicare spending.