on being a bridge, a “compromise selection” in a “gorgeous mosaic”

David Dink­ins (who died yes­ter­day, Novem­ber 23, 2020) became may­or of New York after our imme­di­ate fam­i­ly left the New York area for San Diego. I had no direct expe­ri­ence of his stew­ard­ship of the city.

The first New York may­oral can­di­date for whom I have any lapel but­tons that use Hebrew are from the Biag­gi cam­paign of 1973.

Dink­ins became the first may­or who used Hebrew let­ter­ing on its cam­paign but­tons. The arti­cles about him sug­gest that he gov­erned a city at a time of great upheaval and racial ten­sions that he strug­gled to con­trol. (This was dur­ing the peri­od when Don­ald Trump made his first for­ay into the polit­i­cal realm with his call to apply the death penal­ty against those accused in the Jog­ger Case of 1989.) As Bill Clin­ton in 1996 hoped to be the pres­i­dent to lead us to a bridge to the 21^st cen­tu­ry, Dink­ins also became a bridge figure.

That moment in New York City, thir­ty years ago, seems odd­ly sim­i­lar to our Amer­i­can moment now.

Bridges are pow­er­ful. Our moth­er often spoke in awe of engi­neers’ abil­i­ty to cre­ate bridges. I spoke of the sig­nif­i­cance of each of us being bridges to my con­gre­ga­tion in Ramona for Rosh haShan­nah in 5760.

To add to this metaphor, con­sid­er becom­ing a bridge over trou­bled waters.

your lapel buttons

Many peo­ple have lapel but­tons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jack­et you no longer wear or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any lying around that you do not feel emo­tion­al­ly attached to, please let me know. I pre­serve these for the Jew­ish peo­ple. At some point, they will all go to an appro­pri­ate muse­um. You can see all the but­tons shared to date.