By Rebecca Moss – Elle.com
The headquarters of Kathleen Rice’s congressional campaign is located in an unassuming office building in Garden City, Long Island. Inside, the phone is ringing.
At the front of the office, a paper easel reads: “One Day(s) Until Election.” It is November 3rd, and in fewer than 36 hours, voters will decide whether Rice will take a seat in the United States House of Representatives.
Noon, 18 hours until polls open
At the moment, however, Rice is seated at the head of her morning staff meeting inside the Nassau County Court House. For the last nine years Rice has served as the district attorney for Nassau County, elevating the office to one of the most respected in the nation. The first female DA in the county, she has pioneered laws surrounding DWI by harshly prosecuting crimes as manslaughter (earning her a segment on 60 Minutes), tackled government corruption cases, and spearheaded an illegal gun buyback program. “One of my goals was to make the DA’s office the best in the country,” says Rice, “It was just my dream job.”
8 P.M., 10 hours until polls open
The night sky is tinged pink when the Rice campaign arrives at its final stop. A narrow portico leads into the Chabad house where the remains of Menachem Mendel Schneerson are buried.
Schneerson, known as the Rebbe, is considered one of the great leaders of the Hasidic Jewish community. Since his death in 1994, many people make pilgrimages to his remains to make a prayer.
On each election eve before her campaign, Rice has been led here by her friend, Rabbi Perl. The group huddles together and is instructed to change into rubber-soled shoes (it is considered disrespectful to walk on sacred ground while wearing leather) and write a prayer on a sheet of paper.
Rabbi Perl takes Rice’s team through a back door to reveal an expansive graveyard of tightly packed white tombstones inscribed with Hebrew letters. Rabbi Perl explains the cemetery is separated by gender and each tomb is shaped like a shoe—a symbol that the soul will one day move on.
Rabbi Perl leads the women to a mausoleum and through a narrow corridor (in the orthodox faith women and men must pray separately, too) lined with prayer books and lit with tea candles. The group passes through a wooden door on the other end of the room and emerges into a bright white marble square open to the night sky. He talks about the work of great leaders and shares the parable of an aged rabbi who taught, “If you are bound above, you will never fall below.” In the center, large shreds of paper lay discarded. The room is quiet, and Rice silently reads a prayer from the Jewish book (chapter 50, to represent her next birthday). Then she tears her paper in half and drops it into the basin of discarded prayers, like wishbone broken in two.
At 12:33 A.M., on November 5th, Kathleen Rice won the congressional seat for New York District 4, with 64.2 percent of the vote.
Obama is a democrat, if he’s not a Jew hater, at the very least he’s terribly anti-Israel, which is the same thing. She’s also a democrat….like him, she supports him, and his anti- Jewish/Israel policies.
Nice to see a candidate making that step… The article is full of disrespectful terms in reference to our holy rebbe! I know col would never write of the rebbe in such terms… Therefore the article should be at least edited. We don’t refer to the holiest place for a chossid the Holy place of our Nosi hador in terms of c”v “remai…. Or deat…” I’m intentionally not completing those words because I’d never dear write or say it… But writing it is far worse. The past few days of tanya the alter rebbe teaches that a tzaddik and how… Read more »
my first reaction to hearing she is a democ-rat is like number two expressed, EH but then I realized I am no different than the democrats.. they demonize every conservative and for sure anyone that utters “tea party” regardless of their accomplishments… Maybe Ms. Rice is doing the right thing and acting in the best interest of her constituants.. if so then it does not matter what party she belongs to.. as a matter of fact if she is a “good” democrat (not easy to find) then she can accomplish even more. I was heartened with the results yesterday ..… Read more »
While there is an alternate definition of “mausoleum” which is simply “a large impressive tomb,” the most common definition of “mausoleum” refers to “above-ground burial”: something which we Lubavitchers don’t do (as far as I know), and this term is certainly not applicable to the Rebbe’s Ohel!
Don’t follow this reporter’s lead by using this word to describe the Ohel to others.
Wow! Beautiful.
Its nice that she’s close to chabad but she won against a right wing Jewish republican someone whom would for sure better represent the Frum community.
She’s not Jewish and she’s democrat. Eh
Is she Jewish?