Louis Farrakhan Ties Run Deep among Democrats: The Case of Ed Rendell

When prominent Clinton supporter and Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, was hanging out with Louis Farrakahan people thought he was brave. Nobody questioned his patriotism. Now Barack Obama’s pastor’s church’s magazine says good things about Farrakhan and people treat it as a national security crisis. That’s the thing that gets me about this whole story–the way Barack Obama is held to a more extreme standard.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in April 1997:

Ezra Katz first voted in 1932 – for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the beginning of a lifetime of votes for liberal Democrats.

Katz gave Ed Rendell his vote for district attorney and mayor every time Rendell ran. But never again – not now that Rendell has clasped hands with Louis Farrakhan.

“If I’m still around,” said 86-year-old Katz, looking ahead to a possible Rendell run for governor in 2002, “a moderate Republican would get my vote over Rendell.

“And I believe I voice the opinion of many of my Jewish cohorts,” the retired public relations man said last week at a senior citizens’ event at the Northeast branch of the Jewish Community Center.

Rendell’s handling of the Grays Ferry uproar quieted a race-charged march on Monday that had threatened to explode into violence. His gambit to invite Farrakhan to speak at an interfaith rally on South Broad Street diverted thousands of would-be marchers from the Grays Ferry tinderbox.

But many Philadelphia Jews are still seething over Rendell’s overtures toward the Nation of Islam leader, who many see as a frequent fomenter of anti-Semitism. And some felt the mayor compounded a mistake by the dismissive way that he – a Jew himself – dealt with his Jewish critics.

On Friday, a photo of Rendell and Farrakhan holding hands led the front page of the Forward, the venerable Jewish newspaper published in New York. The headline: “Rendell’s Retreat.” Condemnation of Rendell filled four pages of the Jewish Exponent, the weekly newspaper of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

But public opinion among Philadelphia Jews is more complex than the united opposition shown by such organizations as the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Philadelphia Board of Rabbis and the Federation.

FIRST REACTION Gerry Miller, a retired motel operator, saw more to the picture than the view that Rendell had bowed to an anti-Semite.

At first, she said, “it made my blood run cold to see Rendell hold hands with that son of a gun.

“But I listened. And I thought. And when it was all over, I admired him [Rendell]. Because it was so brave.”

Rendell has been hearing a lot of that. He says he has the public – Jewish and gentile – on his side.

“Almost to a person, people tell me I did the right thing,” Rendell said Thursday. “They go out of their way. My mail is running about 50 to 1 in favor. And my mail from people with Jewish surnames is running 5 to 1 in favor.”

Aaron Charney, for one, is in the mayor’s corner. “I think he did something that took a lot of guts,” said Charney, who taught woodworking and math at Stetson Junior High School for 25 years before retiring. “Of course, I felt a little queasy when he took Farrakhan’s hand.

“But he said he doesn’t do his job as a Jew – he represents everybody. And when you represent all the people, that’s very different from speaking up for the rights of a specific group. It takes a man with a lot of backbone to give up his feelings and work for all.”

Charney’s views are not shared by his wife. “It was disgraceful,” Sarah Charney said, “to give Louis Farrakhan such respect, which he doesn’t deserve.”

AT THE LOCUST CLUB Rendell got a chilly reception Thursday from a largely Jewish audience at the elite Locust Club, where he appeared at an awards dinner for the Philadelphia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. It was the sort of crowd of old friends and allies that he normally wows just by showing up.

“I won’t shake his hand,” Al Cwanger, a Cherry Hill builder and educator who was born and raised in Philadelphia, said before Rendell’s arrival. “My parents survived the Holocaust to come to this country, and now he wants to kowtow to someone who’s an anti-Semite?”

As it turned out, Rendell was greeted with polite applause. He spoke amiably for about five minutes, said nothing about the Farrakhan controversy, and left, pleading a busy schedule.

Was he nervous?

“Not at all,” he said afterward.

Before the march and rally, Rendell called “the outcry from some of the so-called Jewish leaders . . . ridiculous.” Asked whether he expected flak from the Jewish community for giving Farrakhan a platform, he snapped: “So what? I got it for supporting the Million Man March, and the Million Man March turned out pretty good.”

Leaders of the city’s major Jewish groups are still waiting to talk to the mayor – a meeting they requested three days before the rally. Rendell said Friday he would meet with them early next month, after the Presidents’ Summit. The heads of two organizations said they would not comment on the controversy until after meeting with the mayor.

“I’ll be very frank with them,” Rendell said in an interview. “Louis Farrakhan is not going away. He is, right now, the preeminent African American leader, whether we like it or not.”

If black-Jewish relations are to improve, he said, Jews must find a way to talk to Farrakhan – no matter that previous attempts were disappointing. “Once people stop talking to each other,” Rendell said, “we’re cooked.”

Despite the bruises to one of his core constituencies, Rendell insisted that inviting Farrakhan “was one of the easiest decisions I’ve made in five years,” and that he has no regrets about the fallout.

The benefit of inviting Farrakhan was to divert “95 percent of the people away from Grays Ferry, at no risk to the city. There was no downside to the city,” he said.

“The only downside was a political downside. But it never occurred to me not to do it . . . I don’t care about my political hide.”

Rendell added, however, that he did not believe he faced long-range political damage by appearing with Farrakhan. Rendell’s 1995 stand as “the only white mayor to support the Million Man March” came just 2 1/2 weeks before his last election, he said.

“I got over 90 percent of the vote in Jewish divisions,” he said.

Who knows? said David Auspitz, owner of the Famous 4th Street Delicatessen, at Fourth and Bainbridge Streets. The aftermath of Grays Ferry just might lead to a new resolve to confront race divisions. “It could be a turning point for race relations,” Auspitz said. “It could turn out that this is a very exciting moment for Philadelphia and the country.”

Then again, maybe not. And if that’s the case, “then it’s just another moment. And Jews have seen a lot of moments in 5,757 years of history.