WHEN RABBIS BLESS CONGRESS

The detailed story of Jewish prayers before Congress.

C-SPAN communications director Mortman offers an exhaustive examination of the many rabbis who have provided invocations as guest chaplains to Congress since the Civil War era. The author is to be commended for his thorough scouring of the Congressional Record as well as a wide array of biographical sources about the many rabbis he profiles. Mortman begins in 1860 with a prayer by Morris Raphall, the first of 441 rabbis who have given an invocation before the House or Senate (as of February 2020). Throughout the text, the author explores these prayers from seemingly every imaginable angle: the personalities of the rabbis giving them, the topics they discussed, the political context in which they were given, and much more. This is a work of extensive scholarship, but refreshingly, Mortman doesn’t take it too seriously, injecting the narrative with pithy statements and punny humor. In reference to rabbis as candidates for public office, he invokes John Updike: “Rabbi, Run.” While describing rebukes of partisan rabbinical messages, he notes, “Congressional leadership includes whips, but there’s no miracle whip.” The author also provides an impressive compilation of statistics about rabbinical speeches, and his analyses of the invocations and the clergy behind them are solid and diligent. Not only does Mortman point out that Isaiah is the book of the Bible most quoted by rabbis to Congress, but he also notes which verse of Isaiah is most quoted before exploring the many ways in which Isaiah is approached in these blessings. The prophet, notes the author wryly, “might have embraced all this official attention.” Given the book’s specialized topic and scholarly heft, the readership will be limited, but armchair historians intrigued by Jewish studies will find a trove of interesting material, much of which is ripe for further study.

Academically detailed yet esoterically fun.