An American flag composed of students holding red, white and blue fabric
greeted U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) when the former Democratic vice
presidential candidate arrived on the grounds of the San Diego Jewish
Academy on Tuesday, Feb. 19.

As he listened with his hand over his heart to the students singing Cara
Freedman's "We are Your Song, America," Lieberman well may have remembered
the tumultuous ovation that greeted his formal nomination at the 2000
Democratic National Convention to be the next vice president of the United
States.

Free to choose
Free to stand by our
   convictions.
Share our views
Without fear of old restrictions.
Christians, Jews
Live together, no afflictions.
      
To work and build and roam.

Pay our dues,
Strive with honor and with glory
Not to lose
Sight of what this flag's for,
   we'll
Spread the news
This is now our territory.

We are finally home!
 
 "It was touching and moving for me to see the flag and hear the songs,"
Lieberman confided to SDJA students after the performance. "I started to
tear up -- I have to figure out why I did that -- but part of it was the
combination of being here at this Jewish day school and the flag, and this
wonderful idea -- I'm not going to quote the words exactly -- but the line in
the song that got me was that Owe are finally at home' or something to that
effect, and America has given all its citizens, including Jewish Americans,
extraordinary freedom," he said.

"I would say that Jewish Americans have more freedom in this country than
anywhere in the 5763 years of our history, with the possible exception of
the state of Israel," he added. "It is a remarkable thing to say, and of
course, I have experienced it personally in the 2000 campaign, when I was
honored to be the first Jewish American to run for national office."

The song is the title selection of an original musical, We Are Your Song
America, of which Freedman, SDJA's artistic director, is both the playwright
and composer, and which will be presented March 14-17 at the downtown Lyceum
Theatre. But it also was the trigger for many campaign memories that the
almost-successful vice presidential candidate shared with students and
members of the Scholars Circle, a group of parents who help underwrite the
Academy.

About a week before Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential
nominee, selected him to be his running mate on the 2000 national ticket,
Lieberman reminisced, a Jewish woman in her 70s urged him not to accept the
nomination if chosen.

"I am just worried about the reaction of the country to a Jewish person in
this kind of office," Lieberman quoted the woman as saying. "And of course
that was generational," he added, "because the reaction was the best. After
I was selected there was a lot of discussion.in the media about the fact
that I was Jewish, and observant Jewish, but at the end of the campaign
there was no discussion of it, and that was just the way that we hoped it
would be. Because I wanted to be judged on my merits or demerits as a
person."

Lieberman, wearing a kipah as is the custom for males on the grounds of the
Jewish day school, told the students about a book being written by the
Catholic theologian Michael Novak. "He argues in this book that the vision
of God in the mind of the creators, the founders of this country, was the
Old Testament God, the God of nature, the God of creation," Lieberman said.
"The whole history of our country is based on equality because we are
equally created by God, no matter what your color, your religion, your
nationality, whatever, you have equal rights to rise as far as your talents
will take you," he added.

"American history, like all history, including Jewish history, has been a
journey to try to realize the ideal of opportunity stated in the Declaration
and in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution."

Initially, he noted, women did not have the right to vote; African-Americans
as slaves were counted in the census as fractions of white people, "but over
time, we became a more perfect union."

That brought Lieberman to another campaign memory: "Another thing that was
so touching to me, my wife and my family that year was not just the way that
we were accepted, but what our candidacy meant to other groups working their
way up in America: Latino Americans, African Americans who felt empowered by
what had happened to us. If we can do it, they can do it. They'll be next."
People of deep religious convictions, not only Jews, "were encouraged that I
was prepared to talk about my faith, and that my faith wasn¹t a barrier to
my own activities in public life," he said.

"I say this to Jewish students, Christian students, Muslim students: OYou
don't have to choose between your faithfulness to your religious observance
and the old dreams you have of a secular career of success. This country is
wonderfully tolerant."

Lieberman's own daughter is an eighth-grade student at the Hebrew Academy of
Greater Washington, an institution similar to the San Diego Jewish Academy.
Sometimes, Lieberman reflected to the students, with the freedom that
America offers, traditions get thrown out. The challenge is "how do you keep
young people as they grow up in touch with the richness and their unique
religious tradition and still have them fully involved in the life of
America?"

The senator, who is now a Jewish American icon, turned to his fellow day
school parents. 

"What you have done here in building the school ... is kiddush haShem -- a
sanctification of God's name. It is also an act of patriotism -- American
patriotism -- because the message sent out is with a sense of right and
wrong, with a sense of values."