 Hello and welcome. I'm Miriam Kleinman with the National Archives Office of Public Affairs. I'm delighted you could join us for today's special program in celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month. We'll hear Howard Mortman discuss his new book, When Rabbis Bless Congress, The Great American Story of Jewish Prayers on Capitol Hill. C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb will join Howard in what is sure to be a great conversation. But first I want to share two upcoming events on our YouTube channel. On Thursday, May 12th, at 1 p.m., author John Avalon will discuss his book, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace. This book explores Abraham Lincoln's personal example in the closing days of the Civil War. Author, presidential historian, and LBJ Foundation head Mark Uptigrove will join Avalon for this program, one of several to celebrate the centennial of the Lincoln Memorial. On Tuesday, May 17th at 1 p.m., author Bob Reel will speak on his book, Quest for the Presidency, the storied and surprising history of presidential campaigns in America. Reel shares compelling stories behind every presidential campaign in American history from 1789 through 2020. Journalist, author, and professor Tom Zellner will join Reel for this conversation. Today, I am thrilled to welcome my friend and fellow promoter, Howard Mortman, C-SPAN's longtime communications director. Howard's a DC native who was absolutely obsessed with Capitol Hill, but in a good way. Before joining C-SPAN, he astutely observed Congress from MSNBC, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the National Journal's Hotline, where his claim to fame included their memorable top 10 lists. When Rabbi's Blessed Congress reflects his exhaustive research that included records from right here, the National Archives, Howard explores the history of this tradition, crunches the numbers to break it down into the oldest and youngest, geographical area, degree of religiosity, and even biblical verses cited, along the way he shares fascinating trivia, including how many rabbis wore yarmulkes when they addressed Congress, how many were double-headers who addressed both the House and Senate, how many were invited back, and which rabbi both addressed Congress and played a rabbi on the marvelous Mrs. Maisel, thus becoming the first rabbi to appear on both C-SPAN and Amazon Prime. A-Lister Brian Lam needs no intro in DC, but given our wider reach, I'll share some highlights from his incredible career. Brian's the founder and longtime former CEO of C-SPAN. He started young in the business. Interest in broadcasting as a kid, he built crystal radio sets to pick up local signals. Other early jobs in the field included being a radio DJ and even a TV dance show host. His love for all things DC related was cemented in the 1960s when he was a young naval officer stationed in DC's naval yard. For fun, he would visit Capitol Hill to watch floor debates in the House and Senate. He then was a Hill reporter, worked on the Hill, founded C-SPAN in 1977, and is now the executive chair of its board of directors. He has been described as part policy wonk, part activist, and part educator, and is a true national treasure. Thanks to Brian, C-SPAN has covered many National Archives book talks and programs for years. Thanks to Howard, such programs are widely promoted on C-SPAN's many social media platforms. As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, we're trying to relearn social skills. Common wisdom is that there are two topics to avoid, religion and politics. Today, you are in for a treat, as two longtime DC insiders will face off on the intersection of those two third rails. Howard's very brave to do this. When I last checked, Brian Lam had 5,554 videos in the C-SPAN video library, and most of those are interviews. Brian once said there would be no gotcha questions on C-SPAN, but there's no such assurance today. If it's anything like an earlier such chat, this will be a no holds barred verbal jousting at the highest level, and you will have a front seat for this. I can't wait, and I'm delighted that you'll be a part of this as well. Game on, Howard and Brian. Howard, you start your book with a question, and it reads like this. Need more prayer in your life? Question mark. Why did you start the book this way? Because at the core, the question is why do we need prayer at all? And then why cut to the chase? Why does Congress pray? So it's a question, do we have enough prayer? If not, where do you get more? And one place to get more prayer is from the US Congress. People might think they don't have enough, or they might think their level of prayer is sufficient, but here's a daily place to get prayer, the US Congress. What was the exact moment you said I want to do this book? There was no exact moment. There was a series of being, to back up a second, because I work at C-SPAN, I watch Congress for a living. And over the years, watching Congress means you watch the beginning, the middle, and the end. And at the beginning, they do something very unique or very interesting, that's pray. And I became intrigued by that first thing they do in every session, prayer, and started really keying in on that. And not as an advocate or opponent, but just as an intellectual exercise, this is kind of interesting. It's kind of different, unique. It looks like nothing else Congress does all day long, typically Congress is fighting and debating and voting, but they're not praying. So it was over a series of years of just witnessing the prayer that I became intrigued in this concept, and through a series of research and following it closely, ended up with a book out of this. The number of rabbis that have prayed in front of Congress? Well, there's two numbers here. There's 442 rabbis who have prayed in Congress, and they've prayed a total of 637 times. Now, why the difference in the numbers? Because several rabbis, actually 100 rabbis have prayed two or more times, multiple times. So again, 442 rabbis have prayed since 1860 in Congress, and that's a total of 637 times that a rabbi has opened either the Senate or the House in prayer. So of all those, how do you break it down in Orthodox conservative reform? You know, that's a really interesting question because the answer is it falls out roughly a third, a third, a third Orthodox conservative and reform. That's important for two reasons. One, it's the plurality. It shows the three main denominations, at least in America, of Judaism, of the denominator of the form, conservative Orthodox, varying degrees of observance. But it's even more intriguing because nobody is saying, who has to be a rabbi? Nobody is saying, the government is not saying, we need a reform rabbi today, or we need an Orthodox, a bobbiter rabbi, a conservative rabbi. This is how the numbers fall out on their own, organically. So in a way, it's actually a strength of the tradition of rabbis praying in Congress that it is roughly a third, a third, a third for the three main branches of Judaism. You've got a lot of stories about a lot of rabbis in this book. Do a little riff on some of the more interesting situations in the House and Senate with rabbis. Yeah. Well, actually, the one thing that comes to mind immediately, in Miriam's introduction, she mentioned a rabbi who has been both on C-SPAN and in the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. That's a rabbi, Mark Getman, who wore his talus, a prayer shawl, when he prayed in the House a couple years ago from Karnasi, New York. Rabbi Getman is the only rabbi that I can find in all of these hundreds of rabbis who wore his talus. Again, the Jewish prayer shawl. That's important because this is the greatness of being able to see these rabbis pray in video. And you can actually see what they are wearing. So that comes to mind immediately. Another neat thing just for tying into today, today is May 10th. If you look at it, if you want to do it on this date for rabbis who prayed in Congress, on this date, May 10th, 1956, a rabbi, Arthur Schneier, opened the House in prayer, 26 years old at the time, born in Austria, survivor of the Holocaust, came to America. And this was the first time Rabbi Schneier prayed in Congress in the House on this date, 1956. I point this out because he is still alive. He is now 92 years old. And his prayer today is the oldest prayer given by a rabbi who is still alive. The following year, Rabbi Schneier prayed in the Senate in 1957, the second oldest prayer now by a rabbi who is still alive. So several examples right there. I can go on with many more neat things. But those are the two that come to mind immediately right now. How many members of Congress in history and the United States Senate have been Jews? You asked me that question. I wish I can go right now to the Wikipedia page of Jews have served. I don't know. Rob, Brian, let me ask you, do you know that number? I don't know the number. I think you say in your book that 35 senators have been Jews in history, but I didn't see a number for the U.S. House. The reason I was asking it, what's the dynamic over the years? Christians inviting rabbis, Jews inviting rabbis. I don't know that it makes a difference, but it would be interesting to know if you've studied that. Yeah, on that point. So rabbis who are guest chaplains in Congress get invited by a by typically a member of Congress or the senator who represents that rabbi or a guest chaplain in general. So it's a typical practice for rabbis who have been invited to open the house for the Senate and prayer. It's funny. Yes, Jewish members of Congress have done the inviting the sponsoring, but it's hardly unique to being Jewish to have a rabbi be under your sponsorship. And in fact, I can't even remember right offhand the last time a Jewish, well, two years ago, a Jewish member of Congress, Max Rose, sponsored. He's now along in the house of a sponsored rabbi. But the most recent times, Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota and the Senate sponsored rabbi Moshe Feller in the Senate. Coming to mind a congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska sponsored a rabbi Abraham from Omaha in Nebraska a couple years ago. Congresswoman Eliana was late and from from Florida, not Jewish sponsored rabbis not even in our district but rabbis from Washington DC area. So it's, it's, it's, yes, Jewish members have sponsored their own rabbis. Jackie here's an example Jackie Rosen, now a senator when she was a congresswoman, she sponsored the rabbi in her Las Vegas, Nevada synagogue. So examples of both examples of Jewish members sponsoring rabbis, but it is it is a minority it is more likely that a non Jewish member of Congress will be sponsoring the rabbi. I want to tell those watching that they are welcome to ask questions. So submit them anytime you want to and we'd be delighted to go to the questions as soon as they're coming in. Any examples of anti Semitic behavior because a rabbi has given a prayer. No. No examples of anti Semitic behavior. Now, there are ample examples of anti Semitism and racism among members of Congress over the years, but not as part of the practice of rabbis praying in Congress just part of their, their DNA of being, you know, bad people saying bad things. But no, no, no results at that. Now, I will say to broaden this conversation beyond rabbis. There have been examples of guest chaplains who aren't Jewish who aren't rabbis who are prayed. Well, here's how give an example right now. Oh, about 15 years ago, in the Senate. I believe a Buddhist, I'm going to get this wrong, I believe a Buddhist priest prayed and opened the Senate prayer and got heckled from the gallery. And so many yelled out you're not, you know, you're not praying to the real God and all that, and that person was escorted out of the gallery. Now it just the reason why I know this it just so happened that same day in the house, a rabbi prayed in the house, a rabbi Ellen moments fields of women rabbi in fact was on the cover of the book, and she actually tells the story of how, you know, when she got out of doing her prayer. People are saying, Well, this is you did a good job. But did you see what happened over the Senate? You know, there was a heckler there. But nothing of the sort for that from from any rabbi was was prayed in Congress. What was your motivation when you set out to do the research on this book and how hard was it to find a publisher? Oh, gosh, yeah. The motivation behind this book was two things. One, just a passion like many people have had to write a book. One is to say that the pure essence wouldn't be need to write a book. Now, there are 20,000 books about Abraham Lincoln. There are 20,000 books about John of Kennedy. There's now one single book about the practice of prayer in Congress. For me, and you know, so the wonderful thing about this project was creating an alley of history that didn't exist, creating a historical story that didn't exist. The research, I just found nobody had done that. People have argued at length about whether there should be prayer. That's full of, you know, pieces about it. But no one's actually done a historical look at a segment of what Congress does and a further segment of the rabbis have done that. So that was a thrill. So there's exciting creating as a passion project, an alley of history is both thrilling and daunting. The second part is doing it for the first time, a unique book of the sort that the frightening part is you have to get it right. If you're going to do this, you have to triple check your work and get it right. So that being said, the thrill of doing this. Now, your second part of the question, how do you get a publisher behind this? You know, you have to realize that nobody yourself and the people who are watching this through the National Archives, that there is zero market for a book about rabbis who afraid in Congress, meaning that once I did everything wrong. People say, you're supposed to write the table contents, you're supposed to write a sample chapter. I found that was impossible to do without telling the whole story, because it would be meaningless to try to present this and try to get a, you know, try to get this published. I wrote it backwards, I wrote the book, then started pitching it. Now, here's where it gets complicated. I found book agents, I had no idea what I was talking about. You know, they say, find an agent. Well, I pitched 100 agents cold pitching. No one had any clue what this was. Again, I can't fault them because it's either you get it or you don't and nobody got it. So then I went to the set. I said, you know, why am I going to do this twice? You have to pitch an agent, then you have to pitch a publisher. So I cold pitched then 100 publishers. Nobody got it again. Nobody understood it again. Can't fault anybody. There's no market. There's no money in a book about rabbis praying in Congress. I looked into and I have to mention the folks who publishes who said, we get this, we took a chance on it. The academic studies press, based in Boston, a tiny publisher, I don't think they mind if I call them tiny, they'll admit that. They said, we get it. They specialize, Brian, in two types of books, Jewish books and Slavic books. Now, I don't have in me a book about Slavic history, but they did get this. So, you know, they said we'll do it. I went into partnership with Washington Hebrew congregation about the book to get kind of guarantee a certain number of sales and off we went. So that's the quick look at the publishing of this. This is not terribly important to the discussion of the book, but I just found it interesting that out of nowhere I find the name Dana Bash of CNN. I find the name John King, Jeremy Bash. How did they get into this book? Yeah. So, so Dana Bash with CNN, top congressional correspondent, longtime CNN reporter, her former husband, Jeremy Bash, a State Department official from years back. His father, Rabbi Marvin Bash, opened the house in prayer one day back in the 70s. So, going backwards when I'm just doing basic research on each of these rabbis to Bain buckets who they are and what they said for the who they are part. Well, Marvin Bash son, Jeremy Bash, married to Dana, Dana Bash. There are other examples of reporters DC reporters who are somewhere in the book some I learned afterwards who have ties to to the story. Here's an example. I only learned this afterwards. Michael share of the New York Times. Washington reporters been around used to be Washington Post now in the New York Times is a White House reporter wrote a book. We've had him on C-span. In fact, his uncle, Rabbi Joachim Prince, P-R-I-N-Z, opened the Senate in prayer in 1965, Rabbi Prince did. Part of his part of history. He marched with Dr. King Martin Luther King in the 1963 March on Washington was the rat was the speaker immediately before Dr. King in 1963 the March on Washington two years later came back to Washington praying in the Senate. I learned about this just from contacting Michael share about this and told me that's his uncle and it's amazing. One other really quick example of a reporter tied to the story. Tangentially, there's another reporter in New York Times, Katie Glick. She's a political reporter. Her, her, if I have this right, her grandfather was a rabbi dinner praying Congress, but gave the inauguration prayer for John of Kennedy 1961. So that's another tie. So it's all, it's all connected somehow, Brian. It's all connected. Who decides that a member can ask somebody to give the prayer. Yeah, so members so the way it should typically what happens. A typical day in Congress, it's the chaplain, the US House has a chaplain, the US Senate has a chaplain. Both are government positions, both are government paid. They have government staff. So on a typical day you tune in the C-span you watch the house. The house is all comes in at two o'clock. Chaplain Kibben of the house will give the prayer this morning 10am the Senate came in Chaplain Barry Black of the Senate gave the prayer. That's nine times out of 10. That's what you're going to find on occasion. There are guest chaplains and those are the people who fill kind of like a like a Joan Rivers fills in for Johnny Carson, you know, a guest host for the given the prayer. And so a guest chaplain at that point is how do you become a guest chaplain. That's where a member of Congress sponsors you was and says to the chaplain's office. I want ex clergy member male female clergy rabbi Imam priest, Reverend to fill in when there was an opening and then that they will be considered for being a guest chaplain. So typically that person who is a guest chaplain is some revered member of the community known. It could be the member of Congress is own pastor on rabbi. But they could put in the hopper their name gets submitted and then the if that person is selected if the rabbi is selected, he or she flies in on his or own dime gets great parking gets a good parking space in front of the Capitol, and then gives the prayer in the House of the Senate. So, in the end, it's really it's a member of Congress saying I would like to have considered to be considered to be a guest chaplain, my person, my friend, my pastor, ex person. How often has a rabbi used the platform. I just picked one example out of there to lobby the American people to support the state of Israel. Yeah, so I was curious because one of the rules guest chaplains are given rules. What you can or cannot say. And it's not, it's not a religious thing it's more of a, you know, you have to it's a word length thing, and you can't speak a foreign language current rules say that they are there to law to they're there to pray to God. They are not there to lobby, you know, they don't vote that the chaplains come in, they don't, they pray they don't debate they don't vote. So they're not supposed to talk about current events. Some do, and even the official chaplains talk about what's happening. Sometimes issues are so unavoidable. You know, civil rights legislation wars, war and terror, COVID, Ukraine, some of these issues are looming in the country unavoidable to talk about to exclude from your prayer. I was curious if Israel was has ever been advocated for an account. My question was prompted more. This is a personal question, more of like, can, if you're if you don't like Jews. Can you say well the reason rabbis are in Congress is to advocate on behalf of Israel of America's relationship with Israel. So I actually was was keen on that question. What I found was no Israel is very rarely mentioned in prayers. Israel had mentions in the early days during the early on the 15th anniversary of the independence of Israel. Israel had was mentioned multiple times, you know, 10 15 major anniversaries, not in an advocating kind of way would just says, you know, where, how fortunate that Israel exists, how fortunate as America exists. But since then, like in the 60s, maybe early 70s, the specific mention of Israel been very rare. And, and even then, I mean, even with a few mentions of Israel, none of them have been advocating policy. So for me, that was just important just kind of take that off the table as you know, someone who doesn't who hates Jews say, well, they shouldn't be in Congress because they'll just pray for Israel. And it totally isn't the case at all that that is rarely mentioned here. Page 225 of your book. And there's actually a name. I may be one of the few people on this that's ever heard this name. But it's fascinating to me and you can tell the story. I'll just read, read you into it. According to a May 9 1958 American Mercury column titled the rabbi the Reds hate most by Victor Lasky. That's the name. And those that have never heard of him. When JFK was shot. His book was number one on the New York Times best seller list. And it was called JFK the man in the myth. And it was very anti Kennedy. But this is about something else. Quote, it was the proudest moment of his life. The prayer was so unusual. It picked up by it was picked up by the United Press. Tell that story. And why did Victor Lasky write about this? Oh, gosh. Thank you. The Benjamin Schultz thing is interesting. I'm going to I'm going to film with the title. I believe it was like the Jewish League against communism. American Jewish League against communism. Yeah, yeah. And he if I think it was in the 50s because he also he was he was beloved by by Joe McCarthy. There was famous Wisconsin communism hating a senator and came in and it's well, I mean, it was it was a fire breathing prayer. A little more restrained actually than I would even imagine because I set my scale 10. Well, when I saw Benjamin Schultz of the Communism League Jewish League against communism. But he has he has given he gave more anti strong anti communism speeches outside of Congress than he did in Congress a little more restrained. But, you know, it's funny at that time, a lot of the rhetoric that came from prayers from rabbis reflected the time. There's a lot of mention of godless communists. There's a lot of the language, the Cold War language, even from rabbis is very striking. When they talk about, you know, how we have to battle the Soviets, particularly in like the late 40s, early 50s, very much a product. Rabbi Schultz is kind of like the extreme of that. And I'd never really not wasn't history didn't really hear from him much again. Beyond that, I mean, few people there's a few things written about him. It was interesting though that he gave a prayer in Congress during the Cold War times. It was roughly around the Vietnam era when the rabbi prayers. I'm going to get in trouble with this got softer, meaning they weren't as hardline anti communist anti Soviet. Then they were like after World War Two. But Rabbi Schultz, I definitely remember this is when I saw Rabbi Schultz and who we were. And I believe in the congressional record, he is that's his title, the Jewish League against Communism, whatever the name is, and got covered. So the UPI mentioned this a branch of that it's interesting as part of this is rabbis who have prayed in Congress, then make news as a result of that a lot of local coverage. But the time that step in gender national coverage. Where were the rabbis from? Well, if you break it down, the rabbis and actually maybe in a I'll answer the question and maybe we'll show a video of a rabbi after coming out. The number one state if you break I did break it down geographically this will come as no surprise New York has produced the greatest number of of rabbis. Among the top states are Pennsylvania, Ohio, the DC area for Maryland Baltimore but also for geographic purposes. It's easy enough to get a prayer a rabbi from the DC area to drive on in. But even though the rabbis predominantly come from where you might imagine, they also come from states you might not imagine. Alaska has had two rabbis pray in Congress. Get ready for this one Brian both rabbis who prayed in Congress from Alaska are Lubavitcher rabbis. Meaning the ultra the ultra observant ultra orthodox father son rabbi Greenberg Mendy Greenberg the most recent rabbi prayed in Congress from from Alaska. And some of states in New Mexico never again Nebraska has produced a rabbi. Let me go back to the Lubavitchers. Is there a way for I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions that about Jews and their the way they practice or you practice your religion that they make people may not know about this watching this. The Babichers don't don't they have a certain look to them. They do they have if an identifiably Jewish look meaning black coat black hat. They'll always have the yarmulke on they'll have girls they have the curls in the hair. Yeah, the curls in here they call the past is the curls are developed because when they're studying Torah they're they need something to do with their fingers they're wrapping their hair. And that's where the curls come from. Lubavitcher rabbis. I'm sorry to break go ahead. No, I was just going to ask you because you just mentioned what's the difference between the Torah and the Talmud. Yeah, the Torah. Well, the Torah is the five books and Moses the Talmud is the interpretation of that. Roughly the constitutional interpretation of the laws that are in the Torah. So the Talmud developed years later centuries later by the learned rabbis to give further interpretation to what is in the Torah. In your book, you mentioned Moses 23 times. Best I could tell more than anybody else was mentioned. Why? Well, Moses mentioned a couple of things. Set the scene in the house, by the way, you look in. If you're in the chamber of the house and you're giving a prayer or speaking from the rostrum and you're looking out. 23 relief portraits of law givers are in the house chamber. 22 on either side. And these are through the sense through the years. Statue West kind of reliefs of law givers. 11, I'm sorry, 11 on each side in the 23rd. The 23rd is directly opposite the rostrum, the speaker's podium. And that law giver is Moses. So even in the center of Congress, Moses is looking straight at any speaker. And that actually has been referenced before. By the way, Brian, as an aside, how many of these 23 depictions of law givers in the house chamber are women? By the way, do you know how many women are in the chamber? Zero. That's right. Zero of these women who are depicting the house are women. So this in the side. So Moses is a frequently mentioned as a law giver, frequently mentioned in Rabbi prayers. But interestingly, he's actually not the number one mention. The number one mention is a Lubavitcher rabbi, the rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who is mentioned. He's the famous rabbi, R-E-B-B-E 1994. It's given a congressional gold medal. Nearly every time the Lubavitcher rabbi prays in Congress, he, and I'm not going to say she here. There are no female Lubavitcher rabbis who pray in Congress. There are none. But every time he has prayed in Congress, he has mentioned Rabbi Schneerson. Hold on. What's a rabbi? A rabbi is an affectionate name for a rabbi in the Lubavitcher world. Kind of like that's his title. How much does a rabbi study before they become a rabbi? And what's that process? There are seminaries. So I'm a reform Jew. In the reform Jewish movement, there is a seminary called Hebrew Union College. Hebrew Union College, essentially graduate school for reform rabbis. You get your undergrad, and then you go off. There are three campuses around the country for reform rabbis. Hebrew Union College, New York, Los Angeles, and Cincinnati for reform rabbis. There are, for the conservative and orthodox, they have their own seminaries where they are graduated as rabbis. And then go off and go to synagogues. How close have you ever come to be thinking about becoming a rabbi? I'll tell you this. I have zero qualifications to write a Jewish book, a book about rabbis. I flunked out of religious school. It's that bad. I have no academic credentials and no rabbinical connection. I will say this is a story. This is not my book. This is a book about the rabbis who are afraid in Congress. It's hardly my story. Go back to what's been the reaction? Have you had interesting reactions from individuals once this book has come out? Yeah. Here's an example of a really touching story. When I wrote this, when I researched it, when I went through the Congressional Record, through the C-SPAN video, when I did all the various online tools and talking rabbis in person, it was all, and I put all the information onto a Google Excel sheet. I created the first, and I can say this most fully because I can assure you, no other thing like this exists, the Google Excel sheet with every rabbis created in Congress, what he or she said, what they wore, who sponsored them, what party the sponsor belongs to, what gender of the sponsor and of the rabbi. So it's all in this sheet here. And so I go into the stories. One thing, one element that it didn't really count for was it was being able to really reach people personally, meaning for me, these are all great stories, but it's kind of flat. It's on my computer. The cuts of the chase, I put all the rabbis for whom there's video. The earliest rabbi I have a video for, thanks, going back to the C-SPAN video in 1985, is the earliest rabbi, Rabbi Joshua Haberman, Washington Hebrew Congregation, is the earliest rabbi we have on video, introduced by Tip O'Neill, sponsored by Congressman Ben Gilman of New York who married off Rabbi Haberman's officiated, Ben Gilman's wife's, and their wedding for his wife. That goes back to your earlier question, the connections thing. So I put all these rabbi videos on YouTube. Lo and behold, about a year ago, I got out of nowhere, I was contacted by the family of a rabbi who died, a rabbi Maurice Lyons of St. Louis who gave the prayer, opened the Senate in prayer in 1994. And it was his yard site, and yard site means anniversary of death. It was Rabbi Maurice Lyons yard site, and they were just googling around to try to remember him. And they googled and they came upon this YouTube that I had posted of Rabbi Lyons prayer. And there he is, they opened it up and there he is in the Senate. And it was a combination of, they didn't know that he had ever prayed in the Senate. And for the grandkids, they had never heard his voice before. So they reached out to me and they said, this is incredible. Thank you for posting this. We had no idea about this, that Rabbi Lyons opened the Senate prayer in 1994. By the way, it was an amazing prayer. And I say that because he speaks in Hebrew, he raises his hands over the Senate like it's a congregation. Very interesting prayer, lengthy. He invokes Hebrew scripture in there. A lot of really interesting elements. And it's on YouTube. So they sent me a note saying, intellectually I thought this was really interesting stuff. But then they sent me a note saying out of the blue, thank you for this. And I sent it back to say, this is even more incredible for me. I had no idea I would touch people like this. Subsequently to that, I have examples of widows of rabbis who have sent me pictures from when they were there in the 60s or have personal stories of sitting in the gallery when their husband, the rabbi or their father prayed since it passed away. It's funny, this was never meant to be that kind of book. It was meant to be, he'd say there's a dry historical look at a practice that no one knows about. But I've had several really interesting personal stories come out of this. And it's mind blowing in a way and fun just to see how you can reach people through this book, through the video, just through the history of that. Could be a sensitive question, but how much of this book have your two daughters and your wife read? Well, let me answer this way. Let me go. My youngest daughter, Mia, 13 years old, just had her bat mitzvah from the synagogue we belong to, Temple Road of Shalom in Northern Virginia. She helped me prepare some of my earliest PowerPoints for this. She has the kind of technical skills I don't have. And she infects them in the early runs of doing this presentation of talking to rabbis to a synagogue on Zoom. She ran it for me. She brought her laptop downstairs. I'm in my basement right now. She brought her laptop downstairs and ran the presentation for me. I'm sitting able to do it myself. I've learned those high level skills of running a PowerPoint on your own for your own book. But credit to Mia. Emily, my older daughter, is a first year UVA. And one of her classes, she studied Jewish American history. And so she's kind of into the story. And then that's my older daughter and then my wife Beth has been very supportive of the project. I signed a copy of the book tour. Now I will tell you, in the spirit of the disclosure, a lot of my work was, most of my work was done at two in the morning, Googling around and looking, paging through every congressional record, going back to 1860. I can't really say that too loudly in the family because like, you know, what's daddy doing, you know, daddy is researching rabbis in Congress. He should be fixing the dishwasher. It's, you know, so it's kind of a weird hobby. So it has not been a, it's not been a family project like other family projects might be. Go to that, that issue though of doing this kind of work because two in the morning. But how many years did it take you? And your colleagues at CSP, very few people at CSP, I knew you were doing this and you weren't doing it on CSP's time. So what were the hours besides the two a.m. and all that? Is there any way to, to total up the number of hours you might have spent on this? So here's, from beginning to end, from concept to publication, about six and a half years of doing this. That means, so what, so first I accumulated the data. Now this is, you know, you can't just Google rabbis praying in Congress and up comes 600 names. This is going to sound, I'm going to put on my propeller hat, propeller hat hat to answer this question. You've really got to go through every congressional record to see every prayer that's ever been said in Congress. For this reason, it's really tough to search. There's no, you don't Google this, meaning the congressional records that are online are PDFs and very tough to search for PDF. You've got to open each one of them up. So I opened up each congressional record going back to the middle 19th century. No, wait, no, hold on. Yeah. Each day. Yeah. Yeah. Back to when? Well, I knew the first rabbi was 1860. So I stopped when I got back to 1860. I didn't go in a year. I didn't go to 1859, but I went to 1860. So just an idea. What's a PDF? Yeah. So PDF is, so the government in 1995, Newt Gingrich comes in and becomes speaker. And it says very excitedly, we're going to put all the congressional records online. And he's right. They did, but they put them all online moving forward. They didn't put them online going backwards. The downloading of the congressional record into these documents, downloadable documents, that's what the PDF is, happened subsequently, actually happened while I was doing the research into the book. Before this, and this is, I need to, this actually, I need to thank the Library of Congress for doing this National Archives. And the government for doing this online, going backwards before C-SPAN existed for putting this online. You got to download these guys and then search to them, download the PDFs. And so I went through and then went to search, went on my big search, rabbis opening each prayer. So I read every prayer ever uttered in Congress. Now you think that's the easy, that's the easy part. Here comes the tough part. The tough part is not every time a rabbi is identified as a rabbi. For instance, military chaplains are identified as chaplains, but they may be rabbis. So you can't just control F, you can't just say, how find me every rabbi? You got to go through each of the name. Let's get even, you think, but you think, Brian, you think that's the easy part. Here's the tougher part. Here's the part that we Jews, we make it difficult on ourselves. For a long time we called, they called the rabbis ministers. So ministers or reverends are in the congressional record, even though the rabbis identified as reverends. Now, make it further down, that's still the easy part. Here's the tougher part. In the 19th century, early 20th century, a lot of times non-Jewish clergy members have very Jewish sounding names. I remember being tripped up on a long search for a chaplain who spoke, who gave the prayer many times. It was like, like, like Judah Benjamin or I meant making that up. But it was like, it was like a name. I said, my God, I just discovered a rabbi chaplain. Nobody knew about it. Just through every search, Episcopalian church he belonged to. What are the chances that you've missed one? Oh, you know what, Brian? Thank you for asking that because I want to put in a plug. I would love people to double check my work. There's a real chance I missed a rabbi or two because through no fault to my own, there are holes in the congressional record. I found several years in the 19th century where like half a year doesn't exist. And I couldn't find it. And like, I'm going to make it like 1882, for instance, only half of it exists. So there are chunks of the congressional record, even though it's online that aren't there. There's a chance, maybe a slim chance, but there's a chance there's a rabbi in there. So hopefully this technology improves and maybe some of that can get restored. And then the next person comes along and searches. I want to make sure that the questions from the audience if they come in would be glad to pass it off to them. If the folks at the archive just notifies me and we can ask questions for you to Howard Mortman. You say in your conclusion, one broad education benefit of rabbi prayers in Congress, Colin, they expose a predominantly non-Jewish audience to Judaism. Why is that important? So I'm going to answer this. Go ahead, talk about the establishment clause. So there's two things, two ways to answer this. One, just to expose America to a different religion other than the predominant Christianity. But there's even a more important point is that this book is not a church state book. I don't come down on whether or not Congress should open a prayer. I just acknowledge it happens. Let's research it. Let's figure out the history of this. The fact that over 400 rabbis have prayed in Congress over 600 times to me shows that there is no established religion in America. That's the establishment clause. That the fact that America, that US Congress, that Jews are welcome and invited as rabbis to pray in Congress is a strength of this country, both of democracy, but also to show that many of the multiple religions can pray in practice. And again, Christians, imams, Muslims and so on. So it's a demonstration of Judaism. Also, it's a demonstration of just the strength of the diversity of religions is why for me that's a very powerful message that came out of this. Here's a question we have from the YouTube audience. Is the US historically and currently the only country to welcome rabbis to bless their government sessions? Yeah, I love this question for this reason. I don't know if we're the only country. Here's a country that does not open their legislative session with prayer. Israel, the Knesset does not open with prayer. So any rabbi who is in Israel and wants to open their legislative session in prayer can come to America and do it. And in fact, chief rabbis from Israel have opened the US Congress in prayer and have come here. Rabbis from other countries have prayed in the US Congress. Not rabbis who have moved here, but actually rabbis who have pulpits in other countries. Canada, former Senator Herb Cole from Wisconsin, his cousin, Baruch Cole of Toronto, 11 years ago, 12 years ago, prayed in the US Senate. In 2011, the great, now passed away, the great rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks from Great Britain, the head rabbi in Great Britain, sponsored by Joe Lieberman, prayed in the US Senate. And an example of, I don't know offhand if Britain, if they open with a prayer, but an example of a rabbi from another country coming here. So yeah, I mean, it's not a, I don't think it's a unique now. One subset of this though I have to point out is state legislatures also pray and have prayer that opened their session. And this is all protected by the Supreme Court. There have been challenges, city councils and so on. So the practice of prayer in US government is not just the US Congress, it's in the states as well. You brought some video to this magic discussion and we are running out of time. So do you want to show any of it? And what if you do? What is it? Yes, I want to show and I'm going to cue Brian in the control room there in a moment. I want to show Rabbi Gary Zola Rabbi Gary Zola. We mentioned earlier reform. We mentioned earlier how do you become a rabbi and I mentioned Hebrew Union College as a reform seminary rabbi Zola affiliated with Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. There's also head of the American Jewish archives, which they groups like the National Museum of American Jewish History and Capital Jewish Museum have been really important for me in this research. And in fact, they're in Cincinnati. I've gone up there and did some personal research for this book and other work. I want to show Rabbi Zola's prayer in the house in 2004 as an example. So Brian in the control room, please run the YouTube of Gary Zola opening Congress in prayer 2004. The prayer will be offered by the chap by the guest chaplain. Dr. Gary P. Zola, executive director, American Jewish archives Cincinnati, Ohio. As we begin legislative deliberations in this great shrine of democracy, we call to mind the words of an American original. Sam Levinson, that Spanish teacher turned entertainer whose homespun stories about his immigrant parents delighted our nation for generation. Upon his death, Levinson's children discovered their father's ethical will containing these prayerful sentiments. To America, I owe a debt for the opportunity it gave me to be free and to be me. To my parents, I owe America. They gave it to me and I leave it to you. Take good care of it. To the Bible, I owe the belief that the human does not live by bread alone, nor do we live alone at all. This is also the democratic tradition, preserve it. In this year, marking the 350th anniversary of Jewish life to this great land, may we all acknowledge our debt to America, to the courageous immigrants who gave us this national inheritance, and to the source of all for endowing us with the benefit of our patriot's dream, a nation pledged to uphold the conviction that liberty and justice are for all. Thankful are we this day for the manifold blessings that are our daily portion and possession in this great and blessed nation. Amen. The chair has examined the journal of the last day's proceedings and announces to the house his approval thereof. Yeah, Rabbi Zola likely cleared it with the chaplain's office and that's actually part of the procedure. Rabbis who have prayed in Congress have told me they do that. Sometimes it gets set back, sometimes it gets marked up. Not often, but just it's more of, you know, it's more of who you can and cannot address. The bottom line in these prayers is you are not, you're not supposed to address members in the Congress or address Congress itself. Your message is upstairs. It's for the Almighty. Got a question from the audience. Have you heard from the rabbis who spoke about what the experience was like for them? Did they have to vet their speech? You just discussed that. Do they consult with other clergy who have given blessings? Yeah, that's a great question because, yeah, just on a personal note, I've become very good friends with rabbis who have prayed in Congress. There's a rabbi, Arnold Reznikoff, who has prayed at the most 18 times. We've become good friends. He shared with me a lot of the backstory of, you know, everything from, you know, how do you get to the question? How do you vet the speech? How do you vet the remarks and so on? It always is, this could sound trite, but it's really important. It's a very big deal. I mean, meaning it's a very meaningful thing for rabbis and other guests who happen to come and do this. In a Jewish tradition, you get called up to the Bema for your bar mitzvah. It's kind of being called up to the pulpit. It's like a very big thing. There are rabbis who have said, when they've talked to the press or in their notes on social media and elsewhere, this is the biggest thing in my life. This was the greatest moment to be as a rabbi, to be its professional life, to be in the Senate. How many women rabbis? Well, here's where we've been talking big numbers. Let's talk small numbers now. 14 women rabbis have given 16 prayers. One woman, Rabbi Hannah Spiro, has given multiple prayers three times, most recent for women rabbis. Here's the deal. 14 small number. Now the first woman rabbi was not ordained in America until 1972. The way you look at this, you can look at 14 against 442 total rabbis, or you can look at this 14 versus the 200 rabbis who have prayed in Congress since this first one was ordained in 1972. Regardless, it's a small number. The first one for history, yeah, go ahead. Do you have another video? Let's do a quick video for the control room. Brian, the control room, can you show Jamie Raskin sponsoring Rabbi Bruce Lustig a couple years ago? Let's show that video as an example of a sponsor of a rabbi. Without objection, the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, is recognized for one minute. Mr. Speaker, thank you. I rise to honor Rabbi Bruce Lustig, who just led us in that wonderful opening prayer. Rabbi Lustig is Senior Rabbi of the Washington Hebrew Congregation, which is Washington, D.C.'s largest and oldest synagogue, and where many of my constituents worship. The son of a refugee from Nazi Germany, his mother, Hedy Lustig, Rabbi Lustig grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was often the only Jewish child at school. The strong cultural identity instilled by his mother and the emphasis his family placed on engaging with his Christian friends and classmates laid the foundation for his lifelong commitment to interfaith work, including his efforts to open dialogue and strengthen relationships among Jews, Christians, Muslims, and people of all faiths. Ordained at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion, Rabbi Lustig holds a Doctorate of Divinity and a Master's Degree in Hebrew Letters. He earned his bachelor's with honors from the University of Tennessee. In delivering today's opening prayer in the house, Rabbi Lustig continues a venerable and important tradition. Since the Washington Hebrew Congregation was created in 1862, every single one of its senior rabbis has delivered an opening prayer before the U.S. Congress. Rabbi Lustig now joins that esteemed group. Mr. Speaker, I'm honored to welcome Rabbi Lustig to the house today and would like to extend my thanks for his excellent leadership in our community and for offering today's prayer. I yield back. Thank you. Howard, you say in your book that Isaiah is the big winner. Explain. The big winner. Isaiah is the most often cited prophet person in a prayer. Meaning not necessarily Isaiah the person but Isaiah the chapter as well. Isaiah the famous, I don't want to get too scriptural here, but the famous Isaiah 2.4, which is the turning the plowshares and the pruning books, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, is ingrained in a lot of American political rhetoric and beyond Jewish prayers. But I believe the numbers like 73 times Isaiah has been cited by a rabbi praying in Congress. And I believe it's somewhere in the 50s that Isaiah 2.4, that specific verse has been cited. And it's beyond rabbis, Chaplain Black, the non-Jewish Seventh-day Adventist Senate chaplain, cites Isaiah 2.4 a lot of people do. So Isaiah is the big winner for these rabbi prayers. How can somebody buy this book? Well, you can buy many copies, by the way, they're all available for Hanukkah by eight copies. It's for all fine rabbi, all fine books about rabbis praying in Congress are sold. On Amazon, through my publisher, Academic Studies Press, follow the book on Twitter, at Congress, Rabbi, there's a link in there. But my publisher may not like this because we don't want to drive too much traffic to Amazon. We want to drive it to the independent book publishers, which this is one. But let's just cut to the chase and make it easy. If you go to Amazon and just type in Howard Mortimer, Rabbi's Bless Congress, you'll pop right up there. So how much enthusiasm do you have for doing prayers by Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhist followers? And do you find in this process another book that you might write? Yes. So the first question, I have great enthusiasm for those kinds of books. They should not be written by me, but others should write them. They should use many resources available now, the C-SPAN video, the congressional record to do this. And really, there are so many stories out there. So I'm hoping that I'm hoping this sparks other historical examinations of prayer in Congress. I have limited qualifications to write a book about rabbis. I have zero to write a book about Catholics. But it should be done. What about you? You have a next book? Yeah, well, I would love to do another one. Two different routes that as a result of this. One, a companion book. There are prayers. There are rabbis who are prayed in other parts of the American political process. Rabbis have opened inaugurations in prayer. Rabbis have opened political conventions in prayer. So just to really dive down more into that. Now, I've got to, that's not as a big shocker as the rabbis, as prayer in Congress, but I've accumulated enough string as the reporters say along the way. That would be fun to do that. So, and we, very little time, but is there a difference or what is the difference between a Orthodox prayer, a reform prayer, and a conservative prayer? Yes, yes, yes. And looking through prayers in Congress, it's more likely that an Orthodox prayer, again, Orthodox and probably more observant, and forgive me if I'm reformed, but just cut the chase more observant, probably has more citations from the Torah or even the Talmud, and a reform prayer more likely involved in social justice, kind of loftier, what we call tikkun olam, repairing the world, kind of a bigger global messaging and a reform prayer. Every lobobitur prayer, and they all mentioned the original Noah laws, and it goes back to the original laws from Noah, such as in God we trust, like ultimately it's God. So, yes, even the prayers themselves reflect the level of observance or your spiritual inclinations as a Jew. I don't know why, I'm a numbers person, so I've asked this question of a lot of people, and no one in my life has gotten the right answer. The question is, how many Jews are there in the world? And I'll only tell you that the last person I asked said 300 million. No, well, I'm sorry. What's the answer? I googled everything before this hour, I didn't google that. I'm going to say 8 million, but am I wrong on that? You are. Let's play higher or lower. In the United States, I think you say in your book, they're close to 7 million, but in the world there are about 15 million Jews, and one of the more interesting statistics is, and again, these numbers I'm sure could change, but before World War II, and of course 6 million lost, but there were 17 million at the time, and the numbers haven't gotten back to that. And I can't believe I stumped you on a question, which is a very big joy for me in this whole process. We're out of time. One last quick comment you want to make, and we'll say goodbye to our audience. The one thing I just want to get across, that even though this is a book about rabbis, this is not intended to be a Jewish book. It's intended to be a book for people who love congressional history, who want to learn something brand new, they had no idea about it. The first thing you see when the House of Senate opens is a prayer. That stuns a lot of people, and I can go through an hour presentation, and people say I had no idea, but they can say I still don't like it. I don't like that there's prayer. I urge people to learn about this, to learn about the history. Again, I don't come down for or against whether it should be. This practice goes back to the very beginning, but it's such an interesting thing. And when you talk about it, it's just an element of the US Congress that, the beginning of Congress today looks like the same thing it did back in the 19th century, 18th century, and that's the first thing to do is pray. So I just find it endlessly fascinating. So this is a book about, this is a book geared for lovers of Congress, congressional history, American history, the intersection of politics and religion writ large. Yes, it focused on the rabbis, but there's a broader, hopefully a broader takeaway for people who go to Amazon right now. Amazon is standing by to take your orders. We are out of time, and thanks to the archives for setting all this up. And it's always a pleasure to be able to cross-examine somebody you work with. And we are out of time, thanks to the audience. And we will look forward to more books from you, Howard Mortman, on other subjects. Thank you, Brian. And thanks to the archives. Many thanks to the National Archives.