It’s not okay to write

It’s not okay to write unguardedly about Senator Wellstone yet, so I will simply say that I was interested to see where Senator Wellstone’s funeral would take place. The Star Tribune has what are to me two interesting stories today about the funeral arrangements. The first is credited to the AP and alludes to some of the diplomacy involved here, “Two faiths might make Wellstone burial tricky.” This story quotes my friend Rabbi Raskas (he married me and Mrs. Trunk; when he blessed Little Trunk at Saturday morning services after she was born in 1984, we had to ask him not to give his then-weekly anti-Reagan sermon) as saying Senator Wellstone was “thoroughly Jewish.” On this score, I will simply observe that Senator Wellstone’s son Paul David appears to have been named after the senator. Naming a child after a living person is prohibited by Jewish law, which is why you have never met a Jewish “junior.” Folks who self-identify as Jews don’t do it. The second story, by Martha Sawyer Allen, discusses the arrangements for Senator Wellstone’s funeral. The story is “Wellstone family to hold private Jewish service.”

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