William Safire, RIP

William Safire the former Nixon speech writer who became a New York Times columnist, has died. I didn’t know Safire, although he was a member of the synagogue to which we belong until leaving (along with Tom Friedman and Dennis Ross) to follow our ex-rabbi to a new synagogue. The circumstances of the great Bethesda schism are discussed here.
John Podhoretz offers a nice tribute to Safire. He concludes:

It is ironic that he leaves us on the eve of Yom Kippur, because he was for a very long time the host of Washington’s most exclusive annual Jewish ticket–a catered party to break the Yom Kippur fast. Most of the people who went didn’t actually fast. But they pretended that they had. Such is life in Washington.

And Bethesda, though not at our house.

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