23 years ago I was introduced to a successful Arizona politician by a Native American leader in a lunchtime cafeteria.    The first words out of the politico’s mouth were a stream of profanity ending with a loud “…and so FU-K you!  He said Pima County Interfaith Council (PCIC) for which I was working at the time hadn’t paid him the proper obeisance.  

The Native American leader, accustomed to kind words and solicitous mutual pandering, nearly fell backwards over a chair, literally blown away by the exchange.  Ashen faced, on the way out of the place, he asked with fear and trembling:  What was that all about?  I was chuckling out loud.  Reminds me of ward committeemen in Chicago I said.   

What?

I kind of like him.  

You what?  

I kind of like him.  

I got to go he said glancing around in the parking lot before hurrying off.  

That was the last time I saw him.

The politico, as it turned out, became a long time collaborator with PCIC and a regular, blunt, self-interested truth teller.  I concluded from our first meeting the message was:   “I’m attacking you because the truth is I think you’re on to something that may be useful to me down the road.”  

I looked forward to conversations with him, the jousting, the posturing, the lessons in how the intricacies of AZ politics worked.  One day, at his favorite breakfast spot, he said, “All politics is deception.”  

I added to myself:  “All organizing is decoding.”

After many years of often tense negotiations and several big PCIC wins in part engineered by the same politico (on workforce development, youth infrastructure, adult education, children’s programs) I developed genuine affection for his prickly ways.  Never buddy, buddy.  Always with an angle.  Always contentious.  Always smart.  Always on guard.  

Saul Alinsky self identified as a Jew.  We know this because when he was asked about his faith tradition “Jewish” was his answer.  

I wonder from time to time about the role his faith tradition has played in the vulgar, false attacks on him that have persisted over the years.  

While for now the attacks often seem better explained as an opportunistic association seeking to target Barack Obama, for me the Jewish question lurks in the background.  After all they predate Obama’s rise by decades.

Alinsky was a mouthy, irreverent, master of the sound bite before sound bites were the order of the day.  His ability to outwit even the brightest of adversaries like conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr on coast to coast television clearly did not sit well with his detractors.  

Alinsky’s values were grounded in the prophetic tradition of Hebrew Scripture.  His identification with outsiders, the cut out, the shut out, the weak, the voiceless, the vulnerable are entirely consistent with the relentless prophetic focus on widows, orphans, strangers and the economically destitute.   Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos.

His dialectical thought, attention to language and focus on teaching public skills is a hallmark of his lifelong passion for equipping the underdog for a seat at the table of decision making.  The Prophets didn't shrink from challenging the ruling elites of their day and neither did Saul Alinsky.