When asked about concerns he is creating the impression that Obama would not be a friend to Israel, Lieberman responded: “It’s my way of thinking that if I’ve concluded, as I have, that John McCain is best for our country, then why wouldn’t I do that?” — Joe Lieberman to The Hill newspaper. July 9, 2008

In the center of every storm that brews over Jewish politics in America sits Joe Lieberman, the junior senator from Connecticut. Outwardly, Lieberman looks the very thing, as calm and unperturbed as the eye of any hurricane. His face gives the appearance of being in a constant state of sighing, or at the end of an eternally protracted exhale.

Lieberman went from senator to celebrity as Al Gore’s 2000 running mate and became the mainstream face of Judaism in American politics. There is, of course, no official title of main Jew in American politics, but wittingly or not, Lieberman holds it. And if it hasn’t made his recent identity issues more complicating, then it has certainly made them more prominent.

In the years since his failed vice-presidential bid, Lieberman has shifted quite overtly to the right — so far in fact that he was voted off the Democratic ticket in his 2006 primary by his constituents and forced to win reelection as an independent. Now the senator has endorsed the Republican candidate John McCain for president.

But his partisan politics aren’t the particular identity issue at stake, just background for the curious thing he said above. Lieberman’s main reason for supporting McCain has been Israel. And while it might be troubling that, in the quote, Lieberman essentially admits to trashing Obama’s stances for merely political gain, that isn’t the issue either. The main issue comes to light in that last phrase:

“It’s my way of thinking that if I’ve concluded, as I have, that John McCain is best for our country, then why wouldn’t I do that?” (Emphasis mine)

When Lieberman refers to “our country” here, it’s not clear whether he means the United States or Israel. As an American, and a high-ranking public official at that, Lieberman’s loyalty is obviously to the United States. But as a Jew, his loyalty is to Israel. After all, the man has made a name for himself on Israel policy.

Based on other stances and statements he’s made this campaign season, it’s hard to see Lieberman’s decision to endorse McCain as centered solely on the one issue. But at what point does being an American agent for American interests end and being a Jewish-American agent for Jewish interests begin?

It’s impossible to tell whether Lieberman even considers this question. After all, a lot of elected officials would argue that their religious beliefs are central to their political ones, and that defending Israel is as American as bagels for breakfast. But in a more concrete form, this is a question that American Jews are presented every day. Or is it Jewish Americans?

I, like I imagine Joe Lieberman might, throw phrases like “ours” and “we” around with little regard for such confusions. Sometimes “we” are Jews and sometimes “we” are Americans. If I was to use the phrase “we must protect our interests in the Middle East,” for example, I could mean a lot of things. I could — disregarding grammar — be saying that America must protect Israel’s interest or that Israel must protect Israel’s interest, and so on and so forth.

Luckily, I’m not a senator and nobody cares what my first loyalty is. I haven’t taken any oaths and I haven’t been forced to face the issue in any tangible sense. But I remember loving the hypotheticals as a teenager. When I was 15, a Jewish friend asked me who I’d fight for if Israel and America ever went to war against one another. Not even contemplating the silliness of the question, or any details that might surround such a war, I got to thinking.

Well, I’m still thinking, and I’m still not sure. It’s the hardest ridiculous question I’ve ever been asked, maybe because it’s not so ridiculous. Unlike the ones about what nasty food I’d rather eat or horrible torture I’d rather undergo, it forces me to decide how I consider myself.

The question asks me to quantify my identities, to decide am I more a Jew or more an American? And beyond just quantity, which one matters more? Which identity runs deeper into my core? Some days, it seems, I’m a Jew first, and some days an American first. It’s hard to imagine being either without the other.

And this is what the Lieberman statement boils down to. Does Joe Lieberman put his interests (read: identity) as a Jew and Zionist ahead of his interests as an American senator? For the face of Judaism in American politics, that’s a very important question. It brings into consideration his patriotism, his faith, and his influence as a public official. For political reasons, I sincerely doubt Lieberman would say yes, that he puts his religion above his patriotism. But I also suspect that on a personal level, he is, like me, unable to answer the question decidedly.

After all, it’s not as if Joe Lieberman and I are the first people to deal with issues of Jewish vs. American identity. I hadn’t even considered these things until that hypothetical question was posed by a wiser peer who had obviously meditated on it himself first. That’s one person right there. Before he asked it, I was just American and Jewish and a bunch of other stuff too; I was an asthmatic and a baseball fan and a reader of books. I might have known that a recipe existed for my identity, but I hadn’t bothered to look at the ingredients, much less decide which was more principle.

Arguably the best record for all this lies in books. There is practically a whole canon of American-Jewish (Jewish-American) literature dealing with such questions. Philip Roth made a name on it. So did Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud and Leonard Michaels. And more recently, authors like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Paul Auster have written to acclaim on the strains caused by Jewish culture’s American assimilation.

It’s in this tradition that Joe Lieberman made his comment. As unaffected as he might appear in the midst of political turmoil, Lieberman’s “us” comment reflects the storm raging in his psyche. If he really did slip, and meant Israel when he said “us,” then such a statement is telling. What better represents this tension than the figurehead of Jewish politics in America accidentally inserting his Jewish identity for his American one?

If Lieberman didn’t slip, and he really did mean the United States when he said “us,” it is equally telling that we view his remarks in this context; that we don’t hesitate to wonder whether Joe Lieberman was referring to the Jewish “us” instead of the American “us” that would have been more appropriate for the time and place.

At this point only Lieberman himself knows. And if he’s anything like me, by now he’s probably forgotten what he was thinking at the moment, then remembered, then changed his mind a few times. He’s probably sitting somewhere combing over the details of a far-fetched hypothetical question in his mind the way so many other Jews have in America. He’s probably trying to clear up that storm in his head. He’s probably still not sure.