washington | President Barack Obama announced this week that Jack Lew, his director of the Office of Budget and Management — a Cabinet-level position — is replacing William Daley as White House chief of staff.
Lew, 56, was chosen for his long years in government and his reputation as a skilled multitasker. He was top budget-cruncher for President Bill Clinton before reprising the job for Obama, but Jewish officials were offering a sigh of relief for a subsidiary reason: Their who-we-gonna-call pleas were answered.
Since Dennis Ross, Obama’s top Iran adviser, announced his departure in late 2011, community officials wondered who was left to call in a White House that has hemorrhaged top Jews over the last year or so. Lew, an Orthodox Jew, is close to the community and is a go-to person for Jewish events in the capital.
“The reports that there’s no one to talk to have always been exaggerated,” said Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Hoenlein pointed to Peter Rouse, a counselor to Obama who had been serving as acting chief of staff since November, as someone who has always been accessible.
Still, added Hoenlein, “Jack being there will be beneficial, it will foster communication.”
Obama launched his administration with a strong contingent of Jewish advisers: In addition to Ross, David Axelrod was his top political adviser, Rahm Emanuel was his chief of staff and Daniel Shapiro handled the Levant desk at the National Security Council.
Emanuel quit in late 2010 and is now the mayor of Chicago, Axelrod left to help run Obama’s re-election campaign and Shapiro is now in Tel Aviv as ambassador.
That left a perceived gap in the White House — one that Lew will fill, although Jewish officials stressed that they did not expect the attention from a chief of staff that they received from mid-level staffers.
“That’s not the role he’s going to play,” said Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, referring to the regular conference calls that Ross and Shapiro had with Jewish community leaders. “He will be an adviser to the president on all things and a gatekeeper.”
Obama stressed Lew’s management savvy in announcing the appointment on Jan. 9. Daley, just a year into the job, resigned; although his role had been changing, if not diminishing, he was not expected to leave until after the November presidential election.
“Jack’s economic advice has been invaluable and he has my complete trust, both because of his mastery of the numbers, and because of the values behind those numbers,” he said.
Lew has been something of a go-to Obama administration speaker and guest for the organized Jewish community, particularly among Orthodox Jews. In December, he lit the “national menorah,” the giant chanukiyah that graces the National Mall and is organized by American Friends of Lubavitch.
In his interactions with Jewish audiences, Lew talks about how he balances the 24/7 demands of being a top government official with the 24/6 Sabbath-observant lifestyle.
One incident he talks about is a phone call he received one Shabbat. As was his practice, he waited until the answering machine clicked on to see if it was urgent enough to pick up. As it happened, it was a White House staffer telling him to ignore the earlier phone message from President Clinton, who had been phoning from overseas and had forgotten that in Washington it was still Shabbat. The matter was not urgent enough to interrupt Lew’s observance, Clinton told the staffer to tell Lew.
Another favorite line during his 1990s stint, when he lived in Washington — his family now lives in New York — was an exchange with clergy at Beth Sholom Congregation in Potomac, Md. Nathan Diament, who directs the Orthodox Union’s Washington office, recalled that a rabbi would suggest jokingly that Lew might want to run for shul treasurer. Lew would shoot back that directing the Office of Budget and Management was complex enough, thank you very much.
It’s a shtick that suggests a corny, old-fashioned sense of humor, but friends say it’s also emblematic of his humility and cordiality.
“Everyone would recognize that Jack’s management style and personality is noticeably different from that of the previous Jewish White House chief of staff,” Diament said, a reference to Emanuel’s abrasiveness.
An open question is how much harder it will be for Lew to balance family and Shabbat observance in his new role. He stays close to his daughter, Shoshana, who works at the Obama administration’s Interior Department, but his wife and married son remain in Riverdale, N.Y.
Aides in his previous jobs — including deputy secretary of state under Obama — say there were occasions that necessitated work on Shabbat, such as during last year’s negotiations with Congress aimed at averting a government shutdown.
Running the White House, however, means dealing with crises that have a bad habit of happening on weekends.
“It’s a reflection of this administration’s comfort with him and his being Jewish,” Foxman said. “This is a job that is 24/7 — but if there’s respect, it works.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.