Getty Hadassah Lieberman is the wife of former Senator Joe Lieberman.
Joe Lieberman is married to Hadassah Lieberman, his second wife, who is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She is a passionate adherent to the Jewish faith.
Joseph Lieberman, the former U.S. senator from Connecticut, gave a speech during the national memorial service for late Senator and POW John McCain. Lieberman has been married twice: To Elizabeth Haas from 1965 to 1981 and to Hadassah from 1982 to present.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Hadassah Lieberman Was Born in the Former Czechoslovakia But Not in a Refugee Camp
Hadassah Lieberman was born in the former Czechoslovakia. However, over the years, some aspects of Hadassah’s biography have been disputed – including by Lieberman herself.
In 2000, a Czech magazine reported that Lieberman’s father was not a former chief rabbi, that it couldn’t find evidence he was a lawyer in Prague, and that she was not born in a Czech refugee camp for Holocaust victims, all contrary to some news reports. According to The Jewish News of Northern California, Hadassah agrees that her father was not a chief rabbi but said he was a lawyer.
Hadassah’s father’s name was Samuel Freilich, who was a rabbi in America, according to Jewish Standard. Lieberman says she was born in 1948 in Prague, according to the news site.
2. Hadassah Lieberman’s Mother Survived Auschwitz & Dachau Concentration Camps
(L-R) Hadassah Lieberman and former Senator Joe Lieberman pay their respects to the casket of the late U.S. Senator John McCain inside the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, August 31, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Hadassah’s parents survived the Holocaust. Ella Wieder Freilich, her mother, survived both the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, according to ABC News.
“I am a representative of the Shoah’s next generation,” Hadassah Lieberman said, according to Jewish Standard. “My parents were survivors, my mother of Auschwitz and Dachau — she was liberated from Dachau — and my father from slave labor camps.”
“I really have no bigger message than that I come to talk as a person who is a daughter of survivors, and who wonders how we can pass things on.”
Her father “had led an escape of 20 men from a march to Auschwitz,” the network reported. According to ABC News, the family moved to the United States, living in Gardner, Massachusetts, when Hadassah was a child.
“Hadassah went on to study government and drama at Boston University and to receive a master’s degree from Northeastern University,” ABC reported.
3. Hadassah Is an Advocate for Israel & Jewish Causes
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) poses with his wife Hadassah on the red carpet upon arrival at a salute to FOX News Channel’s Brit Hume on January 8, 2009 in Washington, DC.
The Washington Post defined Hadassah Lieberman as an Orthodox Jew.
According to a biography for her on a speaker’s bureau website, Hadassah Lieberman is “passionate about her heritage and her traditional upbringing” and “has spent three decades advocating for Israel and a variety of Jewish causes.”
She gives talks around on the country on “the importance of instilling Jewish values in our children, the role of Judaism in her life, and the necessity of active participation in Jewish communal activities,” the site says.
She is an author, with her husband, of the book, An Amazing Adventure: Joe and Hadassah’s Personal Notes on the 2000 Campaign.
According to Jewish Link NJ, Hadassah was raised in a traditional household. “Lieberman was brought up in a very traditional and observant Jewish home. Although her younger brother was very Americanized, she retained her European roots. In her home her mother only served European dishes made from scratch,” the site reports, an account based on an interview the author conducted with Hadassah.
4. Joe Lieberman Is Hadassah’s Second Husband
U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, with wife Hadassah in background, addresses the crowd at his primary night headquarters in the Goodwin Hotel August 8, 2006 in Hartford, Connecticut.
Joe Lieberman is Hadassah’s second husband, and she is his second wife. She recounted to ABC News how a friend gave her name to Lieberman shortly after she divorced her first husband, a rabbi named Gordon Tucker.
According to Jewish Link NJ, she was “a research analyst at Lehman Brothers; a director of policy, planning and communications at Pfizer and Hoffman LaRoche; and senior program officer at the National Research Council.”
The article reports that, although it took Lieberman six months to call Hadassah for a date, they married a year after meeting.
Hadassah was described by the Washington Post as bringing her husband down to earth.
5. Hadassah Is the Mother of Two Children, Including a Rabbi
Hadassah Lieberman has two children. Her son is a rabbi, according to Jewish Standard. His name is Ethan Tucker. She also has a daughter with Joe Lieberman named Hani.
Joe Lieberman had two children with his first wife, Matt and Rebecca.
In 2018, the Liebermans were interviewed on video (above) about their daughter immigrating to Israel. Hadassah once told The Washington Post she considered herself a symbol for immigrants, saying, “I say this to all of you here and all of you who are watching this on television, and this is real. Whether you and your family immigrated from Europe, Africa, Mexico, Latin America or Asia, I am standing here for you. This country is our country. This land is your land. And anything is possible for us.”