Is Rabbi Yehiel Kalish's short-lived political experience a portent for the future of religion in an increasingly progressive America?

Photos: Raya, John Berry

None of the marbled, vaulted grandeur of the Illinois state capitol, completed in 1888, makes a major impression on State Representative Yehiel Mark Kalish, an ordained rabbi from the Skokie yeshivah and the legislature’s only Orthodox Jew. Rabbi Kalish’s one and only term in office is winding down, but when he seeks true inspiration, he draws it from a special location some 200 miles northeast of Springfield. His longevity at the amud at Congregation Shaarei Tzedek Mishkan Yair in Chicago has far surpassed his brief term in public office.

“I’ve been the chazzan there for 18 years on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,” said Rabbi Kalish told me early one morning between davening and the start of his morning learning seder. “I’ve always said my favorite place on earth is that amud on Kol Nidrei night, and there’s no emotional high like Ne’ilah. When we finish Ne’ilah and start singing ‘L’shanah haba’ah b’Yerushalayim,’ it takes me hours to get back to an even keel.”

One year, in a quest for extra inspiration, Rabbi Kalish approached Rabbi Reuven Gross, the shul’s rabbi, as the baal korei recited the Mi Shebeirach for the ill.

“I asked the rabbi, what’s going on in the kehillah? What should I be davening for? It’s now become a yearly question. Without naming names, the rabbi shares some of the challenges the kehillah is facing so I can represent them properly. It’s my way of showing achrayus to the tzibbur.”

A Door Opens

Bearing responsibility for the public has been Rabbi Kalish’s way of life since 2002, when the Agudath Israel of America plucked a 27-year-old yungerman from learning at the Cincinnati Community Kollel to establish a new legislative office.

To make a long story short, Rabbi Kalish — who says he started his career in askanus at age nine as a local vice president of Junior NCSY — had helped organize a Shabbos chizuk program at the kollel. Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, then Agudah’s executive vice president, was a guest speaker. Impressed by Rabbi Kalish’s organizational skills and the conversations they had about Jewish leadership, Rabbi Bloom said, “Call me when you’re ready to go to work, we have a job for you.”

That job turned out to be opening a legislative office for the Agudah in the Chicago area. Five years later, Rabbi Kalish, a Philadelphia native who grew up in Cincinnati, was promoted to become Agudah’s national director of government affairs and later vice president for development and state relations — positions he held until he returned to Chicago six years ago to establish the S4 Group, a lobbying and business consulting firm.

While it’s rare for a lobbyist to seek public office, an important seat in the Illinois state house district where he lived suddenly opened up in January 2019. Democrat Lou Lang, who represented the 16^th district and served as the deputy house majority leader, resigned after 32 years in the legislature in Springfield. The law called for the open seat to be filled by appointment until the next regularly scheduled election in November 2020.

After considering a short list of potential candidates, local Democrats offered the spot to Rabbi Kalish, and he accepted, because he felt there was a lot that could be accomplished, even though he understood he would have to navigate between his Orthodox Jewish constituents in Skokie and West Rogers Park and the remainder of his predominantly liberal district.

Orthodox groups, including the Agudath Israel, lauded his appointment. Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of state relations, called him “a hardworking, passionate advocate.”

The Times of Israel noted that Rabbi Kalish was now part of a brother-sister team in state legislatures: Rabbi Kalish’s sister, Democrat Dafna Michaelson Jenet, was elected to the Colorado state house in 2017.