News of former president Joe Biden’s metastatic cancer stung me when I read about it. I always liked Joe Biden. Maybe it’s because I do believe he has been a friend of Israel over the years, although I admit I’ve always had a weakness for his folksy, and later grandfatherly, image. Besides, like many American Jews when I was growing up, we were Democrats and held liberal values.
One of my vivid childhood memories is of when my father took me to the Ambassador Hotel Ballroom in Los Angeles in June 1968, where local clergy were invited to meet with senator and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy on the eve of the California primary. I shook his hand. I’ll never forget it. I remember his blue eyes and that he seemed so tall. I couldn’t grasp it when he was assassinated in that same room two nights later. I guess I’ve been a Democrat-at-heart from early on, even if at times conflicted.
And now, another tall, blue-eyed senator of Irish-American descent – someone who navigated a decades-long political and public career all the way up to the presidency – was just coming off of a past year marked by physical decline and devastating political dismissal when widespread cancer was diagnosed. The initial sting of that news turned warm after a while. Right now I feel warmth for Joe Biden.
Varying views toward Biden
Of course, many people here have strong feelings about him, one way or another, from respect and appreciation to anger and betrayal – especially since his presidency and the war here.
It depends on whether you believe he was really a true friend of Israel over his 50 years in public life, or whether you believe that, like any politician, expediency guided him and whatever he did was to get the votes where he needed them.
It depends on whether or not you believe he was sincere when he would call himself a Zionist and when he would speak of his father teaching him that the world could never again fail the Jews, that they are a resilient people worthy of admiration and respect, and that antisemitism is a disease that should be eradicated.
It depends on whether you believe that the so-called arms embargo and Rafah dispute in May 2024 was Biden showing his true colors, or whether you acknowledge the unprecedented military assistance and international safety net that he ensured, without which I’m not sure how we would have conducted this war.
It depends on whether or not you value his wisdom when telling us from the outset that we better have an endgame in mind while we fight this war.
It depends on whether you believe that the hostages were never really that important to him, that he never came down hard enough on Hamas, and that he secretly felt affinity with the progressive, pro-Palestinian wing of his party, or whether you believe that he was genuine when he came here one week into the war, consoled and hugged hostage families in a way that, regrettably, our own leaders couldn’t bring themselves to do.
It depends on whether you believe the 25 hostages released in January 2025 were freed as a result of Hamas’s fear of incoming President Donald Trump’s threats or as a result of stubborn, months-long negotiation by outgoing president Biden’s team.
It depends on whether you think he is basically a crook who pardoned his son just because he could, or whether you believe he is basically a decent man who sought to spare his son from what he felt was a politically driven trial, exercising a privilege he had.
Amotz Asa-El (“Whose cancer is it?” JPost May 23, 2025) calls Biden “…the last Mohican of a departed political era; an era in which political leaders, regardless of stripe, sided with democracies, opposed tyrannies, harmonized with the press, led by consultation, governed through planning, and saluted the courts.”
Whether or not you agree with all that, one thing is for sure. Biden saved us from disaster following October 7. Had a multi-front war broken out on us that first week, it would have been, if not existential, devastating in ways we cannot imagine. And we have already seen and experienced much more than we could ever imagine.
To anyone too angry or smug to credit him for his friendship and leadership at that time, remember this: We didn’t get past that critical period because of our good looks or our enemies’ lack of appetite or ability. We were in a state of shock and chaos at that time and a tantalizing prize for our predators. But Biden looked them in the eye, said “don’t,” and they thought twice.
It’s been a hard couple of years for all of us. Still, gratitude and how we treat elders are important to who we are. Biden is going through a lot these days. Now is the time for the Jewish people to say: Thanks, Joe.
The writer is a clinical psychologist living in Kochav Yair.