By Yair Rosenberg
Jack Lew, President Obama’s current chief of staff and his pick for Treasury secretary, is the highest-ranking Orthodox Jew in the history of the U.S. government. It’s a distinction that imposes some unusual burdens—like having to dodge opinionated congregants who try to accost him about politics in synagogue. The 57-year-old New York native recently told me that he has developed a strategy for such situations. “Your friends protect you—they sit around you and make it a little harder for strangers to come and give you a hard time,” he explained. “I just tell people, ‘If I wanted to work on Saturday, I have this 24/7 job. I come to shul to pray.’ ”