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Skullcaps and Bones

Yale’s Jewish society, Eliezer, comes out of the shadows

by
Marc Tracy
March 28, 2011
Newark Mayor Cory Booker last fall.(Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)
Newark Mayor Cory Booker last fall.(Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

Time has the scoop on Eliezer, the (not really) secret society at Yale co-founded by Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Though explicitly Jewish, it is not exclusively so:

The society was originally founded as a thumb-in-the-eye to Yale history—Jews, blacks, Muslims, women and gays were prohibited from joining the traditional secret societies. This secret society, however, would include everyone, so long as you were a promising Yale-affiliated leader of tomorrow.

So really, the perfect emblem of our post-Obama meritocratic moment: The sort of place that can host both Ehud Barak and Elliott Gould.

For the skinny on Yale’s actual secret societies, or at least the most famous of them, check out this amazing piece, from a while ago, by Tablet Magazine contributor Ron Rosenbaum.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.