When I told my staff I had jury duty this week, one editor said, “If you want to get out of it, just say you’re a journalist.” When I told my family, one 15-year-old said, “If you want to get out of it, just say you’re racist.“ (Yes, they’ve been watching that wild new reality show Jury Duty.)

Looking Forward

Editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren shares her weekly personal take on Jewish issues, journalism, politics, and more.

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The thing is, I didn’t want to get out of it. I love jury duty.

I love the big idea of it, the collective civic responsibility for protecting our fundamental rights. I love the sociological voyeurism of it, the chance to eavesdrop on a pool of fellow citizens radically more diverse than those most of us encounter in our jobs or schools or synagogues. I love that it requires you to acknowledge your biases and set them aside.

When I served on a murder trial for several weeks in Lower Manhattan 20-some years ago, I  loved the excuse to try hole-in-the-wall lunch spots in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

I even (sort of) love the way the unflappable jury managers offer punny jokes and sappy aphorisms to break up the endless waiting. “What’s the difference between a good day and a bad day? Attitude!” said Rachel Brooks, jury manager of Essex County, New Jersey, during my orientation Wednesday morning. This, she noted, applies to things other than jury service.

At its core, jury duty is about showing up — that very Jewish concept of shouting, “Hineini,” “here I am,” ready to do what it takes to make the world a better place. So, no, I wasn’t trying to get out of it.

Especially after I found out it was going to start, like so many things these days, on Zoom.

“We do have the capability to mute everyone, but we do not like to do that,” Brooks advised after a rousing round of good mornings from those summoned to serve alongside me.

Then, in a twist on the countless — truly: countless — futile efforts we have all heard over the last three years to teach the unmuted to mute, she added: “If you do not know how to mute yourself, just don’t say anything. You’ll be muted.”

I mean, what’s not to love? 

I had somehow missed the fact that New Jersey was one of several states continuing to convene jury pools virtually, a pandemic innovation. I literally went from saying kaddish for my father at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan at 8:37 a.m. to checking in for jury duty in Newark at 8:45 a.m. without getting up from my desk. What a country!

The Zoom didn’t actually open til 9:06, providing that familiar frustration of the in-person version of waiting with no explanation, wondering if you’re in the right place. Brooks, wearing a leopard-print button-down and seated in front of an American flag, opened with a hearty “good morning,” and seemed surprised but pleased by the robustness of the response.

“I love it, keep the positivity flowing,” she said. 

“Can I speak please?” some guy said. 

“No, not right now!” Brooks responded. 

Again: Love. 

There were 275 of us on the Zoom, 11 screens filled with little boxes of humanity. There were men in ties and a woman in a hijab. Someone drinking coffee and someone riding in a car. People with eye-catching modern art behind them and people using stock Zoom backgrounds of imaginary plants.

One young mom had the camera zoomed out to show her on a play mat with a toddler (she was later excused). 

We had all been sent a questionnaire via email outlining the schedule and witnesses for a specific criminal case. Brooks explained that if we answered “yes” to certain questions, including that the timing would present an “extreme personal hardship,” we would be dismissed sometime this afternoon, our service complete for another three years. If not, we’d have to show up in person in a few weeks. Seemed reasonable. 

Then the questions started. Someone’s mother was being discharged from the hospital. Someone else was having intermittent power failures. Someone didn’t get the questionnaire, someone else wanted to know if they should fill it out and return by email (no). Do I have to be on camera? (Only when the judge is talking.) Will there be a bathroom break? (You can go whenever you want.)

One man noted that California does not require people over 75 to be jurors, and asked about the age in New Jersey. “Are you 75?” Brooks asked. He is 70. “You’ve got a way to go,” she said. “Yeah, baby,” he responded. 

It went on like this for awhile. Then there was literally an hour of taking attendance, three mind-numbing and repetitive videos, and then a long wait for the judge, during which Brooks tried to keep us engaged by asking people to share prior jury experiences.

The first was an immigrant from India who served for four months more than an hour’s drive from home — but was nonetheless appreciative. “I had just become a citizen so I had a really good time,” he said, ”getting to know the justice system.”

A woman named Sanda Berry said this was her ninth time being summoned. “I’ve done civil, I’ve done criminal, I really enjoy it,” she said. “You get to meet so many people, you get to really see all sides of things.

“It’s a real eye-opening experience because I know sometimes us, as civilians, we think you go into court and everything is a certain way and it’s never that way,” she continued. “You really have to listen to the evidence and dissect everything that everyone says, no matter what their position is, what their status is. People’s lives are really on the line here. You have to be diligent and you have to pay attention to the evidence.”

This is what I’m talking about, and it’s true not just in jury duty, but in journalism. It’s never as simple as it seems, you have to listen to everybody and dissect what they say. You have to empathize, and you have to set aside your biases. 

Jewish law doesn’t have much to say about jury duty — the Torah and Talmud have only judges, not juries. There is a broad commandment to adhere to the local laws wherever you live, and of course that general concept of hineini, showing up, so I’d say the sages would have been for it. 

A few years ago, a Jewish educator in Texas named Laura Seymour wrote a thoughtful essay after her jury service about other Jewish values it encapsulates: truthfulness, courage, being a good listener, balancing justice and mercy, and dan l’chaf zechut — giving the benefit of the doubt. 

“The challenging part was coming back home, to the preschool, and trying to explain where I was to all of our children,” she wrote. “Concepts like courts and juries take time to understand — but you are never too young to begin hearing about justice and mercy and courage and the importance of doing the right thing! I hope I don’t get called again for a long while, but if called, I will go again AND I will learn something new.”

As it happens, the trial I was summoned for is set to commence on July 18, a day I’ll be traveling from Aspen, where I’m doing an event about antisemitism with Craig Newmark, to Boston, to help my mom with a minor medical thing. It’s slated to end on Aug. 10, a few days after our long-planned family beach week in the Outer Banks begins.

Brooks made clear early on that medical procedures, caregiving, work travel and vacations all qualify as “extreme personal hardship” so I knew I’d be getting out of jury duty without exaggerating the importance of my job or otherwise making up any excuses. I was one of 192 people who answered “yes” to one of the questions the judge said disqualified us — most, like me, because of the timing, but a surprising — and depressing — number who said they could not be impartial for one reason or another. 

I was mostly relieved, sure, to get back to my busy life, back to my own problems, back to writing my column and other parts of this job that I love. But I was also a teeny bit disappointed to miss the opportunity to show up in this essential way.

When Brooks calls again, I won’t be trying to get out of it. 

I got so many generous emails responding to last week’s column about the robust minyan-and-breakfast community at Temple Emanuel of Newton. Many of you shared information about other vibrant egalitarian places to attend morning services (some with breakfast), including two not far from my home in Montclair, N.J. On Tuesday, I visited one, Congregation Beth El in South Orange, a Conservative synagogue of about 400 families a 25-minute drive from my house.

It was every bit as warm and welcoming — they gave me the first aliyah (it was Rosh Chodesh). There were two dozen people, mostly retirees, though it was nice to watch young parents dropping their toddlers at preschool through the chapel’s large windows. After davening, there were bagels, and Rabbi Rachel Marder offered a little study session on … my column!

Well, it was about the tradition of post-minyan breakfasts, and the fact that we’re not supposed to eat before saying the morning prayers. She quoted from the Shulchan Aruch, or code of Jewish law, that it is forbidden to become involved in material needs so that “his heart will not be focused” on anything else. “Similarly, it is forbidden to set out on a journey in the morning,” it continues, “unless one is traveling in a caravan that will not wait for him.”

Clearly, and not just from the use of male pronouns, the rabbis did not have 21st century working moms in mind when writing this. My mornings start at 5:15 a.m. and include exercise, editing our daily newsletter, procuring breakfast and lunch for multiple humans, and, for the last four months, saying kaddish with a minyan. There’s always a caravan that will not wait, so forgive me for sometimes eating breakfast beforehand.