Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Booker marries Jewish woman in interfaith ceremony

The New Jersey senator stepped on a glass as the song “Emotions,” by Mariah Carey played, during his interfaith ceremony with Alexis Lewis.

Cory Booker
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) speaks at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention, held at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, June 1, 2019. Credit: Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) married Alexis Lewis, who is Jewish, in an interfaith ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 29, three months after announcing their engagement.

Booker’s longtime friend, Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz, and his pastor, Rev. David Jefferson Sr., performed the ceremony together under a chuppah.

Gewirtz, the rabbi of Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, N.J., is a founding executive committee member of the Newark Coalition for Hope and Peace. He served for four years as president of the Coalition of Religious Leaders for the state of New Jersey.

From Washington, D.C., Lewis is director of investments at Brasa Capital Management. She previously worked in economic policy for Eric Garcetti, the former mayor of Los Angeles. The 38-year-old met Booker, 56, in May 2024 after a mutual friend arranged a blind date.

The chuppah was adorned with photographs of loved ones who have died. Booker stepped on a glass under the chuppah, a traditional Jewish wedding custom, to the Mariah Carey song “Emotions.”

The American Jewish Committee shared its well-wishes with the couple on social media: “Mazal tov to Sen. Booker and Alexis Lewis on their marriage,” it wrote. “Wishing them a lifetime of joy, love and blessings.”

Booker and Lewis were legally married at the U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., on Nov. 24, with their parents in attendance as witnesses.

“We will keep litigating until we get to the truth,” Randy Mastro told JNS, after oral arguments in New York County Supreme Court. “I’m sure the court will hear us when these procedural issues are behind us.”
Forum HaGevura (“The Heroism Forum”) warned in the letter, a copy of which the group provided to JNS, that Hamas was exploiting the fact that Israel stopped taking the initiative in Gaza.
“I’m seeing what’s going on in New York,” Stav Cohen, founder of the Israeli nonprofit Frontline Advocates, told JNS. “I fear for my speakers’ lives.”
Community leaders help seek a mother and daughter from Modi’in as an Israeli court restricts publication of investigative details.