A Jewish first whether it's Trump or Clinton: Column

Jews have always embraced the American political process. The high Jewish voter turnout on Election Day, far above the national average, speaks volumes about the celebration of our nation’s democracy. Perhaps it is best explained by the fact that the bulk of American Jews came from countries where freedom was, at best, in short supply or, at worst, non-existent. And, as a result, Jews too often paid a heavy price.

But the question for Jews has also been the degree to which the American political process has embraced Jews. And that discussion did not start in 2016 with the presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who became the first Jew to win a presidential primary or caucus.

In the country’s earliest days, it was linked to whether Jews could expect equal rights and protections. Happily, that was answered affirmatively by the nation’s first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams.

While the first Jewish members of Congress were elected in 1845, it was not until 1906 that a president appointed a Jew to the Cabinet. And it was a decade later, exactly a century ago, that the first Jewish Supreme Court justice took a seat on the bench.

Since then, there has been nothing particularly noteworthy in other Jews being elected to Congress, appointed to the Cabinet, or named to the Supreme Court. Indeed, Jews who once spent their time counting numbers and recalling milestones largely dropped the pastime because it became an increasingly everyday occurrence.

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But, of course, the one post that has never been occupied by a Jew is the Oval Office. The subject arose this year because of the candidacy of the Brooklyn-born Sanders. Yet his Jewish identity rarely seemed to come up, either among his supporters or within the Jewish community.

To the first point, that was a welcome sign of America’s ever growing maturity and focus on the candidate, not his faith or ethnicity. To the second point, it reflects, I believe, two factors: Sanders did not make his Jewish identity a big deal, and, in any case, Jews, if they were ever focused on “identity voting,” long ago abandoned it. In other words, the issue for Jews is not whether Sanders is Jewish or not, but rather whether his policies warrant their support as American voters or not.

Actually, the bigger deal came in the 2000 race, when a Democratic ticket to be led by Vice President Al Gore was about to face off against the Bush-Cheney team. Early polls were predicting a Republican victory. So Democratic strategists got together and asked how they could breathe life into the ticket. Somehow they decided the answer was a senator from Connecticut who was an observant Jew, avoided ham-and-cheese sandwiches as non-kosher, and did not drive on the Sabbath.

Moreover, his wife was not named Michelle, Barbara, Laura, or Nancy, but Hadassah. In a very real way, that was a defining moment for many American Jews. If the country could accept this ticket, then anything was possible. And indeed, the country did. The popular vote went for Gore-Lieberman, even if the final outcome went the other way. That was the watershed.

This election year, by contrast, another revealing issue emerged, namely, the growing complexity of Jewish identity.

Take the two presumptive major party nominees. No matter who wins the White House, there will — for the first time — be Jewish members of the immediate First Family. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump is Jewish, but both have daughters who married Jewish men.

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Clinton’s daughter Chelsea wed Marc Mezvinsky in 2010. It is not clear what faith the two grandchildren are being raised in, but there were both Christian and Jewish elements at the wedding.

Trump proudly references his daughter Ivanka as a convert to Judaism and his three grandchildren as Jewish. His Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has emerged as a key adviser.

How American Jewish voters will respond to Donald Trump’s Jewish links and pro-Israel statements — and to persistent questions about the support he is receiving from the far right, including white supremacist and anti-Semitic groups — remains to be seen. But if past is prologue, there are likely to be some Jews both loudly supporting and energetically opposing his candidacy.

In modern times, no Republican candidate has won more than 40% of the Jewish vote, a milestone reached by Ronald Reagan in 1980, whereas in 1992, George H.W. Bush received only 11% of the Jewish vote.

That’s the probable range of Jewish voting that Donald Trump needs to take into account. But with four months to go in this turbulent campaign, making any predictions is a likely non-starter.

Welcome to American presidential politics and the Jews, 2016!

David Harris is the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, which is a nonpartisan organization.

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