Published: 12 September 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
NEITHER BERNIE SANDERS nor Michael Bloomberg wound up making history—at least not in the narrow sense of winning an electoral contest no Jew had ever won before. But both campaigns were important signifiers of the prominence and the diversity of American Jewish political participation in the early-to-mid-21st century.
Jews range from nationally adored Vermont socialists to tiny, out-of-touch billionaires to widely reviled senior Trump advisers and in-laws. This fall, they are contending for office at just about every level in an election year in which at least half the country is convinced that a given outcome will doom America to permanent dysfunction.
American Jews were never so monolithic that the idea of a “Jewish” impact on American political life ever made much sense to anyone who wasn’t a conspiracy theorist or a fanatical bigot or reverse-bigot.
But in a time of slow- and fast-boiling crisis, Jews are still just about anywhere you look in American politics, even in places you might not necessarily expect them to be. Here are 10 we think are worth keeping an eye on.
FULL STORY The Tablet Ten (Tablet)
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Photo: Top row: Merav Ben-David, Elaine Luria, Lee Zeldin, Sara Jacobs, Jon Ossoff. Bottom row: Kim Schrier, Josh Gottheimer, Kathy Manning, Max Rose, David Cicilline (Tablet)
