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Los Angeles Daily News – November 12, 2006
U.S. Jews at home in politics
By Brad Greenberg
Blaming Judaism for his father's peculiarities, the first Jewish member of Congress converted to Christianity to hide his heritage and preserve his political career. But with a name like David Levy Yulee, he was only fooling himself.
Times have changed since Yulee became Florida's junior senator in 1845 - more than a century before the southern state became a favorite destination for Jewish retirees from the northeast.
After a handful of victories in Tuesday's election, Jews are poised to have their largest congressional representation ever. This U.S. community of roughly 6 million people - about 2 percent of the nation's population - will contribute 30 members to the House. With 13 Jewish members of the Senate, the proportion in the upper chamber will be... greater than that in the general population.
Like Catholics, Jews long ago abandoned their early 20th-century reputation for living on the fringes of society in immigrant ghettos. Since the 1960s, they have risen sharply in politics, falling short of only the presidency and the vice presidency (although in 2000, presidential candidate Al Gore's running mate, Joe Lieberman, came within 537 Florida votes of the White House).
The Nov. 7 election may have been a turning point for Jewish Pols, who have typically represented Jewish communities. They were elected to Congress not just in California, Florida and New York, but also in Arizona, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Tennessee.
"If you would have told me in the '50s and even the '60s that (some of these states) would elect someone from the Jewish faith, I would have said, 'You're crazy,"' said Rosalind Wyman, who in 1953 was the first Jew elected to the Los Angeles City Council.
People no longer are concerned about candidates being Jewish, said Rabbi Kurt F. Stone, author of "The Congressional Minyan: The Jews of Capitol Hill."
"They are voting for those people who speak to their heart and to their head," said Stone, a Sherman Oaks native.
Muslim makes it
But that's not true for all faiths. It wasn't until Tuesday that a Muslim - and a convert at that - was elected to Congress.
Keith Ellison's campaign in Minnesota's 5th District was slowed by suspicions he could be a wolf in sheep's clothing - an Islamic extremist pretending to be a pro-Israel Democrat. Fears about Ellison, who was supported by Minnesota's Jewish community over a Republican Jew, were reminiscent of those half a century ago that presidential hopeful John F. Kennedy would be a papal pawn.
"It is an unfortunate reality that people use every tactic of mudslinging and name-calling, except here the name-calling had to do with his religion and not him personally," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the L.A.-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. "Mr. Ellison overcame it. It is a success story, and I hope it is one every household learns about as we get more Muslim-Americans engaged in politics."
Yulee, the first Jewish senator, served 12 years before becoming the "Father of Florida's railroads," according to his congressional biography. Half his tenure he served alongside Judah P. Benjamin, a Yale-educated Jew who was the last Southern politician to leave Congress before the Civil War.
"Up until the last moment, he was trying to keep the Union together," Stone said of the man who became the war secretary and state secretary of the Confederacy and was referred to as "Mr. Jefferson Davis' pet Jew."
Today, both California senators and eight of the state's U.S representatives - including five from the L.A. area and Congress' only Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos of San Mateo - are Jewish…..
For almost 80 years, Jews were considered a one-party community. Their reverence for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led to the joke that Jews believe in three velts - a Yiddish word for "world": die velt (this world), yene velt (the next world) and Roosevelt.
But three of the 43 Jewish members of the 110th Congress are Republicans. National exit polls found 88 percent of Jewish votes went to Democrats and 12 percent to Republicans. A poll administered for the Republican Jewish Coalition reported 26 percent of Jews voted Republican….
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