A Jew in the White House? Oy, Finally!

How stereotypical can you get?

Being a child of the fifties and sixties, I can remember all the fuss about JFK becoming our first Catholic president. It was a very big deal! Since then, political candidates were described, subtly or otherwise, by their religion or ethnicity. Mitt Romney was a Mormon, a fact that likely sank his candidacy from the start. And when Obama became our first African American president, the whole country went wild in celebration of that broken barrier.

Today identity politics is bigger than ever. With declared candidates Kamala Harris and Cory Booker running around being black, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez getting elected on the strength of her Hispanic heritage, and Senator Elizabeth Warren touting her minuscule drop of Native American blood, it's clear that being something other than a plain old white WASP can help a candidate rise above the competition. Yet virtually no mention has been made of the fact that Bernie Sanders, Vermont's popular senator who has already outpaced his rivals in campaign donations, is a Jew.

His Jewishness can either be a big help or a big hindrance, but nobody could argue that it's not a big deal. Still it's oddly hush-hush. Come on Bernie, we all know you were bar-mitzvahed! How about a shout-out to your fellow Jews? With the alarming rise of anti-Semitic gestures occurring here and around the globe, it couldn't hurt.