With Al Franken taking Norm Coleman’s seat in the Senate, the 111th Congress is down to a single Republican, Virginia’s Eric Cantor, among its 44 Jewish members. I wonder if this is something about which to worry, not because I am a Republican (I am a member of no political party), but because being so lopsided is rarely a healthy thing in the long run.
Why is it that when Jews vote, we vote democratic by a margin of 3 to 1, but when we get elected the margin shifts to 43 to 1? What does that say about who chooses to run and even more significantly about how welcome Jews are as elected officials in one party versus the other?

I also worry because with ratios like these, it becomes increasingly easy to make the claim that Jewish politics is necessarily liberal politics, and that is simply wrong. Jewish is a big category and has more than enough ideas to support both conservative and liberal views – one is not inherently more Jewish than the other.
Of course, I invite people on both sides to enter the fray and “prove” me wrong. But as you do, try and remember it’s not my claim that you are attacking, but the fundamental premise that Jewish ideas are big ideas and part of a long interpretive tradition which has never been captive to a particular political ideology….