GOP Jews Say They Feel at Home Despite Christian Emphasis

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 1 (RNS)--For a long time, Jewish Republicans were to electoral politics what the quark was to particle physics: They existed in theory but no one had really seen one. Or, as one lonely Jewish Republican said a few years ago, all the Jewish Republicans in the country would fit into a telephone booth.

It was a joke, but no one in the party was laughing.

Time and again, when an electoral cycle rolled around, Jewish voters could be relied upon to go solidly, sometimes overwhelmingly, for Democrats, often delivering the margin of victory.

This year, however, Jewish Republicans--yes, they're out there, just like quarks--are almost bubbling with confidence over the prospect of drawing their co-religionists to the GOP fold.

"I think we have made great headway in creating a different perception of the Republican Party within the Jewish community," said Cheryl Halpern, national leader of the Republican Jewish Coalition. "I think Gov. (George W.) Bush will pull a third of the Jewish vote nationally. That would make me very happy."

Halpern, a former Democrat from Livingston, N.J., for eight years has guided the RJC, the only national organization of GOP Jews. She remains optimistic even though the political calculus shows her mission this fall to be as daunting as attracting gay voters to the party, for example, or African-Americans.

That, Jewish leaders say, is because Halpern and the RJC have to sell Jewish voters on a candidate who last December famously proclaimed Jesus as his favorite political philosopher and who once suggested that only Christians will go to heaven.

Indeed, few recent nominees have been as vocal as George W. Bush about their Christian faith and in a way that can make non-Christians--especially Jews--nervous.

After the 1994 interview about salvation only for Christians, for instance, Bush made matters worse by joking with a reporter before a trip to Israel that he planned to tell Israelis they're "going to hell."

Then last November, the Texas governor raised eyebrows in the Jewish community by urging Pat Buchanan, the Republican firebrand who has been viewed as soft on Nazis and tough on Jews, not to bolt the party.

And earlier this year, he had to clarify remarks praising the Nation of Islam and saying the group -- whose leader, Louis Farrakhan, has frequently outraged Jews with his statements -- would qualify for federal money through his proposed faith-based programs.

Just last month, Bush irked Jewish leaders again by proclaiming June 10 as Jesus Day because "people of all religions recognize Jesus Christ as an example of love, compassion, sacrifice and service."

"That stuff definitely makes Jews plenty nervous," said David Twersky, editor of New Jersey Jewish News and a keen observer of Jewish political life. "They don't like the religious right. It scares them."

Liberal Jewish political attitudes are largely the product of the history of persecution of Jews in the Old World at the hands of Christians and their experience in America as poor immigrants.

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