If America ever needed a Jewish president, it's now.
The United States has had Jewish leaders for 250 years. It might finally elect the first Jewish president in 2028.
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This is a guest essay by Michael Golden, a bestselling author and national award-winning journalist.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
A quarter millennium ago, in 1775, Francis Salvador became the first Jewish elected official in America — a representative in South Carolina’s Provincial Congress. Known as the “Southern Paul Revere,” Salvador was only able to serve for one year; in 1776 he became the first Jew to die fighting in the Revolutionary War.
In 1805, Judah Hays became the first Jewish-American elected in the formal United States, as Boston’s Fire Commissioner. Three decades hence, in 1845, Lewis Levin became our country’s first Jewish Congressman and David Levy became the first to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Across 250 years, America has seen hundreds of Jewish men and women elected and appointed to public office. This list includes:
51 White House Cabinet-level officials
6 White House Chiefs of Staff (5 of the last 12)
42 U.S. Senators (9 currently serving)
202 U.S. House Representatives
1 U.S. Senate Majority Leader
1 U.S. House Majority Leader
8 Supreme Court Justices
17 State Governors
Among those 17 Jewish governors, six are incumbents. Three of the six are named Josh, and it’s highly likely that you’ve heard of the one whose last name is Shapiro.
On New Year’s Day, 1934, Henry Morgenthau became the United States’ first Jewish Treasury Secretary. For the next eight years, he was essential in operationalizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.
In 1943, the U.S. State Department confirmed that an official German policy existed to exterminate all Jews in Europe. But Morgenthau and his staff discovered that State was dragging its feet on proposals to help save any of them. Morgenthau, the grandson of a German immigrant, was beyond appalled. He would later describe that horrific time between 1942 and 1944:
“Officials dodged their grim responsibility, procrastinated when concrete rescue schemes were placed before them, and even suppressed information about atrocities.”
On January 16, 1944, Morgenthau met with the president and pressed him on the imperative of providing more relief and making a concerted effort to rescue Jews and non-Jews who were under threat of death by the Nazis. Six days later, Roosevelt issued an executive order establishing the War Refugee Board. Between then and the end of the war, more than 200,000 Jewish lives were saved.
When a member of a minority group — or any group that’s locked out of political agency — gets elected to office, there are two immediate benefits: members of the group feel a sense of pride and of being seen, and members of the group know that they have a voice to represent the priorities of their community, and that such a voice will at least be heard.
Henry Morgenthau is just one high profile example, but the Jewish community in America has always participated vigorously in its politics. As a result, again and again, Jewish officeholders have changed history for the better. The leadership and legislation they’ve loyally collaborated on in the United States has made a huge difference — both here and around the world.
The one remaining political office no Jewish-American has yet to serve in is the presidency. Joe Lieberman came the closest 25 years ago, as the first vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket. He and Al Gore won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college1 by a whisker.
Sometimes you’ll hear a person say that America is “not ready” to elect a Jewish president — or “never will.” It’s understandable, especially within the backdrop of increased antisemitism here and around the world.
But these assertions are nothing more than opinions. We all get to have one. The words “can’t” and “never” don’t really apply to electoral politics. Nelson Mandela put it it this way: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Our own Theodor Herzl famously said, “ “If you will it, it is no dream.”
In 1960, John F. Kennedy was a viewed as an inexperienced 43-year-old Senator at a time when a full quarter of Americans said they would never vote for a Catholic. In 1980, 52 percent of Americans said that their biggest concern about Ronald Reagan was that he would “put his foot in his mouth” as president. He was also mocked as an aging actor who wasn’t very smart.
In 2008, Barack Obama was a first-term Senator who had the middle name of an Iraqi dictator, was Black, and was challenging the “Clinton machine.” In 2016, Donald Trump was a controversial TV star and businessman with a salacious past. He had never engaged in any kind of public service and he openly insulted American war heroes and full blocs of minority voters.
All of the above were considered long shots at the beginning of their presidential primary candidacies — even mocked. Then they ran. And connected.
The consistently wonderful thing about America is that, if you’re talented enough and work hard enough, you have the chance to break through. In any capacity or position. History bears it out. And in politics, Americans will give you a hearing. And if you’re good, they’ll keep listening.
Are there still frenzied extremists who would never vote for a Catholic or a Mormon or a Jew or any type of “other”? Sure. But the small people with those prejudices are still on the marginal fringes; there’s not necessarily enough of them to overrule the vast majority who will still vote in an election based on merit and what a candidate can do for their lives. The political voices that inspire people — and make it about them — are the ones who break through. If they have the stuff. If they can project genuine authenticity into a live camera.
It is axiomatic that conditions on the ground prior to an election, such as national mood, have an impact on which candidates’ voices and ideas will connect most. But it’s usually not a desire for more of the same. In 2016, when I interviewed former Obama strategist David Axelrod, he conveyed one principle I’ve never forgotten. He said it in the context of Donald Trump being surprisingly competitive against Obama’s would-be successor, Hillary Clinton:
“People almost never choose the replica of what they have. They generally choose the remedy. Even when the mayor or the president is popular, they choose someone — and this is particularly true with the party out of power — who addresses what they see as the shortcomings in the incumbent.”
Imagine that. And if you go back through 75 years of modern presidential history, you’ll see exactly the pattern he describes.
Going by David Axelrod’s informal rule, choosing a “remedy” who could satisfy voters’ perceptions of the “shortcomings of the incumbent,” the 2028 electorate might be attracted to a candidate who:
Has a great amount of governing experience and can point to a track record of results and effective service
Has a track record of valuing and protecting the rule of law
Has a reputation for trying to unite opposing factions in order to forge compromise
Has demonstrated strength in the face of personal adversity
Has a track record of winning elections
Has a high approval rating from recent constituents served
Contrary to frequent complaints from Democrats that “there’s no bench of presidential candidates!” — it’s not true. There are several who check most or all of the boxes above. The 2028 primary will be a crowded field.
But what many commenters miss in the equation is that it is the actual primary process that makes the general election nominee. Getting through this crucible shapes and strengthens whoever wins. A stamp of credibility is delivered to the candidate by millions of primary and caucus voters. And by necessity, the winner has been forced to learn critical lessons along the way in order to survive. It’s grueling — and revealing.
On paper, Josh Shapiro’s packed résumé of professional experience and public service accomplishment is almost hard to believe — starting from the age of six. You’d scarcely be able to sketch it out any better if you were given license to do so. And far from shying away from his Jewishness, he embraces it openly. Proudly. Humbly. In his very first campaign ad for governor, we see his family having dinner in their home, and hear his voice:
“Whether my day starts here in Bloomsburg, Uniontown, or anywhere in Pennsylvania, I make it home Friday night for Sabbath dinner, ‘cuz family and faith ground me.”
Earlier this year, after the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence was firebombed on the first night of Passover as Shapiro and his family were inside, he told a popular radio show: “If I leave because violence pushed us out or scared us, then those who want to perpetuate political violence win. I’ve got to stay, and I’ve got to show that we’re not afraid.”2
Shapiro also happens to be governor of the most highly prized presidential swing state, where Pennsylvanians give him a 60-percent job approval rating. And while polls about the 2028 General Election don’t matter much now, in a head-to-head, Shapiro pounds current U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance by 10 points: 53 to 43 percent. Inside those numbers, independent voters favor him by 58 to 33 percent. That’s a yawning chasm and usually an indicator for other swing states.
But the political fact remains that elections are not based solely — or even mostly — on résumé. A whole lot of emotion goes into voting. Especially on the presidential level. And the ways in which candidates communicate and personally connect with voters (or don’t) often means the difference between making it past the Iowa caucuses and hanging up your campaign buttons.
That said, it would be terribly exciting to see Governor Shapiro make a run for the White House. First and foremost, he’s a highly qualified, proven leader. He’s demonstrated that he is smart, reasonable and prepared — and he knows how to talk about creating different kinds of work and career opportunities for Gen Z. The guy gets it.
The fact that Shapiro is Jewish and cares about protecting his community and strengthening the State of Israel is merely the glazing on the apple cake. This man would be ready to serve in the presidency.
But I do like apple cake.
There is almost a full-circle type of irony that a Josh Shapiro presidency would represent for the United States, and the world.
The American Revolution was actually an international conflict that involved France, Spain, India, and others nations. No country in the world had yet to live under an exclusively democratic form government. The term “American Experiment” may sound corny, but at the time, the idea of independence and self-rule was an incredibly controversial prospect. Toward the end of the Revolutionary War, when the colonists had made a final entreaty for peace to King George III, he declined. And explained why:
“The present contest with America, I cannot help as seeing as the most serious in which any country was ever engaged … The step by step demands of America have risen. Independence is their object. Should America succeed in that, the West Indies must follow. Ireland must soon be a separate state. Then this island will be reduced to itself, and soon would be a poor island indeed.”
Against astronomical odds, a ragtag band of American fighters ultimately defeated the vaunted military of Great Britain. And with that victory, America’s founders created the first representative republic that would be completely tethered to the rule of law.
Though Black Americans continued to be enslaved for another nine decades since our country’s founding, it was that same rule of law that allowed President Abraham Lincoln to codify the principles of his Emancipation Proclamation into our Constitution in 1865, and later allowed President Lyndon Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Act exactly 100 years later.
The United States, long an example to the world, is now losing key parts of its rule of law. Our country has been traveling backwards on its core principles in recent years. It will take an extraordinary new president to even begin to lead us out of this regression and into a new era
Interestingly, “the name Joshua literally means ‘God’s salvation.’ It’s a tall order to live up to.” Those words come from Rabbi Joshua Lesser of Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta. Rabbi Lesser views the Joshua we know from the Torah as representative of the “next generation of leadership.” Speaking to a Jewish-American media outlet, Rabbi Lesser said there are lessons that modern-day leaders can draw from the primordial Joshua:
“To be able to see what is possible and what is positive when everybody else is seeing what is negative and what is destructive.”3
Lesser was specifically referring to the story of the 10 spies in the Book of Numbers. While the Jewish People sojourned in the desert, the spies traveled ahead to Israel to do reconnaissance. They returned with a stern warning that the land was no place they could possibly inhabit. Joshua simply replied: We can do this. And eventually, the successor to Moses led the Israelites into the “Promised Land.”
While the authors of our country’s Constitution rightly kept formal religion out of the government, there are no rules against paying attention to the best parts of spirituality and the stark lessons of our history.
A Joshua leading America. The time may soon be ripe.
The Electoral College is the process in which citizens’ votes elect slates of state-appointed electors, who then cast the official votes to determine the President and Vice President of the United States.
“The Breakfast Club.” New York’s Power 105.1 FM.
“Jews named Josh will be 6% of U.S. governors. Rabbis named Josh have leadership advice.” The Forward.
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Shapiro will have to decide whether he will keep to his views and denounce left based anti Semitism or become the next Schumer who never fulfilled his self proclaimed status as the so called Shomer of Israel
I don't know much about him, but the little I do know is that Shapiro's too far left for me. If he can show the courage to separate himself from the absolutely malignant Democrat party members, and their disastrous policies I could consider it.