The Jewish Connection of the Biden-Harris Team; History Made as Nation Usher’s in 46th President & VP

By: TJVNews.com

Now that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been officially inaugurated as our new president and vice-president, it is interesting to note that while neither elected official is Jewish, both Biden and Harris have strong connections to the Jewish people.

Before we delve into that, however, it is noteworthy to mention that history was made on two scores. Firstly, Joe Biden is the oldest person to ever hold the office of the presidency. Many observers thought that our nation’s 40^th president, the late Ronald Wilson Reagan was considered old when he took office in the 1980 election, as he was 69 years of age at the time. Then decades later, we had Donald Trump, who was 70 and now Biden. Moreover, the history books are ready to record that Kamala Harris, 56, is the first woman, the first person of color and the first person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.

Joe Biden is also a grandfather to several Jewish children as all of his three children are betrothed to Jewish spouses. Kamala Harris is a married to Doug Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer, who also happens to be Jewish and is a native of Brooklyn. Emhoff’s children from his first marriage refer to Kamala as “Momalah.”. Kamala and Doug will also shatter the glass ceiling by becoming the first mixed-race couple to occupy their positions, as he is Caucasian and Kamala is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants.

Celebrating Hanukkah together in 2020, Kamala and Doug could be seen on a Twitter video lighting the Chanukah menorah.

Speaking about why she enjoys Chanukah and what it means to her, Harris said, “I love Chanukah because it really is about the light, and bringing light where there has been darkness. And it is a celebration of, always, tikkun olam [repairing the world], which is about fighting for justice and fighting for the dignity of all people, and it’s about rededication.”

At a political event in Ohio in 2016, Biden referenced is son-in-law Howard Krein in a jocular fashion by saying, “I’m the only Irish Catholic you know who had his dream met because his daughter married a Jewish surgeon.”

According to a national survey conducted in 2013 by the Pew Research Center, a whopping 58% of American Jews marry out of their faith, but somehow manage to raise their children with Jewish values as they inculcate in them Jewish religious and cultural traditions. The non-Jewish spouse in such blended families are very proud to have Jewish children and often encourage celebrations of a religious nature.

Most of these Jews self-identify as Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative or Humanist and some do not consider themselves affiliated with any branch of Judaism.

The only segment of the Jewish population in the United States that consistently marries within their faith are the Orthodox Jews and as a result their demographics have been on the rise due to the fact that the average Orthodox Jewish couple has five or more children.

According to a recent JTA report, about half a century ago, blended families were exceptionally rare and when a Jew married out of their faith, the Jewish community considered that person to be gone forever in terms of commitment and observance of Jewish tradition. In contemporary times, blended families are on the increase and they take a participatory role in synagogue and temple life, including carrying out Jewish rituals.