Earlier this week, I found myself at the dinner table revisiting a question that at various times dominated some of my high school classes, college lectures and late night talks with friends. What does it mean to be a Jew in America?

This is a complicated, loaded question for most. Take my situation as an example: Thanks to a thorough Jewish education, I know all of the rules for how to be an observant Jew and yet, I follow almost none of them. In other words, I don’t live my life much differently from most Americans — for example, I don’t restrict my diet according to Jewish law or refrain from using electricity on the sabbath — but there is no question that I feel like I’m different because I’m a Jew. That background informs my social circles — the bulk of my friends are Jewish, my approach to the world, my affinity toward hot pastrami sandwiches, and probably even the way I speak.

So what got me suddenly thinking about this question again? Watching Bernie Sanders and the media wrestle with it. Sanders recently declared that he is “very proud to be Jewish” after a bit of prodding from CNN’s Anderson Cooper. I’ll admit, I was skeptical. Before that moment there had been much hand-wringing in the mainstream and Jewish press about the fact that Sanders is closer than any other Jew to being president and yet, he hasn’t made much of it.

But then Sanders went on to talk about his most formative Jewish experience — growing up with the knowledge of how the Holocaust affected his family and community. That background, he said, influenced his approach to politics, and though he didn’t say it explicitly, presumably his (some would argue myopic) focus on lifting up the little guy.

Sanders’s explanation of his own Jewish identity seemed as complex and familiar to me as a raisin kugel. If the data are any indication, other American Jews probably recognize Sanders’ version of Judaism too.

Remembering the Holocaust is one of the aspects agreed upon the most by American Jews as being central to being Jewish, according to recent data from the Pew Research Center. It’s followed closely by leading a moral/ethical life, working for justice and equality and being intellectually curious. At the same time, observing Jewish law ranked pretty low on the list — earlier Pew research found that roughly one in five Jews described themselves as having no religion.

Terrence Horan

“He represents an authentic strand of American Jewish identity,” Steven Cohen, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, said of Sanders, “one which is religiously secular and politically very liberal.”

That brand of Judaism was largely developed in the mid-20th century as Jews increasingly turned to liberalism to find their place in U.S. society, said Cohen, who was also a consultant on the Pew survey. Embracing liberalism helped Jews to overcome social exclusion and also provided an outlet for them to bring purpose and meaning to their Jewish identity by making society more caring toward the vulnerable, he said.

World War II crystallized many of those values for American Jews, said Deborah Dash Moore, a Jewish history professor at the University of Michigan. For one, witnessing the Holocaust made it clear for the first time that anti-Semitism could take the form of murderous genocide. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Jewish men had the experience of fighting for the U.S. against its enemies to defend equal rights. “These things were internalized by many American Jews who came out feeling that this is what is really important to them as Americans and as Jews,” Moore said.

Of course, being a Jew in America (or anywhere) takes different forms, and some American Jews may not recognize Sanders’s brand of Jewish identity as their own. For many, being Jewish isn’t simply about history, it has to do with being part of an active Jewish community, something Sanders hasn’t made much of a point of, said Leonard Saxe, the director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish studies at Brandeis University.

“Judaism is a behavior, it’s being part of a group, it’s being part of a community and it’s what you do and not just what you say that is important,” he said.

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Nonetheless, Sanders is tapping into a “long-standing and legitimate strain” of Jewish identity that is “distinctly American,” Cohen said.

In this way, Sanders’s voice, values and dare I say it, zeitgeist, exude Jewishness, even though he isn’t as observant as some other previously high level politicians, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) who generally refused to campaign on the Jewish Sabbath as a candidate for vice president, Moore said.

Still, Sanders received criticism from some Jews earlier in the campaign for not “owning” his Judaism by doing things such as describing himself as the child of Polish, instead of Jewish, immigrants. But Moore notes that Sanders is in a tough spot. Being a presidential candidate without a mainstream religious background can be difficult. When John F. Kennedy ran for president, a Catholic had never held the position, and many questioned whether his religion would prevent him from being completely loyal to the U.S.

Even though surveys indicate Americans would be fine with a Jewish president, it’s hard to know if that’s truly the case, Moore said. Besides, she said, he rings so Jewish that he doesn’t necessarily have to talk about it explicitly. “Anyone who hears him talk, says, ‘Yeah, he’s a Jew from Brooklyn,” she said. “He’s never worked to get rid of that accent.”

A Saturday Night Live skit poked fun at the obviousness of Sanders’ Jewish background. In an exchange with comedian Larry David aboard a fictional boat bound for the U.S., Sanders’s character, Bernie Sanderswitsky, tells David: “We’re going to change it when we get to America so it doesn’t sound quite so Jewish.” “Yeah, that’ll trick ‘em,” David responded.

But Sanders’s Jewish identity doesn’t seem to be luring American Jews, particularly older ones, in large numbers to his campaign, as the Washington Post reported earlier this week. Instead, he’s drawn strong support from a largely younger voter base, which includes Jews, but also members of other religions.

Still, his candidacy is certainly historic, Moore said. “If you had asked me as a historian did I think in my lifetime I’d see a Jew running for president, I would have said no,” she said.

The Sanders campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on his Jewish identity.