The NYT detects "a familiar mixture of celebration and anxiety among Jews in the United States and abroad" as Bernie Sanders becomes "the first Jewish candidate in history to win a presidential primary election."

It's "As Bernie Sanders Makes History, Jews Wonder What It Means," by Nicholas Confessore.

While Mr. Sanders was raised Jewish and even spent time on an Israeli kibbutz in the 1960s, he has been muted in his own embrace of the faith.... The Israeli paper Haaretz noted that Mr. Sanders often refers to himself as the son of a Polish immigrant, rather than a Jewish immigrant. “The Jewish establishment has a hard time considering him one of its own,” the paper observed.

Another Haaretz commentator, Chemi Shalev, worried that Mr. Sanders’ victory, and his firebrand liberal politics, would stoke anti-Semitism: “More than any other Democratic candidate, Sanders fits the bill of the G.O.P.’s favorite Jewish bogeyman, Saul Alinsky”....

Why do we have this idea that a candidate should forefront his ethnic or religious identity? I'd rather assume that Bernie Sanders is getting it right, presenting himself as an individual and not making much of his identity in a particular group. I'd rather call into question why other candidates try to gain by calling attention to their group identity. Hillary Clinton has been milking her status as a female like mad, even shaming those of us who are in this group — that is, the majority of Amercan voters.

I mean, just imagine Bernie pushing the "first Jewish President" theme as hard as Hillary pushes "first woman President." I'd like to see a SNL skit with Larry David running with that scenario. Here's a piece from a few days ago in The Washington Post, "Clinton looks to sisterhood, but votes may go to Sanders":

"Clinton’s struggles with women underscore the extent to which she has not yet figured out how to harness the history-making potential of her candidacy in the same way that Barack Obama mobilized minorities and white liberals excited about electing the first black president."

But Obama didn't go around talking about it. He presented himself and we, the voters, thought about it on our own. If he'd talked about the prospect of becoming the first black President half as much as Hillary talks about becoming the first woman President, things would not have unfolded the way they did. We're properly defensive to the verbalized argument that a group-based first is something to strain after. It has to be a good feeling that arises from within, out of a real sense of good will and promise. The hard sell stimulates our resistance to the huckster.