With the complete election returns from all parts of the country now at hand the results show that for the first time in the history of American Jewry two Jews were elected governors of their respective states and nine Jews were elected to Congress, eight of them incumbents. In New York, Lt. Gov. Herbert Lehman was re-elected by an overwhelming plurality while in Ohio Gilbert Bettman was renamed attorney general on the Republican ticket despite the fact that the rest of the ticket went down to defeat.
The new Jewish governors are Arthur Seligman (D) of New Mexico and Julius Meier (R) of Oregon. In addition to the eight sitting Congressmen, David Goldstein (D) of Worcester, Mass., was elected in a close contest. Emanuel Celler, Samuel Dickstein, Dr. William Sirovich and Sol Bloom, Democrats of New York, Benjamin Golder (R) Philadelphia, Isaac Bacharach (R) Atlantic City, Mrs. Florence Prag Kahn (R) of San Francisco and Adolph J. Sabath (D) of Chicago, were all reelected.
first time that a Jew has been elected chief executive of an American commonwealth since Moses Alexander was elected governor of Idaho for a second term in Idaho in 1916. Mr. Meier’s election carries on the tradition of Jews holding unusually high political offices in Oregon, one Jew having been United States Senator, several mayor of Portland and others speaker of the legislature and president of the state senate.
Mitchel C. Robin was named probate clerk, Henry Horner was reelected probate court judge, J. L. Friedman won as sanitary district trustee and Leon Edelman seems elected municipal court judge on incomplete returns.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
