Two of three Jewish candidates for the United States Senate scored victories and 22 Jews were elected to the House of Representatives in yesterday’s nationwide elections marked by a larger voter turnout than most pundits had predicted.
The victors in the Senate contests were Car Levin, a 44-year-old Detroit Democrat who unseated the two-term Republican incumbent Robert Griffin and Rudy Boschwitz, 45, of Minnesota who defeated the Democratic incumbent, Wendel R. Anderson. The third Jewish candidate, Jane Eskind, a Democrat, lost a hard-fought race to Republican incumbent Howard Baker in Tennessee.
The victories by Levin and Boschwitz will bring the number of Jews in the Senate to seven–a record total–when the 96th Congress convenes in January. The five Jewish incumbents who were not up for re-election yesterday are Sens. Jacob K. Javits (R.NY); Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio; Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut; Richard Stone of Florida; and Edward Zorinsky of Nebraska, all Democrats.
In the House contests, two Jewish incumbents were defeated. They are Joshua Eilberg of Pennsylvania who had been seeking his seventh term and John Krebs of California, seeking a third term. Both are Democrats. Eilberg had been involved recently in a conflict of interest scandal. But the Jewish contingent in the House will nevertheless reach the record level of 22 set two years ago. It was reduced to 21 when Ed Koch (D.NY), resigned to run for Mayor of New York City.
NEWCOMERS IN HOUSE
Jewish newcomers in the next Congress are Ken Kramer (R. Colo.) and Howard Wolpe, a Democrat from Lansing, Mich. Kramer’s victory increases the number of Jewish Republicans in the House to four. Also elected yesterday was Martin Frost, a native of Fort Worth, Tex., now living in Dallas, who defeated Republican incumbent Leo Berman by a six percent margin. According to the Texas Jewish Post, Frost is the first Jew elected to Congress from that state in this century. A Jew, David Spangler Kaufman, for whom Kaufman County, Tex. was named, served in the 29th Congress in 1845 following the admittance of Texas to the Union, the Post noted. He also served in the 30th and 31st Congresses until his death in 1871.
Senator-elect Boschwitz, who heads a plywood company in Plymouth, Minn., was victorious in his first bid for public office though he had been long active in Minnesota politics. Both he and his opponent were former state campaign chairmen for their respective parties. Boschwitz worked for the election of Richard M. Nixon in 1968 while Anderson campaigned for the late Hubert H. Humphtey. Boschwitz attributed his win to his ability to attract independent voters.
In Michigan, Levin garnered 60 percent of the vote. A lawyer who served as president of the Detroit City Council, he comes from a family long active in local political, civic and Jewish affairs. His uncle, Theodore Levin, was a Federal Judge appointed by President Trumon. His brother, Sander, served in the State Senate and was twice the Democratic nominee for Governor of Michigan, although defeated in the elections. His cousin, Charles, served on Michigan’s highest court. The family established enviable records in the social services of the Jewish Welfare Federation and its predecessor, the United Jewish Charities, the Detroit Jewish News reports.
DEAN OF JEWISH CONGRESSMEN RE-ELECTED
Sidney Yates (D.III.), the dean of Jewish Congressmen, won an easy victory in his district. The 69-year-old legislator received more than 70 percent of the vote, returning to the House for his 15th term. Another Jewish Democrat from Illinois, Abner Mikva, also won re-election to a fifth term but by a slender margin. Other Jewish Democrats returned to Congress were Anthony Beilanson and Henry A. Waxman, both of California; Dan Glickman of Kansas; William Lehman of Florida, who was unopposed; Elliott H. Levitas of Georgia; Willis Grandison Jr. of Ohio; Marc L. Marks of Pennsylvania; and Gladys Spellman of Maryland.
The Jewish delegation from New York was triumphant. Benjamin S. Rosenthal, the Democratic Deputy Whip in the House, won a 10th term. Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman breezed into her fourth term with more than 80 percent of the votes in her Brooklyn district. Also re-elected were Richard Ottinger, Stephen J. Solarz, Lester L. Wolff, James H. Scheuer, Theodore Weiss and Frederick Richmond, all Democrats and Republican Benjamin Gilman.
Two Jewish candidates in South Carolina were defeated. Max Heller, an Austrian-born refugee from Nazism who served as Mayor of Greenville, trailed Carroll Campbell who became the first Republican to represent his district. Jack Bass, a 44-year-old author and journalist of Columbia, S.C., lost his first bid for office.
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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.
