What Kind Of Jew Is Bernie Sanders

Around The Daily Beast office, I’m known for my spot-on Bernie Sanders impersonation. To my colleagues, it seems studied, but to me, it’s just familiar. I’ve known Bernies all my life.

The same is true for Bernie’s atheism. A recent profile in the The Washington Post, headlined “Why Bernie Sanders doesn’t participate in organized religion,” depicted the senator as possessing a quixotic blend of cultural Judaism, kinda-sorta belief in God, and political idealism.

To many Jews, however, this mix is hardly unusual. It’s familiar as chicken soup and matzo: the basically secular, basically atheist Jewish Democratic Socialist, part of the erstwhile 20th-century American Jewish Left populated by the likes of Irving Howe, Woody Guthrie (not Jewish, but married Jewish, raised kids Jewish, sang Jewish songs), Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, Hannah Arendt, and, later, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Yippies like Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/01/31/what-kind-of-jew-is-bernie-sanders.html