Vice President Joe Biden made his most significant public comments on a possible 2016 presidential bid wearing a big black yarmulke to his head.

In an election that has already been dominated by the Jewishness of some of the candidates and by kvelling Jewish phrases, the yarmulke donned on Biden’s head – as he looked down and questioned his “emotional energy” to mount a bid for president – aired on almost every TV program has become the most Jewish moment of the 2016 race.

“I will be straightforward with you. The most relevant factor in my decision is whether my family and I have the emotional energy to run,” Biden told the crowd at Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Atlanta Thursday evening. “The honest to God answer is I just don’t know… Unless I can go to my party and the American people and say that I’m able to devote my whole heart and my whole soul to this endeavor, it would not be appropriate.. And everybody talks about a lot of other factors: The other people in the race and whether I can raise the money and whether I can get an organization. That’s not the factor. The factor is can I do it? Can my family?”

 

 

The race is already shaping up to be the “most Jewish” race in the history of the United States, according to a presidential historian and former White House staffer, Tevi Troy.

“Think about it, both leading candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have ‘machatunim’ (Jewish in-laws of their daughters),” Dr. Troy was quoted as saying by the NJ Jewish news, at an event two weeks ago.

Chelsea Clinton is married to the Marc Mezvinsky, and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is married the Orthodox Jewish Jared Kushner.
“It’s remarkable how little comment there is on this phenomenon,” the site quoted Troy as saying. “The larger American society accepts this with nary a second thought. I can’t think of any other country where the leading candidates have machatunim — except Israel.”
He also noted that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who is gaining ground on Clinton, is Jewish, and Lauren Bush Lauren, a niece of Republican hopeful Jeb Bush is married to David Lauren, son of Jewish fashion designer Ralph Lauren. Republicans Rick Perry recently held a fundraiser at a kosher restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa. “I don’t know what is more surprising: that there is a kosher restaurant in Iowa or that Rick Perry chose to have a fund-raiser there,” Troy quipped. Last month at a campaign event at Rutgers University’s Chabad House in New Brunswick, Governor Chris Christie was introduced with the blowing of a shofar, as accustomed to do so by religious Jews in the month of Elul.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker gave an extensive interview to AMI magazine in this week’s edition, wearing a big velver yarmulke while visiting the Lakewood Yeshiva in NJ.

“I love it,” he told the interviewer, “it completely covers up my bald spot.”