Poll success of the ‘Jewish uncle from Brooklyn’ is sign of a mature America

Nonetheless, whatever the future holds for the

Sanders’s candidacy is the most wonderful anti-climax in American Jewish history

74-year-old senator, his victory in New Hampshire was a historic one: he is the first Jew to win a presidential primary. But whereas the historical significance of Barack Obama's campaign eight years ago was keenly felt long before he captured the nomination, that of Mr Sanders has attracted remarkably little comment.

As Sandy Maisel of Colby University told CNN last week: "In some ways, it's a non-story. And that it's a non-story is a pretty interesting story."

Indeed, despite going head-to-head with Mrs Clinton countless times over recent months, Mr Sanders was not asked in a televised debate about being Jewish until it was raised by the journalist Anderson Cooper in the two candidates' final clash before New Hampshire voted.

Mr Sanders is not the first Jew to seek the White House, but he has gone further than either of his predecessors. Pennsylvania Governor Milton Shapp's 1976 campaign saw him emerge with only one delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Nearly three decades later, Senator Joe Lieberman - who, as Al Gore's running mate in 2000, became the first Jew on a major party presidential ticket - dropped out of the 2004 Democrat primaries having failed to win a single contest.

But the Sanders candidacy - which Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Centre of Reform Judaism, has termed "the most wonderful anti-climax in American Jewish history" - in some regards offers a hopeful counterpoint to the ugly nativism of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, as well as being a study in changing American attitudes. In 1937, Gallup found that only 46 per cent of Americans said they would be willing to vote for a Jewish presidential candidate.

Thirty years later, nearly one in five voters were still suggesting that they would not. Last autumn, however, Gallup reported that figure had dropped to just nine per cent. The Pew Research Centre, which has recently produced similar findings, judges being Jewish as among those "traits that are neither assets nor liabilities" for political candidates - although the same research found that being a Muslim or Mormon is still likely to prove a hindrance.

The seeming lack of interest in Mr Sanders's Jewishness is, in part, a reflection of the senator's unrepentant secularism and dogged unwillingness to talk about his personal life. When he spoke before a religious audience at the evangelical Liberty University last year, Mr Sanders made only one passing reference to Judaism.

Thus, despite gentle media references to him being like "a Jewish uncle from Brooklyn" or the frequent comparisons drawn with the comedian Larry David (with whom he appeared last weekend on Saturday Night Live), one poll last October found only 23 per cent of voters were able to identify Mr Sanders as Jewish.

Recently, however, Mr Sanders has begun to reveal a little more of his Jewish self, while always attempting to link it closely to his politics.

"I would not be running for president of the United States if I did not have very strong religious and spiritual feelings," he said in response to Mr Cooper's question last week, before going on to suggest that they led him to a belief that "we are all in this together and that when children go hungry, when veterans sleep out on the street, it impacts me."

Thus, as his friend, Richard Sugarman, who teaches religious studies at the University of Vermont, told the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Mr Sanders's Jewish identity is "more ethnic and cultural than religious - except for his devotion of the ethical part of public life in Judaism".

Mr Sanders's Judaism may become more of a factor when the campaign reaches states like New York and Florida, where the demand of one Vermont rabbi - "we need a Jewish hug from him every once in a while" - will be loudly echoed. But, should he reach the general election in November, it seems unlikely to harm him.

His socialism, however, is an altogether different matter. In the same poll, in which 91 per cent of Americans said they would vote for a Jewish candidate, only 47 per cent said they would vote for a socialist one.

America has changed a lot in his lifetime, but probably not enough to elect Bernie Sanders president.