Milwaukeean Sheldon Wasserman, M.D., appears to be in an odd and paradoxical position when he wears his hat as a Democratic member of the State Assembly, representing the 22nd District (the city’s East Side and North Shore).
On the one hand, there are still many Wisconsin areas in which no Jews live and plenty of Wisconsinites have never met a Jewish person. Some of those Wisconsinites get elected to the Assembly, where they meet two Jews: Wasserman and Gary Sherman of the 74th District (D-Port Wing).
So Sherman and Wasserman can seem like exotic novelties to some of their colleagues, and the two encounter teasing and jokes about it. When they are seen conferring together, someone might comment about witnessing a meeting of the “Jewish lobby,” Wasserman told The Chronicle Sunday.
On the other hand, as Wasserman stated during his talk at the Day of Discovery this past Sunday at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, Jews are not a novelty in Wisconsin politics.
In fact, as Wasserman said in his presentation on “Judaism in Wisconsin Politics,” Jews have been involved in state politics even before Wisconsin was admitted to the United States in 1848.
And Jews have served in the highest of the state’s offices. During the Civil War, Edward Salomon (1828-1909), a Republican, served a term as governor (1862-64; governors had two-year terms until 1970), and he remains to date the only Jew to have held that office.
Today, as Wasserman pointed out, Wisconsin has two Jewish senators in the federal Congress — Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, both Democrats — and a Jewish chief justice of its state Supreme Court, Shirley Abrahamson. This is in a state in which some 26,000 Jews live in a general population of about five million, he said.
Moreover, Jews have founded Wisconsin communities, like Slinger; served as mayors of such towns and cities as Chippewa Falls, La Crosse, Two Rivers and Waukesha; and been judges in local and federal courts, Wasserman said.
This reflects how many members of the community feel “a commitment to public service” and a desire to make “a lasting contribution” to the life of the state, Wasserman said.
Wasserman is currently running for State Senate against Republican incumbent Alberta Darling in the Eighth Senate District (northern Milwaukee County and parts of Ozaukee, Waukesha and Washington counties).
He said he has occasionally encountered anti-Semitic comments as he campaigns door-to-door in the district; but they have been few. He also reported that while the district generally had a reputation for voting Republican, he has encountered voters who tell him that maybe “a Democrat is not so bad” today.
In fact, “I would not want to be an incumbent today,” Wasserman told his audience of about 25. “The word is change” and “everybody is talking about it.”
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