Predicting a Jewish Vice Presidential Candidate

The following is an article that I wrote, which appeared in the April 10, 2025, edition of the Washington Jewish Week:

Forecasting the future is no easy feat. Yet in 1976, a prominent American Jewish historian and rabbi took out a proverbial crystal ball and made a bold prediction that ended up becoming reality.

In this month’s installment of “Remember When,” we look back at our issue from April 1-7, 1976, when an article titled “Jewish V.P. candidate in 25 years foreseen” ran on the front page.

At the 1976 biennial convention of the national Jewish Welfare Board, Rear Adm. Bertram W. Korn, a member of the U.S. Navy’s Chaplain Corps, stood up and predicted that the United States would have a Jewish vice presidential candidate within the next 25 years.

Citing historical trends upon which he based his prediction, Korn, who served as the rabbi of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in the Philadelphia area, said, “Two Jews serving as U.S. senators in the period before the Civil War, followed by two Jews serving at the same time on the U.S. Supreme Court prior to World War II, and two Jews serving simultaneously in the president’s cabinet during the Kennedy administration, foreshadow the ultimate political achievement of equality of Jews.”

Korn, the first Jewish chaplain in American history to reach two-star rank in one of the branches of the U.S. armed forces, added that, “No other American religious or ethnic community gave more generously to help its own new people. No other religious or ethnic community in the world has given more to help its refugees and victims abroad than American Jewry. Our neighbors know that American Jews are an easy touch for every good cause. We will continue to share our substance with Jews anywhere who need help and with all non-Jews who are in want.”

It turns out that Korn, whose son Bertram (Benyamin) “Buddy” Korn, served as executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, which is owned by Mid-Atlantic Media, the same company that owns and publishes the Washington Jewish Week, from 1994 to 1997, was spot-on in his prediction.

In August 2000, 24 years after Korn’s prediction, Vice President Al Gore chose U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate for the 2000 presidential election. Lieberman, who passed away in March 2024, was an Orthodox Jew who was proud of his faith and spoke about it openly and often. His selection as Gore’s vice presidential running mate made him the first Jewish member of a major presidential ticket.

Although the Gore-Lieberman ticket ended up falling short after a prolonged legal battle focusing on Florida’s 25 electoral votes, the historic choice of Lieberman as a vice presidential candidate galvanized the American Jewish community. As it happens, it also proved Korn’s bold declaration in 1976 to be prophetic.