Counting 50th Ward Jews

Not-for-profit leader Fred Hess considered running for 50th Ward Alderman in 1991. But he wasn’t Jewish and he was concerned about competing in a heavily Jewish ward. He wanted to know how many Jewish voters lived there.

So, I counted them. I recognized commonly used first names of Jewish people and I knew who a lot of Jewish people were who didn’t have Jewish names (like David Patt).

I concluded that 35% of the voters were probably Jewish and another 2% might be. Hess was astounded the number was so high and he dropped out of the race.

I was surprised it was so low. It was nearly double that when I was a kid.

But from an electoral point of view, 35% was still significant. The non-Jews weren’t anti-Jewish. They just weren’t Jewish. But Jews were still the largest ethnic group in the ward. So, Hess was probably right to be concerned about that. (Hank Rubin ended up being the Independent candidate in that race).

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