Oklahoma Senate race shaping up as an interesting one for Jews

washington | The Oklahoma Senate race is not the likeliest of places to expect issues like foreign aid to Israel to crop up. The state's 5,000 Jews make up only 0.1 percent of its total population. And neither of the two candidates battling for an open seat created by the retirement of Republican Sen. Don Nickles is Jewish.

No matter. This fall, Democrats are fighting not only to retake the White House, but they are fighting for control of the Senate, where Republicans have only a slim majority of 51-48. The one left-leaning Independent, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, makes that more like 51-49. And the tight race between Democratic Rep. Brad Carson and former Republican congressman Tom Coburn, therefore, has national appeal.

Coburn, an obstetrician and an evangelical Christian, made headlines recently after facing fresh allegations from a woman who said he sterilized her without her consent during a medical procedure 14 years ago.

But more-distant headlines haunt the Coburn campaign as well. Seven years ago, Coburn got into hot water — both with the Jewish community and nationally — when he condemned NBC for broadcasting the Holocaust movie "Schindler's List," calling it an "all-time low" for network television, "with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity." He said the broadcast was "polluting the minds of our children."

The American Jewish Congress responded that Coburn "has a perverse notion of what is offensive."

Coburn's comment, and the reaction from the time, has made its way into the arsenal of the Carson campaign, as it tries to persuade Jews across the country to support Carson.

In his book on his time spent in the House, "Breach of Trust, How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders," Coburn described the "Schindler's List" incident as "the worst experience in my life save the death of my father."

He explained that he believed "without a doubt, every human being should see 'Schindler's List.'" But he wrote that "for the first time on broadcast television, images of extreme violence and, in some places, nudity, would be uncensored and aired at a time when many unsupervised children would be viewing without the appropriate guidance and nurturing of an adult."

Coburn went on to say that his "Jewish friends" know "that because of my own faith I have a deep admiration and respect for their place as God's chosen people."

In recent campaign stops, Coburn has, preacher-like, invoked the history of the Jewish people, as recounted in the Bible, to encourage people to live a full life of faith.

As a result of the Schindler misstep, Coburn's comments about Jesus and Coburn's voting record, Carson "is definitely having some success in the Jewish community," the official said.

Steven Dow, a Jewish backer of Carson's from Oklahoma, says it is "not surprising that the Jewish community has been with him since he decided to run. ... If you look at Carson's contribution list locally and nationally, you'll see a very healthy contribution from the pro-Israel community."

Coburn, nevertheless, has also found some pockets of Jewish support. James Kaplan became acquainted with Coburn during the "Schindler's List" flap, while working as an analyst at the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee in the late 1990s. "I told him how much it was going to reverberate in the community," Kaplan said.

Since then the two have become friends, and Kaplan took a lead role in helping Coburn shape his new position paper on Israel.

"The man's an evangelical Christian ... We have congressmen and senators who say the types of things he says regularly. What matters is that these people believe in their faith and that their faith leads them to believe they have an obligation to work with the Jewish people," Kaplan said.