Bernie Sanders: Being Jewish is 'an essential part of who I am as a human being'

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

last updated 7 March 2016

When asked by an audience member at the CNN Democratic debate in Flint if he believes that God is relevant, Sanders responded that yes, he does, and being Jewish is an "essential part of who I am."

"I think when we talk about God, whether it is Christianity or Judaism or Islam or Buddhism, what we are talking about is what all religions hold dear — that is, to do unto others as you would like them to do unto you," he said. "I am here tonight because I believe that morally and ethically we do not have a right to turn our backs on children in Flint, Michigan, who are being poisoned or veterans who are sleeping out on the street."

Moderator Anderson Cooper told Sanders some Jewish leaders are concerned that he appears to keep his Jewish background under wraps, a notion that Sanders disagreed with. "I am very proud to be Jewish," he said. "Being Jewish is so much of what I am." Sanders said his father's family was "wiped out by Hitler in the Holocaust, and I know what crazy and radical and extremist politics mean." He recalled being a young child and shopping with his mother, "where we would see people working in stores who had numbers on their arms because they were in Hitler's concentration camps. It is an essential part of who I am as a human being." Catherine Garcia

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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