Eric Greitens

Breaking The Mold Of Jewish Politicians With A Superhero Warrior Résumé
The most noticeable Jewish Republican to emerge in 2016, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, is already being mentioned on lists of future national leaders.
Combining rugged good looks and a solid conservative agenda, Greitens — who started out as a Democrat — won his race comfortably despite having no previous political experience, becoming the Show-Me State’s first Jewish governor.
While religion rarely came up during the campaign, Greitens’s first major challenge as governor put his Jewish faith front and center. Anti-Semitic vandalism at a St. Louis Jewish cemetery brought Greitens, alongside Vice President Mike Pence, to the site, where he declared “I am Jewish” before rolling up his sleeves and joining the cleanup efforts.
Greitens, 43, holds a doctorate from Oxford. He was a Rhodes scholar and a Navy SEAL. He founded a not-for-profit organization and is an accomplished author whose writing traces his personal development while in combat situations, and who touches on the role of the Sabbath in modern life. His gubernatorial campaign grabbed headlines after one of his ads showed him firing an assault rifle.
But his main campaign promise — clean, transparent government run by an outsider not tarnished by politics — has proved hard to deliver. Uproar over Greitens’s refusal to disclose names of donors, and his reliance on “dark money” support groups, has put him on the defensive. And his strong push for anti-abortion measures has also angered moderates.
But make no mistake: Greitens is still a rising star in a party bereft of Jewish leadership.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Opinion In Trump’s war against campus antisemitism, hate the tactics but don’t ignore the problem
-
Yiddish כ׳בענק נאָך די וועלטלעכע ייִדן וואָס האָבן אָפּגעריכט אַ טראַדיציאָנעלן סדר Longing for those secular Jews who led a traditional seder
מײַן פֿעטער יונה האָט נישט געהיט שבת און כּשרות אָבער בײַם אָפּריכטן דעם סדר האָט ער געקלונגען ווי אַ פֿרומער ייִד
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.