Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Chairman of the European Jewish Association and one of Europe’s most prominent Jewish leaders, was right to be outraged. When CNN’s Elex Michaelson said Jon Ossoff “may not read as Jewish” as Josh Shapiro, he wasn’t making a mistake; he was stating a premise the political world has been operating on for three years. The apology came quickly, but the remark was not a gaffe. It was the public version of a quiet practice: grading Jewish identity for political usefulness.

Josh Shapiro performs his Jewishness publicly, kosher, Shabbat, day school, a recovered Torah at his swearing-in and presents a curated, J-Street-aligned Zionism that fits comfortably inside Democratic politics.

Jon Ossoff carries his Jewishness quietly, the ship’s manifest, the Tanakh, the family in Israel and his support for Israel are unadvertised enough that cable news can’t read them. But politically, they are identical: J-Street safe, two-state, Netanyahu-critical.

One performs a politically correct Zionism that........

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