Q What do you think of Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) being Jewish

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.): “Actually, I knew that before because his family and my family go back to the old country. His name was Macacawitz. We welcome him. It’s a big tribe.”

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.): “What is my reaction? My view of Jewish law is different from some of the other rabbis who say Allen is technically Jewish. If he doesn’t consider himself Jewish then I don’t consider him Jewish either.”

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho): “It doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t think a person’s religious beliefs ought to play in their qualifications to be a senator, a president or anything else. I think Jack Kennedy put that to rest when he got elected president.”

Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.): “I have two words: Oy vay.”

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.): “I welcome him to the tribe. I don’t have to agree with someone’s politics. Being Jewish is not about politics. I’m glad he discovered his roots [but] being Jewish is not only what you are, it’s what you feel.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.): “He certainly doesn’t identify himself as Jewish. He used the word aspersion. I would have thought he would have regarded it as something to be proud of.”

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.): “If he thinks it was painful to learn that his mother was Jewish, wait for the circumcision.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.): “He’s not Jewish. Listen, according to Rabbinic law he may be Jewish, but if he is a practicing whatever-he-is, a Presbyterian; obviously he has no feeling for it.”

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.): “I wish him a very happy New Year. Yom Kippur [started] Sunday night. It’s a day of atonement. It might be a good opportunity for him to think about some of the things he said. He might want to say something to the person he called Macaca.”

Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.): “I just find his reaction very strange. I find it ironic for someone who has pushed a candidacy because of his Christianity turns out he’s Jewish. It may break up a couple of assumptions he has about the world.”

Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.): “I don’t have an opinion. His choice of religion is up to him.”

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.): “I don’t have a reaction to Sen. Allen being Jewish.”