Rick Santorum Was in Jewish Frat

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who had an extremely strong second-place showing in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses and thus heads into next Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary with a lot of momentum, is a strict Catholic whose politics (pro-life, anti-gay marriage) are profoundly informed by his faith; he constantly references and credits God for his success. His backers may stress that his opposition to “violent Islamic extremism” will help him with the Jewish vote, but all of Santorum’s cultural cues come off as not-so-Jewish.

Except! Eagle-eyed reader A.A. notes (via Wikipedia) that while an undergraduate at Penn State, Santorum was a member of the Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity—it’s TEP, one of the Jewish frats. The Website of TEP’s Alpha chapter—the organization was founded at Columbia in 1910 by a group of Jewish men who were not allowed entry into the existing frats—confirms that Santorum joins Red Auerbach, Larry King, Jonas Salk, and Benny Goodman, as well as non-Jews including Dwight Eisenhower, as a TEP alum. One of us, one of us?

The History of Tau Epsilon Phi Fraternity [TEP]
Related: After a Child’s Death, a Religious Politician Became a Culture Warrior [NYT]
Wealthy Wyoming Invest Fund Manager Bankrolling Pro-Santorum Super PAC [MSNBC]
Earlier: Romney Loses By Not Winning Enough