CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Jewish Paper in Editorial Quandary : Journalism: With three of the four U.S. Senate candidates belonging to that religion, the editors are doing some soul-searching before making endorsements.

At the proudly ethnic Jewish Heritage newspaper, one would expect California’s U.S. Senate elections to be a time for celebration. California has never had a Jewish U.S. senator, and now three of the four top Senate candidates are Jewish. At least one, and quite possibly two, of the Jewish candidates will win.

Instead the editors find themselves nearly paralyzed by the difficulty of choosing among the candidates.

Oh, the editors of the weekly paper got into a little backslapping, noting the Senate primary victories of Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer with a banner headline that left out the third Jewish candidate, Republican Bruce Herschensohn, and said, “The Year of the (Jewish) Woman.”

But, for the most part, the Senate elections have meant a time of soul-searching--and so far no endorsement--at the Heritage, which operates out of cramped offices south of downtown Los Angeles.

In the end, the endorsement of the Heritage may not mean much in terms of who will win the election. But to the highly opinionated and independent editors and writers of the award-winning Jewish newspaper, it just may be one of the most important decisions they make this year.

Heritage publisher Herb Brin complained, “This year has been more difficult. It should be easier, but it’s not.”

For one thing, the paper’s favorite, Westside Democratic Rep. Mel Levine, lost in the primary.

“It was a terrible loss for us,” said Brin at the mention of Levine’s name. “God, he carried our press card all the way through college, Berkeley and Harvard. All the way through college he wrote for us. He was like family.”

One of the problems for the Heritage is that none of the three candidates have struck a strong Jewish identity.

The Heritage’s front-page story proclaiming 1992 as the year of the Jewish woman noted, “If the Republican and Democratic Senate hopefuls are separated by ideology, gender and the state’s traditional north-south animosities, the fact that three out of four candidates are Jewish is considered little more than a biographical footnote. It is even doubtful that most of the non-Jewish 97% of the state’s 30 million inhabitants realize that Boxer, Feinstein and Herschensohn are Jews.”

Then the story went on to note that although Feinstein’s father was Jewish, her mother was not, and that the young Dianne attended “a Catholic convent school and Jewish Sunday schools” before she converted to Judaism at age 20.

Several years ago, Brin turned the editorial reins of the paper over to his son, Dan, now the paper’s editor. The two Brins sit on the editorial board of the Heritage, along with Bob Lupo, the executive editor; Tom Tugend, the senior associate editor; Rabbi William M. Kramer, a columnist, and Don Harrison, a political writer for the paper. They basically constitute the staff of the paper as well.

The paper boasts the highest-paid mail circulation--44,000--in the competitive world of the Los Angeles Jewish press.

The Heritage’s mission, as Herb Brin puts it, is to do everything it can to ensure “the survival of our people.”

And the endorsements aren’t taken lightly, even though many of the bigger-name political candidates don’t come around like they used to. Herb Brin loves to show visitors a chair in his office and boast, “Hubert Humphrey sat in that chair three times.”

Two years ago, the Heritage endorsed Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, over Dianne Feinstein, an endorsement that got some notice because Feinstein has such strong ties to the Jewish community.

This year may be different. Dan Brin, the editor, has a Feinstein bumper sticker on his car. But the elder Brin said he likes Republican John Seymour, the former state legislator appointed to fill two years of Pete Wilson’s term.

Though he is not Jewish, Seymour has a good voting record on loans and defense issues relating to Israel, Herb Brin said. “John Seymour has been a good friend,” the publisher added.

In the other race, executive editor Lupo complained that Boxer “is not a high-profile advocate of Israel,” in contrast to Herschensohn.

But there is widespread agreement among many on the paper’s editorial board that Herschensohn’s conservative stands on social issues run counter to the views of many Jews. Herb Brin said, “Herschensohn has no peer in support of Jewish interests in the Middle East, but we don’t go along with his positions on social programs.”

All of which makes these trying days at the Heritage.

“We are absolutely at a standstill on endorsements. We are kicking this around very, very deeply,” said Herb Brin.