Cantor’s wife…once told The Washington Post that she was shocked, on their first date, when her future husband revealed his affinity for the GOP. “I said, `I thought you were Jewish?’ I’d never met someone who was Jewish and Republican,” she remembered telling him.

When Virginia Republican Eric Cantor becomes House Majority Leader next month, he will become the highest-ranking Jewish member of Congress in history.

And for many Jewish advocacy groups in Washington, it’s a mixed blessing.

Cantor is a wonky yet telegenic lawyer from the Richmond suburbs who keeps a kosher home with his accomplished wife and three children. Colleagues on Capitol Hill call him a principled, understated politician with a good sense of humor and a knack for fundraising—he can top $1 million in a single evening.

In the new Republican-controlled House, Cantor, 47, will be second in line only to Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner. But while no Jewish lobby questions Cantor’s commitment to Israel, they generally share little of his domestic policies.

“His conservatism simply doesn’t appeal to mainstream Jewish voters,” said Tom Dine, the former head of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential pro-Israel lobby. “Poll after poll shows that the American Jewish community is progressive, and a smaller percentage is concerned about only Israel.”

Where most Jewish groups in Washington lobby for a strong social safety net, abortion rights and a strict separation of church and state, Cantor is most often on the opposing side. And even on Israel, some Jewish political leaders say, Cantor’s approach is too aggressive for Israel’s good.

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