Allen Says He Embraces His Jewish Ancestry

Bloggers, some of whom are on Webb's staff, spent yesterday writing furiously about the debate question and Allen's answer. "What does Allen have against Jews?" one headline read on a national liberal blog.

"Introducing religion at all into the debate was inappropriate. It makes no difference what anybody's religion is," Wadhams said.

Wadhams also accused Webb's campaign of mailing an anti-Semitic flier to Virginia voters during the state's Democratic primary this year. That flier depicted Webb's Jewish opponent, Harris Miller, with money coming out of his pockets.

"They have been continuing that anti-Semitic strategy through their paid bloggers," Wadhams said.

Webb spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd called that charge "completely false." She said the flier was not anti-Semitic and declined to comment about Allen's Jewish heritage.

"We are in the race for Senate to talk about ideas, issues and what's best for Virginia," she said. "That's all we are here to do."

In the statement issued yesterday, Allen called Fox's questions "especially reprehensible" and "deeply offensive." And he confronted questions about why he did not know about his heritage sooner.

"Some may find it odd that I have not probed deeply into the details of my family history, but it's a fact," he said. "Whenever we would ask my mother through the years about our family background on her side, the answer always was, 'Who cares about that?' "

Staff writer Robert Barnes and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.