Posted on 09/30/2004 8:36:26 AM PDT by nypokerface
MERCER ISLAND, Wash -- Two prominent, long-time Democrats have said they will vote in November for President Bush: One is United States Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia; the other is former New York Mayor Ed Koch.
My experience as a lecturer and talk radio host assures me, however, that they will not be alone. Enormous numbers of Jewish voters, all long-time Democrats and more, I believe, than current polling indicates, will also be voting for President Bush. Let me tell you why.
No country has been a more stalwart friend of Israel than the United States. No other society has been more hospitable to its Jewish population. It is hard to think of another nation in which a Jewish community has enjoyed a longer period of tranquility and affluence.
The bond that has always existed between the United States and its Jews is so conspicuous that it has even attracted foreign attention. Hundreds of books have been published in Europe, Asia and many Islamic countries, chronicling the extraordinary prominence that Jews enjoy in the United States.
Many of these popular volumes are not necessarily anti-Semitic, as one might think; they are, rather, the result of a simple observation that would be clear to anyone who was not a recent immigrant from Patagonia: U.S. Jews are disproportionately represented among our country's elite.
There have been instances of anti-Semitic discrimination in the United States, yet it seems churlish to harp on them, given the many Jews who can still remember the terror of the frequent Saturday night pogroms in Eastern Europe -- not to mention what it might have been like to have been a German Jew during the period 1930-45.
Alongside the heart-stopping uncertainty of daily life that most European Jews experienced over the past few hundred years, getting denied admission by a Jewish medical school quota or not being allowed to buy a home in some choice neighborhood hardly ranks as a serious problem. Life has certainly been good for U.S. Jews.
For 2,000 years, in different countries and at different times, the wandering Jew found a resting place for his weary feet, some more hospitable than others.
Many, however, were downright painful but were, thankfully, only temporary. After two world wars left the United States as the mightiest economic and military power in the world, its Jewish community achieved maturity and emerged as the healthiest and wealthiest of all Jewish communities.
The hospitality that Jews have enjoyed in the United States is unparalleled in recent times and perhaps even in all time.
One explanation often advanced to account for the hospitality enjoyed by U.S. Jews has been the size of the American Jewish community along with its economic and political influence. In other words, people in the United States have been good to Jews because Jewish power has allowed them no alternative.
In addition to demonstrating astonishing ingratitude, this argument is as wrong headed as claiming that switching on streetlights causes the sun to set. Even a moment's humble reflection reveals that U.S. Jews have achieved prosperity and political prominence precisely because of the security and tranquility they have enjoyed here for so many years.
A valuable clue in the search for an explanation of the United States' fondness for Judaism, is that it comes most often from precisely those politicians who can hardly be said to preside over major centers of Jewish culture. For example, it is hard to make the case that former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., supported Israel in order to placate the large number of Jewish voters in North Carolina.
No, clearly something more profound lies behind several hundred years of affinity and friendship between the United States and Judaism. The question is, what?
The real answer is that in the history of the world, only two nations were founded on an idea rather than on a land. Judaism was founded on monotheism and the United States on freedom. Furthermore, there are only two peoples that foreigners can join with all subsequent rights.
Just try, for example, to become accepted as a naturalized Englishman, Frenchman, Swiss or Japanese. If one becomes a naturalized citizen of the United States or converts to Judaism, one becomes a full American or a full Jew with all rights, save one: a convert to Judaism cannot become king, and a naturalized American cannot attain the presidency.
Shortly after the founding of both the U.S. people and the Jewish people, each experienced a horrendous civil war. Both the war between the North and the South and the war between Judah and Israel were over moral issues and both wars allowed their respective people to continue to grow and prosper.
Only two countries, the United States and Israel, open their doors to immigrants from around the world who share their ideals. Both countries are unique in that their populations mostly comprise immigrants.
The founders of the United States, the Pilgrims, were called "separatists." Similarly the early Jews, Abraham and his family, were called "Ivrim" -- Hebrews, or in English - "separatists."
Early arrivals in both America and Israel found the lands to be populated by pagans who knew nothing of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; in one case, American Indians and in the other, Canaanites. Both people built their capital cities in a manner designed to guarantee equal access for all.
Neither Washington nor Jerusalem belongs exclusively to any one state or tribe.
The intrinsic similarity between these two great nations was not lost on the early Americans. Neither is it lost on their descendants, so many of whom still share a devotion to the Judeo-Christian principles that fueled our earliest visions. Robert Frost's "The Gift Outright" and John Winthrop's "City on the Hill" are only two of the many examples that reflect awareness of this deep spiritual bond that links Judaism and the American dream.
If the United States' support for Israel were based entirely on political expediency, that support would originate from the State Department. It does not. Instead. it springs from the heartland of the United States as a reflection of the deep commitment to Judeo-Christian values felt by so many people in the United States. President Bush personifies that commitment which is starting to make so many Jews feel comfortable with his party.
Yes, and your point is well taken, for sure, and thanks!
bttt
Jewish people are overachievers but in specific areas and it is those areas which get Jews in trouble.
Jews are commanded to "be a light unto the nations."
A whole lot of nations don't like a light shined upon what they are doing, don't want their power abridged, and certainly don't have democratic tendencies.
Judaism stands for the individual and his relationship to God first and then to his fellow man. Jews are commanded to live a certain way and to be respectful of their fellow man.
It is this regard for the individual that is so galling to those with a hunger for power over their fellow man.
I think very few nations have democratic tendencies. As far as I can see, the concept of democracy is normally used as a justification for increasing the power of the state. The Democratic Party is a good example of an entity which does exactly that. If Jews have a high regard for the individual, and I have no reason to doubt that lovely thought, their historic identification with leftist politics is ironic at best.
It's not the numbers (though that could make a difference in a tight race, especially in New York or Florida) but the money. A person might be running for Congress in a district with a zero number of Jews, but if she is deemed "anti-Israel," Jewish organizations will generously supply her opponent with funds.
Why is everyone so concerned about where the Jewish vote goes?
It must be for reasons of moral validation.
I don't think so.
Are these "offensive comments" the truth, though? As wise person once noted that a bigot was a sociologist practicing without a license.
Some of the offensive posts contain remarks that are right on the money, sadly. But it is not the truth within them that makes them offensive.
All groups have a right to support a candidate who supports their views.
For some reason, when Jews do this, the other side cites it and expresses outrage.
Exactly. That statement is from this article posted on Freerepublic. I am surprised an article like that is permitted here.
No argument about Horowitz: he is great, but sadly, a distinct minority. And, I don't know how or why anti-semitism compels someone to join the Communist party or fight for the Commies in Spain. It's fine to be for FDR...it is not fine to be a Red.
When Jewish political sympathies start to fall more in line with the rest of U.S. society I will finally believe that the pernicious old commies and their spawn have been won over.
Jews attracted to communism were attracted to theoretical communism, in my opinion. They thought it would be fairer and in a communist society Jews could finally fit in and be accepted by the larger society. They believed everyone would be treated the same and the terrible pogroms pumped up against them every Easter would end because the state would not support, promote, or encourage religion. They also believed the power of the state would protect them.
We see that in practice a communist state is even more oppressive and dangerous than an autocratic one.
You can't begin to understand the attraction until you, as a people, have lived for centuries in abject fear.
Paul Johnson does a fairly good job of explaining all this far better than I can in his histories.
I am well-aware that many of the U.S. Jewish Communists of the 1930s-40s-50s were immigrants from Czarist Russia and its history of pogroms. This propelled a lot of Russian Jews to support the Russian revolution (e.g. Trotsky). So, I can understand how some immigrants from Russian in that period might be anti-Czarist. But one can be anti-Czarist without being a Communist (e.g. Kerensky).
It is now 2004...almost a century since those with memories of pogroms immigrated. Their ancestors have become among the most affluent and influential in the entire nation. Capitalism and the freedom of America has made that possible. Yet, descendants of these immigrants still cling to the Left. I just don't get it.
Oops. I said "ancestors." I meant "descendents."
America has always had a special relationship with Israel and with the Jewish people.
I believe it stems, in large part,because America was founded by people fleeing from religious persecution. This identification with the Pilgrims and Old Testament Jews carried on to the Founders. America "the new Jerusalem" is a theme in American thought from the inception of the country.
Israel is the same. A country founded to give protection and a home to religiously persecute people.
The Holocost reinforced this.
The Left is a sliding scale that goes from mild socialism and a desire for "social justice" all the way to the extreme end, communism.
Spare me. What the heck does "social justice" mean? Is it just that one U.S. citizen has to pay more for the rights of citizenship than another? Is it just that the son of a white West Virginia coal miner (with a 4.0 average in HS) has less status than the daughter (with a 2.5 HS average), of a black millionaire, in getting in to college? Is it just that struggling American workers pay higher taxes to pay for the health care of illegal immigrants in public hospitals? Is it just to American citizens that poll workers cannot check the IDs of voters for citizenship or double voting? Is it just to a little baby girl, three hours away from being born, to have her brains sucked out of her head? Is it just that a Jewish storeowner doesn't have the right to refuse service to a thug wearing a Nazi armband? Is it just that Catholic Charities doesn't have the right to refuse to pay for abortions for its employees? Is it just that a single mother in the ghetto isn't allowed to own a gun to protect her family from the miscreants in the streets? These, and a whole host of issues are what the LEFT would term "social justice." I call it liberal hypocrisy.
When the Surpeme Court defined pornogrpahy it essentially said "you know it when you see it." The same with LEFTISTS. You know them when you see them. These are people who want "justice" only for their favored groups, or only as long as it suits their agenda. And, of course, none of the rules applies to them.
I concur with your view. A small shift in the Jewish vote will help in battleground states like Wisconsin and Michigan.
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