[rmlew]

Many Democrats, whatever you may think of the rest of their politics, are very pro-Israel and vote consistently that way. If you want to win Jewish voters away from the Democratic Party you won't succeed by raising anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism as an issue. That charge simply won't stick to the majority of Democrats. Fritz Hollings and Cynthia McKinney are the exceptions, not the rule. There are also a few Republicans who are consistently anti-Israel in their votes.
Intellectual leftists are anti-Israel. The core activists of the future are anti-Israel. American Jews don't pay attention and all too many of their leaders care more aboutbeing securing their position in the leftist Juderaat than in leading Jews.

he big reason most American Jews won't vote Republican is a well justified fear of the Christian right. There is an element among conservative Christians (not the majority view by any stretch) who would want the U.S. to be a Christian country to the extent of seeing non-Christians and "nominal Christians" as an enemy and wanting to pretty much end the separation of church and state in the U.S. I realize that many evangelical Christians disagree with that view but that certainly is the fear that will keep Jews away from the Republican Party. Seeing Bill Frist at the anti-fillibuster
This is hysteria.
1. America before 1950 did not discriminate on Jews based on religion, but on ethnicity. This was no different than anti-Irish or anti-German practices.
2. Non-Christians are not the enemy of Evangelical and conservative Christians.
3. American Jews confuse American Protestants and Christians with 19th Century Europeans. this is not just anachrinistic, but stupid. It alienates groups that constantly reach out to Jews. Worse, it pushes Jews into alliances with the left who wish to destroy or redefine Judaism. Seriously, what is a bigger threat to Jews today, SEcularists and Reconstructionists or dead Cossacks?

[Polybius]

3. American Jews confuse American Protestants and Christians with 19th Century Europeans. this is not just anachrinistic, but stupid. It alienates groups that constantly reach out to Jews. Worse, it pushes Jews into alliances with the left who wish to destroy or redefine Judaism. Seriously, what is a bigger threat to Jews today, SEcularists and Reconstructionists or dead Cossacks?

Agreed.

I made that same point a while ago on an old thread:

********************

Although I don't go searching for an individual's religious roots, I do believe that their particular ancestral background can have a profound effect on their thinking.

I am not a Protestant but, by flipping through the cable channels, I have seen that the most fervently pro-Israel media in America today is the "Christian" cable station. They may have their religious reasons but they truly belive that the Jewish people are God's special people and that an enemy of the Jews is an enemy of God.

That may be totally at odds with the experience that an Ashkenazi's grandfather may have had back in Eastern Europe where pogroms were the national sport but that is the reality of Bible Belt Protestant America.

For that reason, it is my belief that Left-wing Ashkenazi Jews have done America and the Jewish people as a whole absolutely no good by bringing and nurturing their Eastern European political baggage to America.

It is my belief that Left-wing Ashkenzi Jews romanticize Communism because Communism was the political force that was going to overthrow the hated Czar and grandpa emmigrated to America before the family could actually experience Communism's evils like we Catholic and "Jewban" Cuban Americans did.

It is my belief that Left-wing Ashkenzi Jews see a Republican and they never get past the superficial labels of "Left" vs. "Right" as if European political labels coined during the French Revolution meant the same things across centuries and across the Old and New Worlds. So therefore, a Republican is "Right", as the Nazis allegedly were "Right", so voting Republican is is like voting to send Anne Frank to the gas chamber.

It is my belief that Left-wing Ashkenzi Jews see American Protestant Bible Belt Christians who takes their religion very seriously and they automatically see a mob of Eastern European peasants ready to get out their pitchforks and torches for the monthly pogrom.

It is my belief that Left-wing Ashkenzi Jews see America as if it were Czarist Russia or Czarist Poland or as if it were Nazi Germany and reflexive attack anything labeled "Right", "Christian" or "Conservative"......in short, they attack the traditional values of Old America when it was precisely those values that created the America that saved then from the revages of the Old World.

If Left-wing Ashkenzi Jews ever see the day that the values of Old America have been destroyed, they may be shocked to find an America much like the Eastern and Central Europe that great-grandfather escaped from. They may find that Politically Incorrect no longer means "practicing Christian" but maybe now means "Jew, either practicing or secular" as Political Correctness changes to be in harmony with "sophisticated" Europe and with militant Blacks and MEChA types.

If Left-wing Ashkenzi Jews ever see the day that the values of Old America have been destroyed, they will miss those American Bible Belt Protestants that believed those silly, superstitious ideas that God had made the Jews a special people and that an enemy of the Jewish people was an enemy of God.

82 posted on 03/06/2004 11:21:44 AM PST by Polybius