Poll: Most Jewish voters want Obama to win
Monday, May 12, 2008 10:54:10 AM · 15 of 128
By way of full disclosure, I am an unalloyed goy so I might be wading into waters which are much deeper than I know as I make the following generalizations:
There is a scriptural commandment in the Torah and in those writings which exegete it, to go forth not to proselytize but to do good. As conservatives, we recognize there is a human tendency to want to do more good by grabbing the levers of government to organize the whole of society to do even more good.
If one is secular, and I think these statistics embrace secular Jews to a far greater degree than observant Jews, the temptation is almost irresistible to play God. If one is to play God, by definition, one seeks to play in the biggest playground of all and that is offered up along with control of the levers of government. Hence, Jewish secularists, like Christian secularists, as a group tend to be statists.
Jewish tradition going back to Russia is a tradition of socialism. For example, that tradition was carried over into the kibbutzim in Israel.
Jewish culture puts a premium on education and traditionally makes the fool the butt of jokes. This has been especially harmful to George Bush. In the modern American secular Jewish culture to announce oneself to be a Republican is the practical equivalent of taking a pratfall in front of all your neighbors and friends at the country club. Can you imagine a Jewish intellectual at a prestigious American University confessing to one and all that he supports George Bush? As a kid I can recall being told how stupid Dwight Eisenhower was and every subsequent Republican president in my lifetime has been called either stupid or clumsy or both -except Nixon who is just evil.
Liberalism is a substitute religion and therefore secular Jews, like secular goyim, gravitate to that political persuasion. Liberalism as a religion trumps religious affiliation of non- observant Jews and trumps cultural affinity to Jews who might otherwise be sympathetic to Israel.
Because of Europe's unfortunate history of programs, Jews traditionally are wary of aggressive Christianity and many secular Jews have not yet come to the understanding that American fundamentalist Christians are great friends of Israel and hence of Jews in general. There are other issues which Jewish history make Jews as a group favor one side as a matter of self-preservation. These include, for example, immigration. And they also include the end to segregation and civil rights for all races and creeds.
Barak Obama, of course, is the beau ideal of the black man, well-educated and articulate, who is on the right side of all of these issues and who embodies in his own person the inclusiveness which, if universally practiced, protects Jews as a class.
