Posted on 11/23/2011 8:11:14 AM PST by tedbel
Ted Belman. Medved nails it when he says"The answer is that distinctive religious attitudes among Jews play a greater role in shaping voting behavior than ideology, education levels, income, or any sense of ethnic solidarity.[..]
"The voting behavior of American Jews conforms closely to the preferences of the irreligious and the unaffiliated precisely because so many of them are, in fact, theologically unaffiliated.
He goes on to say that Jews "cringe" at the thought of a believer in Jesus Christ becoming President. They will never get in bed with Christ believers no matter how much they love and want to protect Israel. This is in fact visceral for them. Secular Jews have no trouble embracing Muslims, who hate and kill Jews, but don't believe in Jesus Christ.
Will this change? No. Will the GOP change as suggested by Medved? No.
Christians will not understand this reaction because for them JC represents love and all that's good in the world. The Jews have been rejecting Jesus for 2000 years. The reality is that the Jews never accepted that Jesus was the messiah. It was a Christian thing to accuse the Jews of rejecting Jesus as the messiah and thus the Christians set the narrative. The Christians also justified their religion by re-interpreting the scriptures to conform to their developing theology. The Jews see this as historical revisionism or identity theft or conversion (taking someone's else's property and treating it as their own).
Christians will no doubt blame the Jews for their visceral reaction, rather than look to themselves as the cause of it.
Column: How not to win the Jewish vote By Michael Medved
If Republicans hope to draw Jewish support , they must first confront the real reasons Jews vote so differently from other Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at israpundit.com ...
It’s like asking why is the sky blue.
They just do.
It doesn’t matter that Obama is a Muslim and hates Israel.
Jews will continue to vote for him in huge numbers in 2012.
So, all Christians have to do to win them over, is stop being Christian?
Brilliant!
I honestly thought that, just as black men are generally stronger than white men, Jews are generally smarter than the other races.
I may have to revise that thinking.
“Mama always said ‘stupid is as stupid does’.”
Obama was more “religious” than McCain. When was the last time McCain visited a Christian church? While many people may like the version of Christianity of that church, the fact is Obama specifically identified with it, and regularly attended services there. I don’t ever recall McCain mentioning Christianity or identifying with it.
Jewish people who are actually Jewish don’t show the same voting preference of ‘secular’ Jewish people.
It seems that ‘secular’ Jewish people vote the way most other secular people do.
So the problem doesn’t seem to be that they are Jewish - but that ‘too many’ Jewish people are secular.
Reality is that in my experience, there are only two issues, sometimes three where that is the case. Abortion and gay marriage. Sometimes gambling (which I have no problem with, many churches have Bingo and Vegas Tents), but that issue has strange bedfellows.
I never use religion when arguing abortion. I call it murder for convenience. Atheists oppose murder. As far as gay marriage goes, I'd actually like to see government separate from marriage. If two adult homos want to call themselves something, I don't care. I just don't want to sanction it. Other than that, leave the kids alone.
I don't think that's too much to ask.
Ridiculous. It has nothing at all to do with Jesus. They voted for democrats and Obama who professed to be a Christian since the beginning.
They don’t trust republicans for the same reasons blacks don’t trust republicans. The democrats have fooled them into thinking the republican party is racially aligned against them and we’re a bunch of racists. It’s a subconscious thing.
Hatreds these days are so subtle - even among victims
They rejected and reject Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh (see 1 Timothy 3:16). They may be children of the flesh, but they are not the "children of the promise" (see Romans 9[:8] and Galatians 3 [all])
Jesus said it clearly in John 8:19 -- "Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father. And later in John 3:42 -- "If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do."
Some might argue that Christians and Jews (and Muslims, Mormons etc.) worship the same God. However, the Bible corrects this error in 1 John 2:22,23 -- "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father; but he that acknowledgeth the Son, hath the Father also."
The enmity the Jews have for Christians has its seed from the beginning.
Medved is more right than wrong IMO. Nonetheless, the GOP is largely made up of Christians and will remain focused on the concerns of conservative Christians when is comes to its political positions on many issues. If others wish to embrace this generally socially conservative orthodoxy, then they are more than welcome in the conservative camp.
It is not only in the US that the secular Jewish populus votes liberal but with the exception of Israel it is a global phenomenum.They always balk at the more conservative candidate.I think it is not so much a notion of religion of the candidate as it is a notion of their wrongheaded collective ideal of social justice and economics.
Why did you post this story twice?
He goes on to say that Jews "cringe" at the thought of a believer in Jesus Christ becoming President.
Beck played some clips from people at one of the Occupy camps. One guy said that Jews have been driven out of 100 countries around the world and that they should be driven out of America too.
Jews need to think hard and long about who their friends really are.
Someone who is Jewish and not a convert is usually Jewish by blood, usually Ashkenazi or Sephardi. Even many atheists identify with the bloodlines. They don't identify as "German" or "Russian" because they wern't exactly recognized as such by the leaders in those countries in much of history.
Among Catholics, you'll have otherwise agnostic or "non religious God believers" identify as "Catholic" because of family. It's almost like an "ethnic" Catholic in a way. How many of those damn politicians who are supposedly "Catholic" often are Irish, Italian, Mexican, or less often German. Kennedy, Pelosi, Dodd, Schauer, Leahy.
From what I've seen, many Protestants outside of Lutherans aren't tied to a particular denominations as much as the local church itself.
I don't believe Medved said that. It is nasty and divisive and the author should be ashamed.
Christians will no doubt blame the Jews for their visceral reaction, rather than look to themselves as the cause of it.
I’m not at all convinced by Medved’s article. It is the strong faith in “social justice” that leads American Jews to vote Democratic in elections. It is a religion to them - and the idea that if Republicans invite Mormons (aren’t they Republicans, anyway?) and Muslims into the party - Jews will suddenly vote R is ridiculous.
They're smart enough to know the difference between someone who sincerely professes Christ and someone who uses his or her Christianity as a campaign tool.
Jesus, Himself, said, "not all who say, 'Lord!, Lord!', will get into Heaven."
He says it somewhere. I'm not sure where. And I may have paraphrased a little bit.
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