Posted on 11/01/2004 2:16:04 PM PST by quidnunc
Once upon a time most American Jews were underprivileged, and most of them voted Democrat. Then their circumstances changed, but their political allegiances remained unaltered. Around 30 or 40 years ago there was a joke which said that American Jews live like Episcopalians (i.e., relatively rich, privileged people) but vote like Puerto Ricans.
The remark was a bit racist, perhaps, but it was essentially true. Everyone knew what it meant. Only it is not true anymore. Puerto Ricans, like other Hispanics, have moved on. They now vote in a pluralistic way in accordance with their developing economic interests, ethnic concerns, and views of what is good for America as a whole. In 2000, the Hispanic vote for George W. Bush was more than 50 percent greater than the Jewish vote.
This year American Jews remain as intransigent as ever. Jews, more than almost any other group in the US, are set to vote against Bush by large margins.
Polls indicate that 69% of Jews will vote Kerry tomorrow, and only 24% for Bush. And 3% will vote for Ralph Nader, the strongly anti-Israel independent candidate of Arab descent who, according to polls, commands less than half that support among non-Jewish Americans.
-snip-
Naturally, many Jews will vote on issues completely unrelated to foreign policy or their own economic status — issues of social justice, abortion, gay rights, and so on. But much more than usual, this is a foreign policy election. Right now, the right not to get your head chopped off seems more important than that of, say, gay marriage.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
L-rd have mercy on the Jews. We may be the only ethnic group in democratic history that is compelled to vote against its own self-interest, and even self-preservation. Whether it's finances, national security or the survival of the only Jewish state, the Republicans are good for it. But an estimated 75% of American Jews will nonetheless vote for John Kerry, a fact that caused my friend Steve — exasperated with his mother's political obstinacy — to conclude, "Please, if Hitler were running as a Democrat, she'd vote for him!"
So I ask anti-Semites of all political persuasions: Don't hate us because we're Jewish. Hate us because we're liberal.
After all, you sure as heck can't accuse us of dual loyalty: Kerry has the Jewish vote even in the face of George W.'s tried and true record on Israel, with his unequivocal, groundbreaking stance that dead Jews count as much as dead anybody else. No, most American Jews would rather hand the White House and the future of Israel back over to the party that showed us the way to Intifada 2, then declined to veto a UN resolution condemning Israel for provoking it.
Ah, but my people have mastered a mental trick to help get past inconvenient evidence and enable them to continue thinking inside the casket. Rather than associate the deteriorated situation in Israel with the Clinton years, they've taken to counting up the number of Jews killed since Bush's inauguration, and comparing the per-year numbers. Since Jewish deaths have indeed accelerated in recent years, it must be because of Bush policies (and not the Clinton-Albright jihad jump-start in the summer of 2000). Also to stay the course, my fellow tribesmen purposely don't see the forest for the bushes, trying to count up on one hand the instances of the administration's occasional half-hearted reprimands of targeted assassinations and incursions into terror camps. They sit on their haunches, ready to pounce on any Bush words that could justify their Democratic complacency and be construed to sell Israel down the river, forgetting that they sold it themselves in 1993.
Despite nearly four years of tangible, concrete and consistent action by George Bush affirming Jewish humanity — that quality that eight long years of Democratic leadership worked to strip us of — all that Jews needed to hear were the words "safe and secure Israel" at the Democratic Convention, and it was their green light to stay on track with a foregone conclusion. The fact that one day Kerry calls Israel's fence a security measure vital to the nation's self-defense, and the next day calls it a "barrier to peace" — depending on his audience — doesn't faze them. And if it does, they just block it out.
-snip-
(Julia Gorin in Jewish World Review, November 1, 2004)
To Read This Article Click Here
And sadly, American Jews idolize FDR, who refused to let millions of Jews emigrate to the U.S., leaving them to die in Nazi concentration camps, in spite of evidence that the Nazis were planning to kill them.
Israelies support Bush. American Jews who support Israel I think will vote for W this year - Kerry's "impediment to peace" comment about the Israeli wall should resonate.
I'm not sure I believe that Jews vote Dem by that high of a margin. I don't think a whole lot of jews voted for Clinton, especially the second time after he had Yassir "Death to Jews" Arafat over for tea and 'strumpets' in the Lincoln bedroom. Old Abe must have been doing 6000RPM in his casket.
you get who you vote for...
If they want to vote for the candidate who will allow Israel to collapse, then its their own fault.
there are many of us who "get it" and will be voting GWB. i notice that more and more Jews are coming "out of the closet" and admitting they are Repubs. the times they are a-changin'. who knows, maybe Ed Koch will be right and Jews may be the margin of victory for Bush!!! on to victory!
Hey, I have some really good Jewish friends who are in Palm Beach and they're definitely supporting Dubya. Of course, they emigrated here from Israel so they know the score.
Friends are always liabilities; sometimes it's worth it.
It is that whole Jesus Christ thing.
It really is amazing how steadfast the American Jewish community is when it comes to supporting Democrats.
Bush does everything within his power to protect Israel, reduces taxes on businesses and creates jobs, admonishes the Arab world for supporting terrorism, and the Jews in the United States consider him unfit to command. Unbelievable.
Ameican Jews repay Bush's good deeds, loyalty and unwavering support with a kick in the teeth at every turn. And you know what? After Bush is re-elected he will still do the right thing. That is what honorable, men of character do. My only request to Ameican Jews is: Why do you treat your friends so poorly?
I'd like to see breakdowns of the Jewish vote by congressional district. The Jewish population is heavily concentrated in a few states like New York, New Jersey, Connetticut, Massacusetts, Florida, and California. I know of quite a few Jews in my home town who support and give money to Republican candidates.
" Jews spitting on Christian priests in Jerusalem? It may sound surprising but in fact it's a common problem that priests don't generally complain about because little is done when they do and complaining may just make things work. Yes, chauvinism is alive and well in Israel. ..."
Roosevelt favored letting more Jews into the U.S., but Southern Democrat congressmen were completely opposed.
Why don't US Jews move on?
By TOM GROSS
Once upon a time most American Jews were underprivileged, and most of them voted Democrat. Then their circumstances changed, but their political allegiances remained unaltered. Around 30 or 40 years ago there was a joke which said that American Jews live like Episcopalians (i.e., relatively rich, privileged people) but vote like Puerto Ricans.
The remark was a bit racist, perhaps, but it was essentially true. Everyone knew what it meant. Only it is not true anymore. Puerto Ricans, like other Hispanics, have moved on. They now vote in a pluralistic way in accordance with their developing economic interests, ethnic concerns, and views of what is good for America as a whole. In 2000, the Hispanic vote for George W. Bush was more than 50 percent greater than the Jewish vote.
This year American Jews remain as intransigent as ever. Jews, more than almost any other group in the US, are set to vote against Bush by large margins.
Polls indicate that 69% of Jews will vote Kerry tomorrow, and only 24% for Bush. And 3% will vote for Ralph Nader, the strongly anti-Israel independent candidate of Arab descent who, according to polls, commands less than half that support among non-Jewish Americans.
Yet the situation is even more lopsided than it first appears: What the overall figure doesn't take into account is that the hundreds of thousands of American Jews from the former Soviet Union – who know a thing or two about oppression, terrorism, anti-Semitism, and the meaning of freedom – are overwhelmingly pro-Bush. Only 14% say they will back Kerry.
Naturally, many Jews will vote on issues completely unrelated to foreign policy or their own economic status – issues of social justice, abortion, gay rights, and so on. But much more than usual, this is a foreign policy election. Right now, the right not to get your head chopped off seems more important than that of, say, gay marriage.
According to the polls, other Americans recognize this and, given the rise in global anti-Semitism, foreign policy concerns should be of exceptional importance to Jews. If they have not read Bin Laden's key 1998 text Jihad against Jews and Crusaders, issued by The World Islamic Front, they should. Ignoring it is as foolish as it would have been to ignore Mein Kampf.
If American Jews think they are immune to this, they are mistaken. For many in the Muslim world are convinced that when al-Qaida chose the Twin Towers as their target, it was because in their anti-Semitic world view, Jews control American finance: They saw the Towers as a Jewish target and aimed to kill as many Jews as possible.
Support for Israel is "a very important factor" in their lives, say 74% of American Jews. Bush is generally regarded as not only the most pro-Israel president ever but probably the most pro-Jewish one as well, his recent signing of the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act being only the latest example.
Yet, even though Kerry has called Yasser Arafat "a statesman," has criticized Israel's security fence as a "barrier to peace," and has not noticeably protested any UN actions against Israel, according to polls more Jews may well vote Kerry than Palestinian-Americans will.
When Bush ran for president four years ago, there was little to indicate that he would grasp the necessity for reform in the Arab world as an American interest, an Israeli interest and, most importantly, as an Arab interest. It is clear that he does now.
It should be equally clear that many of the Clinton administration's policies were unwise not only in terms of American national interest but also from a humanitarian viewpoint; in particular, the extraordinary appeasement of Arafat and the red-carpet treatment given to him while he violated every single one of the Oslo accords, the failure to take al-Qaida seriously, and the failure to exert any kind of meaningful pressure on regimes in Riyadh, Damascus, and elsewhere.
Yet there is every indication that the foreign policy team Kerry would assemble, should he win, would comprise many of the same people who made such glaring mistakes in the 1990s.
This is why some major Jewish Democratic Party figures, such as former New York mayor Ed Koch, have endorsed Bush. Why Al Gore's running mate, Joe Lieberman, hinted last month that Bush might be better for Israel. And why the leading liberal journalist Martin Peretz wrote last week, "A President Kerry would be a disaster for Israel."
Whereas non-Jewish Americans I have spoken to in recent months are split roughly 50-50 in their voting preferences, almost all my Jewish American friends are backing Kerry.
Why? I asked an American Jewish friend who lives in London. "Because Kerry is for human rights," was the answer. Apparently he did not know until I told him that it was Bush who had made possible one of the biggest repatriations of refugees in history (more than three million Afghans have returned home thanks to his policies) or that the Taliban regime that Bush removed crushed homosexuals to death as a matter of policy. Nor was he aware of how many people had died under Saddam.
Given past voting habits, one would not, perhaps, expect Jews to vote overwhelmingly for Bush. But that in 2004 so few of them still seem to appreciate who their true allies now are is surprising.
The writer is a former Mideast foreign correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph.
Great article. Had a freshman student in a elective history course last week. Yarmulke, "Support the IDF" tee-shirt and biggest d***n Kerry button I ever saw. When I laughingly told him he was a walking contradiction, he went spastic and yelled "What has George Bush DONE FOR ISRAEL??!!" I tried to explain (my mistake) and he started spouting off about how Clinton had brought "peace". Guess my friends in the IDF are just confused.
This election has convinced me that Robert Heinlein was right about who should vote(the book, not the movie).
American Jewish leaders were also opposed, fearing that increased Jewish immigration would cause an upsurge in anti-Semitism.
These are the same Jewish leaders who counseled the government not to allow the Jews the Germans shipped out on the USS St Louis into the US.
This topic was covered extensively on FR. To make a long story short, it ain't so - the spitters are few and condemned by their fellows, and the ones being spit on are a virulently anti-Semetic sect (name escapes me) who are aligned with Arafat and the PLO.
Next time, you may wish to consider the source - websites devoted to atheist activism aren't all that likely to be unbiased towards devout Jews.
I guess this explains Lieberman being a Democrat, even though he's more Conservative than Arlen Specter.
Because they are the only entrenched "immigrant" group which refuses to stop voting like immigrants.
For example, when the Irish came to the USA to flee the Potato famine of the 1840's, the Irish voted democratic and for over 100 years, they voted democratic. Once they stopped pining for Ireland, the Irish started to assimilate into their new home country. That assimilation also helped made their voting patterns more diverse.
Even though in places like Boston, they talk alot about the "Irish Catholic" vote, in a country with over 40 million people of Irish descent, I don't that they consitute the monolithic voting block they once did, even as recently as 40 year ago.
However, American Jews have never taken off those "immigrant" clothes, even those who can trace their American ancestory almost to the Mayflower. They can go to Israel at any time, they have somewhere to go if America get's bad. Where do Americans, who don't have automatic Israeli citizenship go?
The US Jewish/Pro-Kerry voting block is very disappointing. I am starting to conclude that those pro-Kerry Jews don't care about either the country of their birth (USA) or the country of their people (Israel). They don't care about themselves. I think they might be suicidal lemmings taking the rest of us down with them.
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