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 ...
You mean that lefty who said that G-d's Laws are less important than just Doing Good Things and who said that eating non-kosher food doesn't defile a Jew even though G-d's Torah says it does?
I propose a trade: liberal Jews can have the free-thinking liberal from Nazareth, and Fundamentalist rednecks like me will take HaShem!
This hinges on Jesus Christ being the Messiah, or not.
I once had a similar experience. I was taking a class in Biblical Hebrew at a typical mainstream "liberal" university, and this Jewish kid (kippah and all) was wearing all these far left, new age, vegetarian, and "gay rights" buttons. And then he was shocked--shocked, I tell you!--by the professor's theory of the Torah's origin (he even challenged the professor by pointing out that the documentary hypothesis was contrary to the traditional Jewish understanding).
I looked at all pink triangles and animal rights buttons this guy was wearing and thought, "Oh really? Do tell!"
teh problem ws the worst jews of europe were the ones who came in large numbers at the turn of the last century. the most committed jews stayed in europe and largly perished. the small orthodox community in the us today is largely survivors.
during the holocaust the american community was AWOL. they were AWOL then theyu were largly awol during the soviet jewery issue of the 70's and would rather save roev.wade than israel.
the wrong 6 million.
In any event, the 12/2000 post is below:
Jews are not one-dimentional. Jews don't vote democratic, as one person said, because "daddy" told them so. Jews don't vote democratic because they are looking at FDR and thinking about the holocaust. Most jews vote democratic because those are the belief that they carry.
To be sure, and as I've said elsewhere, I'm one of the only jewish republicans I know (other than my mother and father). My wife and all my friends are democratic. Why? For lots of reasons.
Most jews are liberal, not inthe sense of democratic liberal, but in the sense of individual freedoms and entitlements. Most jews are pro-choice. Most jews have a deep care for tsdaka (ie, charity towards others) which the republican party doesn't get across. Many jews believe that "evangelical" christianity is an anathma (sp?), particularly in that many christians have always told jews that they will burn in hell for not believing in Christ. Many of these christians would be labeled conservative republicans. Many republicans believe that their should be prayer in school. Most jews realize that means *christian* prayer in school, and prior to Lieberman, shunned public displays of religion in public political or social life while preferring religion to be part of the home, not the school.
As for the argument that the republicans have been good for israel, there are two issues: 1) most jews consider themselves "jewish americans" as opposed to "american jews". Certainly, neither consider themselves "israelis". 2) IMHO, James Baker and GHWB did some very negative things for Israel, particularly in respect to forcing Shamir to come to "peace" terms that were detrimental to Israel, and some may consider to be the part of the problem we have today. Personally, my feeling is that most recent administrations have merely given lip service to Israel. Let's see is W *really* does move the embassy to Jerusalem.
There are many other reasons why jews sincerely belong to the democrats. Some from deep socialogical roots, others are a reaction to threats they see from many republicans. Personally, most of my beliefs follow closely with what the republicans stand for. However, I do think that many republicans, however inclusive the party tries to be, will continue to "lump" in jews with other minority groups that they are not a part of. There is NO simple reason why jews are democrats. For a group of people so against "spinning", its odd to me that that's exactly what some people are doing. Trying to give a 3 sentence explanation as to why jews are democrats is exactly the type of "spinning/sound bite" that we accuse others of doing.
Nobody should take this email as a flame or attack. I'm merely trying to convey a different point of view. Even this relatively long email is simplistic to some degree. That being said, it isn't appropriate to attempt to lump jews together as some homogeneous group all having the same reasons for doing what they are doing, or not having the brains to determine for themselves what they should believe in and just doing what their mommies and daddies told them.
145 Posted on 12/10/2000 08:50:11 PST by kazander
The author is almost assuming that "the poor" are better served by Democrats. A serious mistake in reasoning.
I disagree. When you have 75% of a segment of a population consistently voting on one side of the aisle, a "simplistic" explanation is the only one possible. Your arguments to the contrary are based on anecdotal evidence from a few friends and relatives.
As someone earlier, observant Jews vote overwhelmingly Republican while secular Jews (Jinos) vote -- not merely overwhelmingly but almost unanimously -- Democrat.
I'm glad you're with us on Bush and am happy to have you on our side and I'll raise a glass to you tonight, but to suggest that the above is sheer coincidence and that instead some bewildering array of complex reasons is responsible for these dice rolling the same demographic numbers over and over and over again, decade after decade, is just silly.
If you walk a mile down a highway and see a turtle on every fencepost, it wasn't the wind.
Most American Jews I know are self described atheists...so voting Kerry or Nader is a natural choice.
Go figure.
Anecdotally, you are exactly correct. Young Jews who remain identifiable as Jews are more likely to be religiously observant, and more likely to vote for political conservatives.
Two things are at work: First, Jews are assimilating, and as they do, they behave more like any other white Americans - vote more conservative. But they also disappear as identifiable Jews. Second, those who don't assimilate vote more conservative because it reflects their more religious outlook on life.
See an interesting view of declining Jewish liberalism at
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/jewishstudies/Haas%20Talk.htm
I have waited for many years and through many elections for Jews in America to take a patriotic stand, but, alas, they have not. I don't know what to make of that. It seems as if they have a need to betray the ones who have best supported them. I can remember when a persucuted journalist named Timmerman was given asylum in Israel. And it was only a year later that he was out campaigning against that government for its efforts to keep Israelis safe!
I'll bet he was a pot-smoker too.
American Jews were prevented in many ways from joining American society until quite recently. Now that that has changed, I have high hopes that American Jews will take off the "immigrant clothes" and find their way out of the "liberal" corral.
That is actually very deniable, although you are certainly correct that by far the most dangerous anti semites are to be found on the Left. Not to mention that leftist philosophy, by its nature, is more likely to give rise to state sponsored anti Semitism. There're still plenty of right wing anti Semites, though.
"The religious right extended the hand of friendship to Jews and they spit in their palms.
There is probably a perception that the hand bears evangelicism. The spitting analogy seems a little inappropriate to me.
i do not have any information to answer this question, only information to further add fuel to the fire. in the late 1800s the weather was extremely harsh in the southwest. the winter (of 1879?) was so harsh as to wipe out many herds. that was followed by a drought in the summer causing crop failure. a large disgruntled set of farmers, with ties to the kkk, or kkk-like organization, formed the populist movement. this shortly evolved to the people's party, which was fairly successful on a regional basis. the people's party continued with its openly anti-semitism ways. eventually realizing that the people's party would never be a national party, it merged with the democratic party, which accepted the open anti-semitic ideology. much of this ideology resurfaced during the depression during the depression, but was later suppressed.
He's more conservative than chaffee (RI) and perhaps some others as well.
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