Replies

This is the "eternal" question. I looked at a post I made on this subject from December 2000 and I'm posting it below. I don't think there's much that's changed over the last year that has changed this. I was talking to a jewish friend yesterday who's going to vote for Kerry, despite having a very right-wing republican father. For her, this election is about more than Israel or terrorism. She's voting for Kerry because she buys into the line that GWB is bad for civil liberties, and without civil liberties, the jews won't survive in America. But, perhaps the biggest reason she'll vote for Kerry is that she "can't stand" George Bush. Since I just can't stand Kerry, it's hard to argue with her visceral reaction.

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