I am sure I have asked this before. So please be patient, since I still don't have the answer.
Why are American Jews predominantly democrat/liberal when the American right in general and President Bush in particular are the best friends Israel has ever had ?
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
There is no rational basis for it that I can think of other than that a democratic administration was in charge of fighting WWII. That was the dawn of 20th century democratic party power, and it probably had a lot to do with Jewish support of democrats, and then liberals, and then socialists.
Some American Jews see the religious right as Jew-hating fanatics.
If you are raised by a Jewish mother, you grow up guilty.
Dennis Prager has written on this. See Jewish World Review. But there is more to it. Jews attend the "Best Universities"; That's the story right there. I was fortunate enough to have William Kristol as a professor for 2 seminars as a senior at Penn. Still, all History, Poli Sci. and Econ. majors, even Wharton, were trained to graduate as communists, and only a few of us have filtered it out since.
If I may be so bold to answer your question from my perspective, Jews see politics as separate from friendship. Their politics are based not on who is their friend, but on what they believe in. The are liberal primarily because they believe in freedom over state control as the state is the one who leads the way in pogroms of Jewish mass extinction.
Thats my guess, from living with them for years...
This question was given to Mark Levin on his radio program. My apologies to the Great One if I do not state his answer as well as he, but basically Mark said that they are Liberals first, and Jews second. In other words, they worship at the altar of Liberalism, not Judaism.
To that I might add an observation given to me by one of my college Sociology professors (a good professor, as I recall): Judaism is not merely a religion. It is both a religion and an ethnicity. There are Jews (ethnic) who are, per se, not Jewish (religious). They may not have stepped into a Synagogue in 40 years. Can they be portrayed by the media as "Jews"? Of course. But they are not religious. These Jews probably feel much more at home with Liberalism than with their "co-religionists."
Old saying, "They live like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans." I know young Jewish families who thought it was anathema to vote for Bush's re-election.
It's rather complex but I think you have to look at it generation by generation and social movement by social movement.
Nearly all immigrants embraced FDR and that included the Jews and their children who came over before (or were raised through) the Great Depression. They shared common cause on the New Deal and, FDR was (relative to today) a conservative that Jews from Europe, Catholics from Ireland and Italy could embrace. On the principles he led us into a righteous war which they supported.
The children of those immigrants - the boombers - with the New Deal already a part of society, turned to social activism. They made common cause with other minorities, supported equal rights, civil rights etc. Understandable, really. To a degree politics confused them as those they supported really simply used the issues without really seeking realistic long term solutions. The southern democrats were not the same as the northern democrats at all. But since most Jews were and are cosmopolitan (city dwellers) those they supported were democrats (they would not have supported most southern democrats). Here it becomes tricky at that time you couldn't really associate an ideology with a party. Most democrats were segregationists, so there was fighting within the party at that time. It was a fight within the party and they took a side inside that party (eventually winning) and became embedded thereafter. They worked within the party and won, so that is the basis of their attachment to it.
Bush Sr. set back the GOP's relationship with the Jewish voters. Reagan had begun to make strong inroads but there was a big distrust of Bush Sr. which turned into distaste during his term. He came across as elitist, which Jews don't tend to like, and then in office came down strong against Israel while his Secretary of State essentially said "F the Jews". No surprise then that over 90% of the Jews voted for someone other than Bush Sr. in his run for a second term. I personally voted for Bush Sr. in 1988, I voted for Browne in 1992.
There remains skepticism about making common cause with Fundamentalist Christians. I think over time this concern will erode as replacement theology erodes. But among the Generation X Jews there is a growing tendency to see the GOP favorably.