Posted on 01/05/2007 2:34:10 PM PST by shrinkermd
A record number of Jewish members will enter Congress Thursday, but more remarkable are the unparalleled positions of power they will hold on committees related to Israel, many local Jewish activists say.
Six new Jewish legislators will be joining 37 familiar faces as the 110th Congress convenes, making the total the highest-ever, according to Doug Bloomfield, a former legislative director for AIPAC.
"It's unprecedented that there have been so many [Jews] in so many positions of leadership in both houses," Bloomfield said, using a Jewish simile for how that fact will affect support for Israel: Like chicken soup, it won't hurt...
...Plus, Jews - who voted overwhelmingly Democrat in the November election (87 percent, according to exit polls) - often see more eye-to-eye with Democratic members on domestic issues and have strong personal relationships with them, according to Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council...
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Bill Kristol is a conservative? Who'd have known? All this time I was fooled into believing he was a McCainiac loving moderate.
Probably the most humourless post of the decade. We all thank you too much!
Please help me understand this. The Democrats consistently undermine Israel and treat the Arab terrorists and Arab terrorists states as legitimate entities. What is wrong with the Jews in this country? A Jew voting for the Democrats is a death wish. I do not understand what goes on in the body politic of the Jewish faith.
I've spent time with hunderds of Jews of all ages, spanning more than a decade and not once did I ever witness or feel hated from a single one of them. And my Luthernism was certainly known to many of them. And I look like your quiessential original nazis. And cannot say likewise for mny other classifications of people. I've definately felt by some and witnessed against others.
Tradition ia a hard thing to break and older folks are more set in their ways. And the argument about public display of other religion is a valid one from my experience. It may well be a cultural taboo thing that helps hold many to the democrat party like other single issue voters. Christians want it, Jews don't.
ping
"More LIBERAL NON_OBSERVANT Jews elected to Congress; not good news for Israel."
Let's call a spade a spade. A liberal non-practicing Jew is about as Jewish as Ted Kennedy is Catholic.....
I'm lazy to Google tonight. Can someone explain to me WTF is a 'Ba'hai'?
Too often republicans on the right come across as mean spirited and uncaring about the plight of the least among us.
In a way that concern is justified but there is a bigger issue now and the jewish community hasn't arrived at the realization that they are in grave danger along with the rest of us.
Did you ever listen to the right snidely referring to the President's efforts to force education reform onto the NEA, or the effort to get RX drugs to seniors to better their quality of life. It's cheaper than hospitalization and devestating disability, but to most on the right, it's not their responsibility to care about the poor kids stuck in lousy schools, after all their kids are in good schools and/or private schools.
In the end, society is served by making an effort towards better education and better quality of life for elders.
Too many remember well James Baker's comment to Reagan....eff the jews, they don't vote for us anyway.
Sadly, the left is far far far more anti semitic than the right ever was.
Just a bit of my personal observations and conversations with my fellow jews.
When you have endless excoriating of the President from the right that he had no business funding education, it's not the government's job.
When you have Larry Kudlow, a former jew, snidely remarking that about all that money Bush wasted on education........when you have endless bashing from the right wing talk show hosts about the waste of money on education.....
Of course, their chldren are in private schools so the education of the poorest is of no concern.
It's a cultural thing, IMO.
The President didn't get vouchers but he got a lot out of the NEA who fought and screamed against the NCLB program.
Just one thing I hear from other jewish families.....for what it's worth.
All three groups are disproportionately represented in the upper middle and upper income groups. In comparison, larger denominations or religions with a wider base of adherents come closer to parity between representation and proportion of the population. Catholics represent about 23% of the U.S. population, and some 29% of the Congress report themselves as being Catholics. Members of Baptist congregations are about 15.7% of all Americans, but Baptists represent 12.7% of Congressional representatives. Atheists, agnostics, and other nonbelievers are the most underrepresented, as 15% of all U.S. citizens adhere to no religion or are atheist/agnostic, yet only 1.1% of the Congress claims no religious affiliation.
American governmental offices tend to be filled with people who have the financial wherewithal to run for public office, as has been the case since the founding of the Republic. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, et. al., were hardly dirt farmers or urban workers. Jewish overrepresentation in Congress and other public offices is a result of their community's success in other fields of endeavor.
Very interesting post(s). Thank you for your insight.
as a newbie, what do "ping" and "bump" mean?????????
It's already happened.
Yet the greatest friend Israel ever had in the U.S. presidency is none other than George W. Bush. Go figure.
A ping is a "reply" to someone who might be interested. It makes the thread show up in the "new messages to you" at top left. A bump is a reply to keep a thread high in the recently-replied list, so it shows up prominently on the main page. Sometimes labeled bump to the top, abbreviated BTTT. It's a kind of tip of the cap -- a way of saying I have nothing to add, but this is a good message and folks should see it.
I think you're wrong as to which is the key paragraph in Forman's piece. Here is the key paragraph, not because of what it says as a stand-alone pull-quote, but because of what it introduces in the balance of the article:
"Other issues matter to Jews as well. However, on these issues the two political parties stand diametrically opposed. These other issues are why Jews will vote in landslide proportions for Democrats this fall."
If this article is to be believed as to why American Jewish people vote they way they do (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), then most American Jewish people are Socialists. Plain and simple.
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