To abandon Obama, secular Jews must abandon the belief structure which marks their culture. Perhaps more than any other ethnic group, American secular Jews have provided the intellectual framework which defines modern liberalism and the Democratic Party. Barack Obama personifies the very culmination of policies which Jews have advocated for generations.
There are many historic influences which have flowed together to create the American Jewish experience including pogroms in Russia, discrimination in America, diaspora, ghetto experience, a biblical injunction to leave the world better, a long tradition of socialism, and last but by no means least, an intellectual honesty, some might say a tendentiousness, in the rabbinical tradition which encourages disputation. In truth, one must acknowledge that there is also a degree of anti-evangelical bigotry which shapes the Jewish reaction to people like Sarah Palin. That same collection of influences makes it inevitable that such people would regard Barack Obama the very embodiment of their values.
