[chajin]

The simpler answer is that they are largely Ashkenazi, ancestors from Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia, who came to America to avoid persecution but took their socialist/Marxist viewpoints with them. Discrimination kept them out of the GOP-connected businesses of the early and mid 20th century, and out of the first wave of movement to the suburbs in the 1950s. Those who made Aliyah almost all became supporters of Labor and its successors, and those who didn’t became mostly Reform, Reconstructionist, or nothing in terms of religion.

[ansel12]

This simplest answer is that they look at the party platforms and vote for the one that best represents their politics and goals for America.

[babble-on]

I think that’s basically right. They applied the logic of opposing Czarist oppression to opposing capitalist oppression, even as they (we) were succeeding at that capitalist game in a country that was so fundamentally different from the places they had left behind in terms of opportunity and social mobility.

[Engedi]

Thanks for the explanation, didn’t realize Jews were discriminated against by Republicans. I just often wondered why they voted Democrat when the KKK hated them and KKK was Democrats.

[BeauBo]

“they are largely Ashkenazi, ancestors from Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia, who came to America to avoid persecution but took their socialist/Marxist viewpoints with them. “

That is true demographically, but it also had a secondary effect. Since these immigrants came with a pre-existing subset of committed socialists/Marxists, that subset naturally targeted their own community for propaganda, recruitment and organizing. They knew the language and culture, lived in their communities and in their very families.

Also, the Democrat Party had (and still has) the practice of outreach and organizing efforts to new immigrant groups, especially in areas where they had big city political machines (notably NYC) to dole out benefits and favors.

Most immigrant groups lean Democrat for a generation or two, Jews longer than most.

[Engedi]

Jews need to be reminded how a Democratic President along with his cabinet members abandoned them during the Holocaust.

[SpaceBar]

The simpler answer is that they are largely Ashkenazi, ancestors from Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Russia, who came to America to avoid persecution but took their socialist/Marxist viewpoints with them...

bingo. Even Michael Savage has mentioned that.

[Praxeologue]

It is often said that eastern European, Russian and Ukranian Jews brought their socialism with them to America. Yet it didn't start that way. Jews were active in the Russian nihilist movement up to 1881 and subsequently in the anarchist movement. The explanation has been that they opposed all state power, which was associated with pogroms, ghettoization and other forms of oppression. Their roles as tax collectors and money lenders alienated them from the populace, thereby decreasing their political influence.

How, then, did they transition to the ideological opposite, statist socialism? Was it through a belief that a dictatorship of the proletariat would avoid an oppressive state? That would have been the ultimate in unintended consequences. Jews became a important force behind the Russian revolution. It is also postulated that Jews saw a strong state as a potential protector, which is the opposite of the nihilist view. How could a nihilist also be a Bund member?

I am seeking an answer to these questions since it may indicate the source of the ideas brought to America and still alive in today's voting patterns.