Posted on 09/25/2021 3:36:24 AM PDT by Kaslin
After House Democrats, under pressure from their radical left wing, voted to remove Israel’s defensive Iron Dome funding from their budget, a Christian friend messaged me, saying, “Overwhelming Jewish support for the Democratic party is hard to comprehend.”
Given the fact that the Democrat Party has been less and less friendly to Israel in recent years, and given President Obama’s icy relationship with then-Prime Minister Netanyahu, what explains the deep solidarity between Democrats and Jews?
Before answering that question, I should note that the Jerusalem Post reported that, “The Iron Dome may ultimately receive the American funding it needs, after progressive pressure led Democratic Party leadership in the House of Representatives to remove it from a broader bill, and then vowed to propose the aid as its own bill within days. But that doesn’t mean that the drama surrounding it is over.”
Indeed, on Thursday, the House did pass a stand-alone $1 billion measure for Israel's Iron Dome. Still, in the words of the Jerusalem Post, "that doesn’t mean that the drama surrounding it is over.”
Yet Jewish support for the Democrats remains strong, with some exit polls giving President Biden roughly 70-75 percent of the Jewish vote, a number that has held fairly steady, with limited fluctuation, since the late 1920s. Why?
One reason that has often been given is that there is a prophetic ethic in Judaism that leans left, thus siding with the rights of those who are perceived to be oppressed. This would include racial minorities, women, gays, transgenders, and others.
While there appears to be some truth to this, the fact is that most American Jews are fairly secular, with limited familiarity with Judaism. Can this really explain such voting patterns? And why is it that, generally speaking, Jews in different parts of the world tend to lean centrist or right, quite the opposite of things here in the USA?
According to political scientist and professor Kenneth Wald, there is another anomaly when it comes to American Jewish voting. He explained that “we expect most affluent people to favor the party of the right. As a group, even allowing for individual differences, American Jews rank at or near the top on most measures of social class — education, income, occupational prestige and such. That makes their commitment to the Democratic party and liberal values puzzling.”
What, then, explains the strong leftward leaning of American Jews?
For Wald and others, the answer is simple: American Jewish voting patterns have to do with “the uniqueness of the American context. The U.S. Constitution follows a classic liberal model in separating citizenship and religion. Rather than rooting citizenship in blood or religion, the American system eliminates ethnic particularity as a condition for full membership in the political community.
“This arrangement resonates powerfully with American Jews for practical reasons — it gives them a chance to participate as equals in a way they had not experienced elsewhere — and it differs radically from their historical experience as, at best, a ‘tolerated’ minority whose status often changed on the whims of rulers.”
And although there was a time when American Jews voted Republican in higher numbers, once the Republican Party became more closely aligned with evangelical Christians, Jews moved quickly to the Democrats.
As Wald explains, “When, however, the Republican party reached out to white Protestant evangelicals, who eventually came to constitute the party’s base, Jews reacted negatively because they perceived a threat to the liberal regime. Evangelicals, with their ‘God talk,’ insistence on a “Christian America,” and general willingness to deny fundamental liberties to some minorities on religious grounds, struck many American Jews as a fundamental danger to core values of the polity. Accordingly, Jewish support for Democratic presidential nominees rose from roughly two-thirds to three-fourths in the 1990s and thereafter.” (For further discussion about Jews and FDR’s New Deal, along with Jewish concerns during the tenure of LBJ, see here.)
This also explains why, the more that Israeli leadership moves to the right, both politically and religiously, the less solidarity liberal American Jews feel with Israel, despite its importance to them. Many evangelical Christians are actually surprised to learn that they appear to feel more loyalty to Israel than do their American Jewish friends.
As for the growing number of Orthodox Jews that identify as Republican, up from 57 percent in 2013 to 75 percent today, one headline declared, “In voting, Orthodox Jews are looking more like evangelicals.”
As the story reported, “Among Orthodox Jewish Trump voters, Israel, Iran and terrorism were among the top concerns cited in a survey by Nishma Research, a Connecticut-based polling firm. Among Orthodox Jewish Biden voters, the coronavirus pandemic, ‘bringing the country together’ and health care were the top three issues.” (I might ask here how that vote for Biden to deal effectively with COVID and to bring the country together is looking right now.)
This indicates, then, that American Jews are more divided by ideology than they are united by religious faith, since there is a massive gulf between traditional Judaism and liberal Judaism, just as there is between conservative Christianity and liberal Christianity.
In this light, it will be interesting to see what voting patterns emerge if traditional Jews continue to grow in number while the number of liberal Jews continues to drop. (See, already, this prediction from 2016.) And this, in turn, would likely result in a growing voting solidarity between Orthodox Jews and Christian conservatives.
Isn’t this why so many evangelical Christians are fans of modern Orthodox voices like Ben Shapiro while men like Rabbi Daniel Lapin, himself Orthodox, spend most of their time speaking to Christian audiences? The plot thickens.
American Jews really aren’t THAT smart! And they seem to LOVE ABORTION ALSO! At least some of my Jewish in-laws sure do! WHY ELSE BE A DEMOCRAT??
Don’t we post this every election cycle. Seriously… it’s laughable and none believe it.
The majority of American Jewry are in fact JINO’s.
The are of the same branch and ideology of Russian Bolshevik and Mensheviks.
They want to turn the USA into the new Soviet Union.
American Jews can feel indifferent to Israel. If Israel becomes nonviable, they think the Jews there will just immigrate here, and vote Democrat along with American Jews.
No. I know many. Only about 3 out of 40 or so aren’t hardcore Democrats. It is the strangest thing to me. Successful people, but they are in essence Communists. So weird.
Not until the Democrat Socialists are walking them in to the gas chambers, again,
I don’t understand why so many Catholics are democrats... anyone ‘get’ that one?
“No. I know many. Only about 3 out of 40 or so aren’t hardcore Democrats. It is the strangest thing to me. Successful people, but they are in essence Communists. So weird.”
Strange to all of us, in many ways. And they continue to be the ONLY major group in the US that consistently votes against their pocketbook.
In Israel Jews seem to understand that you vote for people to protect your family and yourself, with the threat of death camps or extinction if you vote otherwise.
Here they seem to think some magical force will protect them, so they vote for the destruction of this country. With the only exception that I know of was the 1993 Mayor Election in NYC, when they financially supported and then voted for Rudy, which was why he won.
It would be interesting to better understand what Jews were doing in European politics before they were rounded up and killed by Hitler, with the vast majority of non-Jews being silent about it and looking the other way.
“ Successful people, but they are in essence Communists. So weird.”
Why don’t you study the history of communism and the origins of the USSR, and get back to us?
I live in S. Florida and in a predominantly Jewish community. “Trump is Hitler, Republicans and Christians are Nazis” is the rallying cry. The American Jews will never change their tune.
Non {or rarely} practicing religious groups, tend to be more left, regardless of label.
If you were born in 1960 and received your Confirmation in 1972 and that was the last time you saw the inside of a Catholic Church, I question your veracity when you put "Catholic" as your religion when filling out a form or questionnaire.
The same holds with Jews. Having Jewish parents is only the start, choices in life determine what they become, both religiously or politically.
Why does the right continue to believe and hope that is true when there is absolutely no proof that is even close to happening. It’s like the whole race thing and voter affiliation. The right almost organism if they get 10% of the black vote and then extrapolate that into some sort of a seismic shift.
It took me a few minutes to figure out what the author meant by Christians being willing to deny fundamental rights to some minorities on religious grounds. This, of course, LGBTQXYZHMFIC...
The problem with that statement is simple, really. A minority that is recognizable only by its actions (which are specifically called out by the religious principles in the Bible) are being granted privileges based on their activities. For example, the “right” to redefine the religious definition of marriage. Not satisfied with being allowed under the secular definition, the lavender mafia demand that everyone else - regardless of their first amendment right to practice freely - recognize and celebrate the new, corrupted definition of “marriage”.
Much like the blacks, they are their for the bennies
My mother died almost 20 years ago. Nothing will stop her from continuing to vote the straight Democrat ticket.
Well, in all fairness, a separate bill was passed funding Iron Dome with overwhelming support in the House. And it was sponsored by Jewish congressman who specifically called out the Squad. AOC voted “present” on that bill which, given her rhetoric, was an act of cowardice for her.
That being said, I am amazed that Jews have not abandoned the Left, especially given the Left’s championing of the BDS movement on American college campuses. I know one devout Jewish colleague whose daughter (also devout) withdrew from an elite Ivy League school because of the anti-Semitic BS she had to put up with. But, despite that, he is still a Lefty.
I should also say that the passage of the Iron Dome bill was a huge embarrassment for The Squad. It was basically the rest of Congress telling them how much they suck.
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