Why are Jews liberal?
This new book by Norman Podhoretz, exploring the question of why Jews are so overwhelmingly liberal, looks like another must-read.
The same dependably liberal voting record seems to also be true of blacks in America. It may not be PC to say it, but Jews and blacks are probably the most monolithically liberal Democrat voting blocs in this country. Blacks voted about 95% for Obama in November of 2008, but it’s noteworthy that this high percentage was not just because he is black; they went 88% for John Kerry in 2004, which is a pretty powerful majority as well.
Jews are only slightly less united. In the years since 1972, when exit polls became common, Jews have voted an average of 72% for the Democratic presidential candidate, and they went 78% for Obama in 2008. The best estimate of the extent of Obama’s continuing support among Jews is indicated by this poll of Jewish Democrats (a somewhat oxymoronic phrase), which found that 92% approved of him in late August—and this despite Obama’s negativity towards Israel.
As the article about Podhoretz’s book points out, Jews are more liberal as they become more secular. Although it hardly explains the phenomenon, that idea ties in nicely with my post of yesterday about Leftism as a substitute for religion. Podhoretz’s thesis is that:
…liberalism has become for many Jews not simply a substitute for religion, but a religion itself, with roots in the history he describes and a set of doctrines and dogmas adhered to with the force of faith. For many modern Jews, conversion from liberalism to conservatism is roughly equivalent to what conversion to Christianity was to their ancestors in Eastern Europe.
This feeling of being an apostate if one leaves the Left and turns to the Right is true not only for Jews, but for most liberals. I’ve written quite a few essays on the subject. But right now I’ll just quote one decidedly non-Jewish changer, Zell Miller.
Miller had traveled so far from the Democrat Party that he addressed the Republican National Convention in 2004 with a blistering and fiery speech that excoriated that Democrats. When asked why he didn’t change party affiliations, he stated that being a Democrat was “like a birthmark”—something innate and hard to eradicate. Another southern Democrat from Miller’s area, Rep. Charles F. Jenkins, agreed:
“You’ve got people up here who just will not switch from the Democratic Party because they’ve been Democrats since they were born,” Jenkins said. “They’re hard-headed mountain people. And hard-headed mountain people don’t switch for anybody.”
The Democratic Party is certainly not composed entirely—or even primarily—of hard-headed mountain people from Miller and Jenkins’s home state of Georgia. But it seems to be almost universally true that, as I’ve said a few times before, a mind is a difficult thing to change. Whomever you are.
Do cities make people more liberal? Or do liberals tend to flock to the cities? Or is it a lot of both?
What effect does it have when ones anscestors came over here have? (I realize each person could have both late and early arrivals among their anscestory)
I have this theory that the East coast is liberal partly because the frontier has been gone so long from there. But the problem would be the west coast. Then I think of the influence of things like the desire for quick riches maybe having affected west coast politics. First the gold rush then desire for fame in hollywood. But it does not explain it all.
Nu?
Jews have always valued education highly: this was once a *good* think. But as education–higher education especially–has gone further and further to the left, this has exerted a strong influence on those who stay in school longest and take it most seriously.
To expound on my theory about the East coast. I wonder what percentage of say New Yorkers ancestors got to New York and never left? Whole families who do not have the influence of the “American frontier experience” in their ancestoral family. Frontier families had to be self reliant- which I think tends to influence one politics. These things- or attitudes get passed down- though they may fade with each passing generation. Which is the crux of my theory- the longer an area has been settled- the less self reliant the people become- and their politics move to the left- towards bigger government.
In your first post jon baker, it is my belief the answer is yes to all three of your first questions. But so do you, right?
A pioneer certainly didn’t depend on government did he? An entrepreneur, today’s pioneer, only wants government out of his way. To twist up an old saying, those who can are entrepreneurs. Those who can’t, are democrats.
Perhaps Jews bought into the liberal fascia of accepting all people and are now stuck pulling the democrat lever.
Jews are more liberal as they become more secular
Correlation is not causation.
I, and thousands of us, post-Soviet Jews, are secular AND not lefties. (not “conservative”. Classical liberal is a closer term)
The real answer is not politically correct…
no matter how i try to lay it out its protected…
no wonder the answer isnt in the book…
To know why africans vote left, one only needs to know about the history of things like landry parish, and the concerted effort of the comiterm as well.
Lieutenant General P.
H. Sheridan, dated New Orleans, Janu-
ary 10, 1875, to the Secretary of War, in
which he says:
Since the year 1866 nearly 3,500 persons, a
great majority of whom were colored men. have
been killed and wounded in this State. In 1868
the ofiBcial record shows that 1,884 were killed
and wounded. From 1868 to the present time
no official investigation has been made, and
the civil authorities, in all but a few cases,
have been unable to arrest, convict and punish
perpetrators. Consequently there are no cor-
rect records to bo consulted for information.
There is am*ple evidence, however, to show that
more than 1,200 persons have been killed and
wounded during this time on account of their
political sen timents. Frightful massacres have
occurred in the parishes of Bossier, Caddo.
Catahoula, Saint Bernard. Saint Landry,
Grant, and Orleans. The general character
of the massacres in the above-named par-
ishes is so well known that it is unnecessary to
describe them.
The “glorious Democratic victory”
wliich ensued in 1868 was preceded by one
of the most terrible massacres on record.
The Republicans, colored and white, for
days were hunted through swamps and
fields, and over two hundred were killed
and wounded. Thirteen helpless captives
were taken from the jail and shot, and a
pile of twenty- five dead bodies was found in
the woods buried. Having thus conquered
the Republicans, having thus murdered or
expelled their white leaders, the masses
were captured by the Ku-Klux, marked
with badges of red flannel, enrolled in
clubs, led to the polls, and compelled to
vote the Democratic ticket. They were
then given certificates of the fact.
The effect of this devilish system of ter-
rorism is shown by selecting a few illus-
trations out of the frightful mass, as de-
veloped by Congressional investigation :
In the parish of Orleans, of its 29,910
voters 15,020 were colored, and in the
spring of 1868 the parish had polled 13,973
Republican votes, but in the fall, for Gen-
eral Grant, only 1,178 were polled, a fall-
ing off of 12,795 votes.
regardless of the source of this text (a republican campaign text book), the facts are true. that is the facts are concentrated in this document for political use, but that dont mean they are false.
you would have to read about the history of bull-dozed and democratic history just after the war… State Canvassing Board,
Thus we have seen that these fifteen parishes have a registered republican vote of 17,726 and in peaceful years have cast a republican vote of from 9,300 to 12,500.
And in these same fifteen parishes, under the reign of terror caused by the Knights of the White Camellia, in 1868, only cast 3,935 republican votes, as will be seen by the following table:
the stuff is referenced a bit in wiki… but i would pretty much guess that if you walked around with a list of the parish names on your shirt, no one would know why they are all there.
In the parish of St. Landry, in 1868, the
Republicans had a registered majority of
1,071 votes. In the spring the Republi-
cans in the parish had polled a majority
of 678 voles ; in the fall not a vote was
cast for General Grant. Seymour and
Blair polled the full vote of the parish –
4,787 votes.
you can read articles from then too, and you can see interesting contrasts… the left at that time was not communist, but was quite the keepers of status quo… and always power hungry, and almost always more dirty… the articles they wrote will take the angle of louisiana under the control of republican carbet baggers, and that they were sending “negroes”. odd reads to americans who have never seen papers from the period.
but if you check cross references of the period, you will find that through them the facts are correct… like Henry Pinksion… in books as to the hayes tilden presidential election (1876)
funny thing is that the stuff doesnt sound too far from todays bs.
please forgive the spelling, it was scanned into the archive at archive.org, and this one wasnt corrrected.
Every possible effort was made by the Democrats,
btxh before the reliirning board and before later con-gressional investigating conmiittees. to break down thestory of ibis outrage.
It was claimed that the murde had no political significance*
as a matter of fact, Pinkston was a Democrat
Arother theory propounded by the Democrats was tliat Plnkston was killed by a negro named Brcxjks, with whom he bad had a fight 5onte months before.
Much evidence was brought in by
the Democrats to show that because Eliza was ol
bad character no weight should be attached to her
what happened?
Pinksion was a radical republican who was killed by the democrats of the south.
The
details of the murder of Henry Pinksion,
the murder of his babe in the arms of his
wife, and the revolting outrage and muti-
lation of the person of his wife by a band
of masked men, shocked even the human-
ity of the Democratic visitors at New Or-
leans.
is it any wonder that that presidency (as well as a few others) are not discussed much?
even wiki doesnt bring up the murders (they do make a note of it in their kkk listing, but its tiny and only on landry parish not all the others).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1876
in that listing above, they say nothing of hunting men down… murders with mutilations… and more.
reported returns favored Tilden, but election results in each state were marked by fraud and threats of violence against Republican voters.
its easy if your black and you remembered that, that you would remember that no one prosecuted these men. instead they spread the hate responsibility from the culprits to the guilt of the USA to itself. the sentence after that tells us that there was also contention on how the ballots were designed.
so in true stalinist form, the history of the truth in america is replaced by one that favors the narrative of the democrats.
today we only have that narrative… in the error shortly after the late 1800s, the africans that knew all this knew that the truth was being buried and that the democrats were the more powerful group despite the war, despite the reconstruction, and despite washington.
they knew that if they didnt do what the dems wanted, they would pay in a way that republicans wouldnt for voting against them.
after a while, it becomes tradition and so on… supported by propaganda, and history like wiki…
One phenomenon with which accident investigators are very familiar is called “confirmation bias.” It occurs, for instance, when a pilot who thinks he is about to take off on runway 15 at night notices that the runway lights are out–and instead of thinking he might be on the wrong runway, reasons that “well, according to the Notices to Airmen, they’re doing maintenance at this airport–probably cut a power cable by mistake.” In general, confirmation bias happens when the holder of a hypothesis looks for data points to fit into that hypothesis.
Confirmation bias is very strong in humans—it can be deadly in safety-critical fields—and I think it probably plays an important role in the irrational persistence of political views over time.
The identification with the underdog, and supporting anybody who purportedly stands up for the underdog regardless of reason is an emotional badge of courage and identity. Democrats have pandered to society’s dependents and therefore strike a sympathetic note with many Jews.
I’m a bit gun shy to comment on anything Jewish around here 🙂 but I’ll have to go with jon baker’s suggestion. I think it’s because Jews are more likely to be urban – which also explains why more blacks are more Liberal. If that is true then the better question might be, why are people that live in cities more liberal?
Liberals tend toward a society fiscally restrained by government, yet socially unrestrained by government. Conversely conservatives seek the exact opposite. This must have something to do with the psyche of people that live in densely populated areas verses those that live in sparsely populated areas.
This of course doesn’t explain why in 2008 so many Jewish Americans would vote for an administration that was so clearly anti-Israel. Could it be as Podhoretz suggests? Or, could the answer be more mundane – maybe (just maybe) Jewish Americans don’t see themselves as Americans with a broader identity tied to the nation of Israel. Maybe that don’t see themselves as hyphenated-Americans, but just as Americans – Americans who live in cities.
I’m not Jewish, I have no solidarity with Israel, not in that sense. Instead, I see Israel the same way I see France, Tibet or Liechtenstein. I see Israel as a country that has a right to exist. I also see the Jews as a people who have a right to a country. And, I see that the Jews that went through so much to get there are bound to that land, perhaps in a way that I’ll never fully understand. I do not see the Palestinians that way. I see Palestinians the same way as I see Iowans, or New Yorkers, or any other transplanted Europeans, Africans or Asians.
I also see that liberal Jews either don’t see it that way, or they sure don’t see that Barack Obama doesn’t see it that way.
There is still to much residual chauvinistic, white, Christian identify-ism in the Republican party. Reject it.
Dennis Prager has written a lot on this topic as well.
He gives his own short list of answers to the question, “why are Jews liberal?”, which he says is the most frequently asked question he receives (about Jews) from non-Jews:
http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2006/04/25/explaining_jews,_part_v_why_are_jews_liberal
Tatyana, has a liberal or leftist actually stayed in the same room with you for more than 20 seconds? In my experience nobody of either variety has been able to stand being confronted with people that have survived or escaped their beloved CCCP. Honestly, I never have seen this happen.
I have long since stopped calling myself a liberal but that’s because the meaning of the word has changed. When I was growing up and then an activist in the Democratic Party we favored individual rights, the goal of a color-blind constitution, doing what working people genuinely wanted and needed and not what we thought they ought to want, and if there were disagreements about foreign and defense policy at least people like Hubert Humphrey, George Meany, and Scoop Jackson had position and influence.
“Liberal” means something different now and the Democratic Party is basically a different organization with the same name, so I felt little regret in finding myself as an ex-Democrat. On the other hand, given the alternative I’m not likely to become a Republican.
br549: I figure it is yes to all three also.
I’m not Jewish and I haven’t spent much time reading or thinking about the subject, but my sense is that many Jews have accepted the false dichotomy originally promulgated by Stalin: that “left-wing” socialism/communism is the opposite of “right-wing” Nazism. In fact, it seems that most people, not only Jews, believe that.
I smell altruism. Judaism – like Christianity – emphasizes brother’s keeper ethics, which writ large in politics means socialism. In answering the question about Jews being liberal, it will be helpful to delve into who, by contrast, is conservative. Why is it easier (statistically speaking) for gentiles to lean conservative when their religious background is also altruistic? Do various Christians find it easier to branch out from the “serve others” orthodoxy because they are still part of the majority while Jews breaking away from their “tribe” are a splinter of a sliver of society? Alternatively, did the millennial continuity of Jewish culture (or its long expulsion from England) make it less affected by the Enlightenment in Britain, cf. John Locke, rational self interest and individualism?
These voting patterns are depressing. Why the black vote went 95% Obama is obvious. I wonder what that 5% looks like demographically. What’s their income, education level, what occupations do they prefer?
More depressing voting trends. In the last election:
“Nationwide, Hispanics voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama and 31 percent for Senator John McCain, according to Edison/Mitofsky exit polls.”
“In 2004, Senator John Kerry won 53 percent, while 44 percent of Hispanics voted for President Bush, a record for Latino support for a Republican presidential nominee.”
That’s a 14-point swing in just 4 years. This is confirmed by other polls. The Latinos are also the fastest-growing voting bloc in the US. If this trend continues it doesn’t look good for the GOP. It’s not just the basic numbers. Many of these Latino voters are situated in battleground states: Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
Even Florida, whose Latinos have been solidly Republican in years past, primarily due to the pro-Republican Cuban-American vote, gave Obama the nod in 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/n87vg2
Bush could count on a substantial Texas Latino vote but with Bush gone the Republicans may not be able to count on Texan Latinos. I wonder how many folks realize that Bush speaks Spanish.
“While Hispanics are not a monolithic bloc, many began turning away from the Republicans in Texas, and elsewhere in the US, amid the harsh rhetoric about immigration reform in 2007, says Professor Murray.”
http://tinyurl.com/66pteb
.
Matthew M, how is it “serving others” to reject a system that has helped to create the most prosperous nation on Earth?
Is there some adjusting that needs to be done? No doubt. But replace it? Many would argue that socialism, as practiced by western governments- unable or unwilling to distinguish between the truly needy and the lazy- actually hurts people by destroying their work ethic- and acts as an enabler of destructive habits like drunkenness and drug abuse from the free time of not being required to work to pay the bills.
They’re “famished”, what else is there to say? Had a conversation w/ my cousin’s wife the other day, she said, much like another cousin who said “Obama has a lot on his plate”, undoing Bush’s mistakes. Even Laura is in on the act….
Deep topic, and complex. But in discussion of these particular tribal taboos and rituals of group membership, we would do well to identify the Other, the threat and bogeyman of the collective imagination. What and whom do these post-Jewish liberals fear and resent the most, and why?
I think that part of the historical answer was, the socially and economically overbearing Brahmin and Anglo Ascendancy, which was Republican to the core. They used to call the Episcopal Church “the Republican Party at prayer.” (These days it is “NOW at prayer.”) For example, people still remember how rude Jack Morgan was to Jacob Schiff over Schiff’s lack of support for Britain during the First World War: American Jews had qualms about supporting Britain because it was allied with Russia, the great enemy of Jews around the world.
Nowadays, the great Enemy is the army of downmarket WASPs of the South and West, with their guns, Bibles, and patriotism, also increasingly Republican. I don’t think you can understand how much the media and urban liberals hate Palin until you understand that she is the living symbol of all they fear.
These thoughts are only a small part of the story, but they deserve some place in the discussion.
There is a good and thoughtful (IMO) discussion of this topic at:
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-are-jews-liberals-a-symposium-15223?page=all
I am a lawyer, and a practicing Catholic. I have several colleagues who are essentially secular, and barely practicing, Jews. They are Conservative or Reformed. No Orthodox. They go to Temple once a year. The rest of the year you would not know they are Jewish and I quite frankly believe they do not give their faith much thought the rest of the year. I do not know if they are “typical” professional American Jews or not, as I am not so presumptous to make any assumptions one way or another. This is just a description of the several I happen to know very well.
In my discussions with one of them who has become a very close friend over the years (and our discussions have included this issue) – I find that Michael Medved’s commentary (from this symposium/discussion) seems to hit the mark.
These friendships and collegial relations with people from a “culture” I was never exposed to, as a kid growing up in lily white WASP suburbia (my childhood? – the show “Wonder Years” about nails it), has opened my eyes a lot. It is truly a separate culture imbedded within a larger societal culture. IMO.
One illustration: An incident occurred back in the early 90’s that has always stuck with me. Our Florida branch office lawyers had to fly to the home office up north in the midwest for a “firm retreat.” It was being held outside of the city at a rural country club golf resort, situated in a tiny rural country town. Three fellow junior associates and I shared a rental car for the 45 minute late evening drive out into the country from the city airport. One female, two males – who are Jewish.
Upon reaching the little town, we had to pull into a 7-11 to get something. It was late at night – but having grown up in this sort of environment – I’m getting ready to hop out of the car…..and…the three of them froze up. I was stunned.
They were actually scared sh–tless, and did not want to get out of the car. I had to run in to pick up what we needed by myself.
This little slice of small town conservative Christian Americana was a completely alien and therefore scary environment for them. To me, it’s competely familiar, comfortable. To them, it’s the movie Deliverance. I think they were expecting to hear banjo music. I had never realized in my life (I was 34 at the time) that to some people, BillyBob and his brother Bubba, are actually frightening. I would not have been at all surprised if the three of them had been African-American. That would be understandble. But they were white, and none of them had a Yarmulke or a nametag or anything broadcasting their Jewishness. Yet they were still very uncomfortable.
I have observed this unease repeat itself on several occasions, on business road trips.
We need to do a better job reaching out. And opening up our arms. To win them over to our side. I don’t know how. I’m not that smart. But somehow – we need to.
nyomythus, regarding you 9:18 P.M. post: any true Christian knows the old testament is the Jewish Bible. An true Christian realizes the Jews are God’s chosen people. Any follower of Christianity realizes the God of Abraham, the God of Islam, and the God of Christianity is one and the same God.
The problem is man. What else is new?
There’s a good reason to read through the whole discussion. Oblio and southernjames provided excellent observations, taking the discussion to a different level. (Not that others hadn’t touched on these, but theirs had great clarity).
There is a residual antipathy to both the elite WASP and downmarket WASP, for different reasons. In my city, there was a time when Jewish doctors were not hired at the WASP hospital, so they could all be found at the Catholic hospital. By the 1960’s, the hiring practices had changed, but MD’s generally stay where they are and most Jewish doctors were at the Catholic hospital for decades afterward. The same held for the community organizations – country clubs, charities, service organizations. Even after the admission rules changed, the loyalties remained. If this WASP remembers that, then I am certain the local Jews and their children remember it. That there are white conservatives, particularly on the fringe, who remain antisemitic in various degrees of sheep’s clothing is also still true.
If one extends david foster’s reminder of confirmation bias to include the problem of negative evidence as well, we can see that such fear of original enemies could long persist, even when the positive tribal attachment weakens. As long as there are any antisemites among the conservatives, Jews are going to find it hard to jump in that direction, even though objectively, the left is now more antisemitic. Ron Rosenbaum’s essay over at Pajamas illustrates this. There remains the perception that conservatives have been wrong, dangerously wrong, on issues of justice within living memory. The objective evidence of liberal and/or Democratic injustice does not overcome this Deliverance-style fear.
I agree also that the Marxist-left, Nazi-right dichotomy still influences Jewish thinking, and combines with historical fears of Protestant and Catholic religious groups. That Eastern Orthodox, secularist utopian, and Islamic oppression deserve a place as low or lower is intellectually acknowledged, but does have the same visceral power. Their personal experience is of WASP elites keeping them down, and of poor whites making the only antisemitic remarks they have heard live.
Then too, liberalism is sometimes the only tie that a secular Jew retains to his historic roots, which he feels he should give at least some allegiance to.
Arrgh. “Does not have the same visceral power.”
When Jews leave Judaism, they become intellectually and morally confused. Just as Catholics, when they loose their religion. They must have something else to cling to. However, being a minority with a history of being oppressed, they tend to hate all ‘Authority’ and so they instinctively tend to liberalism.
Liberalism, in its very name, seems to be the conscious rejection of ‘big Authority’ and so it is emotionally appealing to them.
Of course, today’s liberalism is an Orwellian thing, it is almost the polar opposite of classical liberalism, it tends to stifle individual freedom by the power of the state. This point has been made so often, it is almost boring.
But because of their history Jews have more difficulty to detach themselves from it. It has become an emotional thing, a surrogate religion.
For many Jews it is what they are; the thought alone to take conservative arguments seriously, freaks them out.
It also does not help that many nonJews hesitate to take Jewish liberals on and argue in a consistent and straightforward way against them, as nonblacks hesitate to do that against black liberals. The diabolical curse of political correctness (itself a product of liberalism) is producing its rotten results here too.
You have to be a Jew to critisize Jews, otherwise you risk being called an antisemite. You have to be a black to critisize blacks, otherwise you risk being called a racist. And when you dare to be a conservative Jew or black, you will be considered a traitor and hated as the lowest scum on the earth.
“How can the Jews be so stupid?!” It’s not a matter of stupidity, it’s the Jews’ susceptibility to being seduced by ideologies that emanate from the forces of darkness. Think of Progressivism as today’s successor to Baal worship. How could the Jews, fresh from their encounter with HaShem at Sinai, worship a golden calf, wrought by their hands? It was not stupidity, but the fact that the other side (the HaShem-hating side of darkness) expends great efforts in seducing the Jews. For if the bearers of HaShem’s Word (the Torah) can be seduced away from HaShem, then there is an excuse for many non-Jews as well to go away from Him.
This is the great battle of the age to be fought, possibly the final battle in mankind’s greatest war.
Oblio, two observations:
– people whom you call “post Jewish” remain Jewish. They’re just not believers in Judaism. It’ll help if you start thinking of Jews as ethnicity, not only as religious confession. Just like Italians are most likely Catholics, bit it is not a mandatory condition; there are many atheists among Italians, and some are even converts…including into Judaism – and vice versa. The fact that a Jew might have converted into Catholicism, f.i., does not make him less Jewish.
We have distinct characteristics as a nation – a nation that through no fault of our own had been dispersed among countries and lands. But we are still a nation. I know Americans have simplified understanding of what it means to be Jewish; the fact that this idea is widespread in America doesn’t make it right, though.
-your juxtaposition of liberal Jews and Southerns WASPs along the line of patriotism is incorrect. It implies that liberal Jews (some of whose families had lived in America as long as the descendants of Mayflower passengers) don’t love this country, that they are “strangers among us”. As far as I know, they are as American as your regular “vanilla” Southerner. (Example) They have as much right to call this country theirs as you do.
A freedom to have ideological, religious, cultural differences between citizens is what is so good about America; the fact of these differences do not make one group more patriotic than the other. Bagels are as American as an apple pie.
Perhaps I’m being overly simplistic, but I don’t see this as being particularly complicated.
As Matthew M. pointed out, there’s a strong tendency in traditional Jewish thought towards education, charity, and tikkun olam (which is charity writ large, and literally means “repairing the world”).
Jews are encouraged, from an early age, to see themselves as instruments to help make the world a better place. We are also encouraged to set a good example — to be “a light unto the nations”.
I realize that many secular Jews don’t talk this way. But if they were raised in even a moderately Jewish home, these attitudes were likely to have been there… and they have impact.
Mind you, there are likely to be other factors at work also. Some have been mentioned here. Another is the tendency, as someone said, to ‘earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans’ (i.e. strive to become wealthy but still vote the way the poor do). Jews have been persecuted for centuries as evil money-grubbers; it should not be surprising if some feel an obligation to prove that, although they have money, they don’t act as though they do.
Similarly, Jews were at the forefront of the American Civil Rights movement — and have seen little to no gratitude from the African-American community for this. (The standard-bearers for civil rights — people like Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton, people who ought to remember how helpful Jews were in the 1960s — are all quick to demonize Jews.) As such, it’s not surprising that Jews in record numbers sought to prove their color-blindness and vote for an African-American president as soon as they could.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
another angle in the black side of the conversation..
Obama and the Plight of the Dancing Masquerade
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/obama_and_the_plight_of_the_da_1.html
Tatyana, you are right. I did not mean to say that non-religious Jews are not Jews, or that Jews are not as patriotic as anyone else. I should has said “formerly-religious or non-religious Jewish liberals”–which is what I was thinking–and I meant that as a description, not as an accusation.
Similarly, I was referring to the “patriotism” of downmarket WASPs in the sense of their version of patriotism, as opposed to anyone else’s version. I daresay that in the eyes of many Jewish liberals, such patriotism looks suspiciously like Nativism.
So I wasn’t clear, and that led to misunderstanding, and for that I am sorry.
Still, the misunderstanding served some purpose, as it raised a couple of hot button issues: “Who is a Jew?” and the charge of dual loyalty or disloyalty. The first is not my business, and the second is a matter of individual actions and attitudes, not the characteristic of any group of people. What’s interesting is that both issues touch on sensitive feelings about identity and belonging.
In this context, being non-religious or leaving your religion behind calls open the question of “Will you convert to another religion?” We have often talked here that Leftism has the functional characteristics of a religion. David Gelernter has suggested that Americanism is an actual religion as well. I may not exactly agree with that, but we should consider whether Americanism also has at least the functional characteristics of a religion.
In Gelernter’s version, Americanism combines a Protestantism stripped to the Judeo-Christian root with a belief in personal equality and a faith in American exceptionalism and its unique mission to the world. In this Americans become a new Chosen People, and America the new Promised Land. Gelernter calls this “American Zionism.” Mormons seem to me to have an extreme and explicit version of this faith, and it is not accidental that Mormon-Jewish relations are particularly prickly.
Americanism has its sacred totems (the flag) and its rituals (The Pledge of Allegiance, the Independence Day parade) and even its saints (including St. Ronnie of Eureka College, Illinois, and maybe the former Marion Morrison of USC, a Methodist school until 1952). The social policy of Americanism is assimilation, which has posed specific and acute threats to Jewish identity.
I’ll stop now with the thought that some of what we are seeing is not political differences as much as religious/cultural differences that strike at the roots of identity. And that’s a scary thought.
Now I am off to read what Gelernter said about Podhoretz’s article at the Commentary symposium.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-are-jews-liberals-a-symposium-15223?search=1
Just returned from Commentary. The writers there take up many of the issues we have touched with considerable greater brilliance. Highly recommended.
Thank you for the response, Oblio. I’ll try to look at the Commentary’s thread tomorrow.
Hat tip to southernjames for the Commentary link.
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