Jews and politics: not a unitary bunch
The politics of American Jews have come up recently, due to Trump’s “disloyal” remarks.
The majority of Jews certainly do vote for Democrats, as Trump noted. But it’s not that simple.
For some secular Jews, leftism has replaced Judaism as their religion. Not all secular Jews are leftists, however, although a great many leftist Jews are secular. However, not all religious Jews are conservative, either.
I couldn’t find any extremely recent polls on Jews, religious identity, and political affiliation. But in a poll taken in 2013, the breakdown in that regard was quite interesting, I think.
Among Orthodox Jews in the US, 36% were Democrats or lean Democrat and 57% were Republicans or lean Republican. In the political sense, 12% called themselves liberal, 27% called themselves moderate, and 54% called themselves conservative. The poll did not, unfortunately, differentiate between “liberal” and “leftist”—which I believe is an important distinction. My guess is that few of those 12% of Orthodox Jews who identify as liberals are actually leftists.
Conservative Jews (that is not a political designation; it’s a sort of moderate in-between version of Judaism) have a different breakdown entirely. They are 64% Democrat or lean Democrat, 27% Republican or lean Republican. Politically they describe themselves this way: 35% are liberals, 38% are moderates, and 27% are conservatives.
Reform Jews, a group that is by far the least conventionally religious of the lot—and the most numerous—are almost identical in their politics with Jews who are secular and don’t identify with any part of the religion at all. Reform Jews are 77% Democrat or lean Democrat whereas secular Jews are 75% Democrat or lean Democrat. Reform Jews are 17% Republican or lean Republican and secular Jews are 15% Republican or lean Republican. 58% of both groups describe themselves as politically liberal. For politically moderate the figures are 27% for Reform and 26% for secular. The figures are also identical between the two groups for political conservatism: 13%.
Interesting, no?
If you want some percentages, see this:
A 2003 Harris Poll found that 16% of American Jews go to the synagogue at least once a month, 42% go less frequently but at least once a year, and 42% go less frequently than once a year.
The survey found that of the 4.3 million strongly connected Jews, 46% belong to a synagogue. Among those households who belong to a synagogue, 38% are members of Reform synagogues, 33% Conservative, 22% Orthodox, 2% Reconstructionist, and 5% other types.
Because Orthodox Jews have a lot more children than other Jews, and because they don’t intermarry whereas the incidence of intermarriage is high among the other groups of Jews, Orthodox Jewish percentages in the US are on the rise.
People often make remarks and observations about Jews as though they’re a unitary bunch. They most definitely are not. There’s an old Jewish saying: Two Jews, three opinions.
On my 2 month USA trip, one of my coupled friends includes a non-religious secular Leftist Jew married to a secular Protestant. Both are believers in PC climate change neo-religion. We had a great time, successfully voicing antagonism & support for Trump just a bit, then moving on to talk about lots of other stuff where are disagreements are less emotional.
I’m pretty sure the Orthodox Jews, if genetically tested, would show well over 90% of their men having the “same” Y chromosome that Abraham had, with the very minor small mutations over generations, since they successfully don’t intermarry outside of the Jewish faith (like Fiddler’s Tevje family excommunicating their third daughter).
This is likely also related to the high IQ average of Jews, as well as the high (don’t know how much) incidence of other birth defects.
Republican voting Jews remain a very quiet group, perhaps quieter than the far lower percentage of black voters. Trump is a great friend to justice in Israel.
where OUR disagreements (edit, oh edit, we miss you).
Two Jews, three opinions.
I recall that when American troops first reached Kabul there was a story that they found two Jews living there, and they hated each other 🙂 I don’t know if that was true, but it fits the quote.
IIRC, Disraeli’s father joined the Church of England over a dispute with his synagogue.
This is likely also related to the high IQ average of Jews
IIRC, the higher average IQ is only found among Ashkenazi Jews, the Sephardic Jews are, well, average. The current theory is that the Askenazi migrated into Europe from the Caucasus and went through a severe bottleneck of around 600 people somewhere along the line. That bottleneck is probably where the high IQ became part of the inheritance. Nabokov was one of the first to propose the Caucasus theory, he was a darn good scientist as well as a writer.
Two Jews are marooned on a desert island. Ten years later, a ship passes by, sees them, and comes to rescue them. Before they leave, they take the captain around the island to show him how they survived. They’ve built houses, watermills, they have a farm, and even a bar were they serve rum drinks like pina coladas. Finally, they take the captain to a large clearing where there are three buildings. The captain points to one building and asks, “What’s this?” One of the men says proudly, “That’s my synagogue!” Then he sidles up to the captain and whispers, “I wouldn’t be caught dead in his!” The captain asks, “And what’s that building over there?” The other man answers, “That’s my synagogue!” Then he approaches the captain and whispers, “I wouldn’t be caught dead in his!” The captain puzzles over that for a moment, then says, “I see that’s your synagogue, and I see that’s your synagogue, but what’s the building in the middle?” Both men reply, “Oh, that’s the one neither of us would be caught dead in!”
Tom Grey:
a non-religious secular Leftist Jew married to a secular Protestant. Both are believers in PC climate change neo-religion.
——————–
That’s it in a, uh, nutshell.
Non-Orthodox Jews are basically like Unitarians or other “liberation theology” hippy-dippy tambourine Christians, like the ones now actively aiding illegal immigrants. They only trot out their Jewish identity when it is useful for PC victim-chic breast-beating: their true profession is to various Marxist/progressive belief systems. They consider themselves cosmopolitan citizens of the world (like many French, German, and Russian Jews of the previous century… who were consumed by the secular Molochs they worshipped).
This is why Trump’s recent truth-telling about loyalty to Israel so effectively ticked them off. In fact their attitude to Israel ranges from dismissal of those Jews still “bitterly clinging” to religion and national identity, to active hostility to those now branded “colonial oppressors” in their new belief system.
Here’s a cheat sheet for non-Jews:
– It is safe to ignore any of their statements that begin with “As a Jew…” because they are ignorant and actively hostile to Judaism.
-No conclusions about Judaism should be drawn from their statements or behavior – no more than you would draw conclusions about Christian doctrine from a Unitarian “transgender baptism”.
– It is laughably pointless to try to connect the behaviors and pronouncements of these cosmopolitans-of-Jewish-descent to the interests of the Jewish community, or to the State of Israel or the actions of Israeli governments (In fact they sponsor think tanks and NGOs that try to destabilize more traditional Israeli society). They may participate in Marxist schemes, but there is no “Jewish conspiracy”.
I’m Jewish.
This has been analyzed to death. And I have quite a capacity for analysis, as a former statistician and database administrator.
If some are going over the cliff in the train wreck of PC, you can’t stop them.
I just won’t join in the fun.
I suspect that the diversity to be found among the Jews is directly related to their distinct tribalism, specifically their inheritance as God’s ‘chosen’ people* set apart and the resultant binary choice of “flight or fight” when the predictable reaction to that claim occurs.
My perception is that most conservative and all orthodox Jews take pride in their faith. Most reform and all secular Jews apparently take little to no pride in their ancestral faith.
What the secular non-Jews in their moral cowardice refuse to face is that at base, the collectivist Left makes no distinction between the branches of Judaism. They’re all ‘Jews’ and to the collective, ultimately membership in a tribe is an anathema.
Today’s identity politics provides a temporary leverage but once its usefulness has expired, it will be seen as reactionary. So Jewish identity will then be something to be cast upon the ash heap of history.
*IMO, it’s clear that God chose the ancient Israelites because that particular tribe best fit his desire to lead mankind back into reunion with the divine.
Pres. John Adams declared that, “I will insist that the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. …
They have… influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.”
While that was true in Adams time, the subsequent rejection of Judaism by so many Jews and compensatory embrace of Marxist ‘philosophies’ have arguably done more harm than any other group save Ishmael’s descendants… the Arabs.
Jews are on the average more highly-educated, urban, and affluent than Americans in general; hence, it is to be expected that secular Jews, at least, would largely share the political views of their educational/professional/geographical cohorts.
I discussed the “the level of fear, contempt, and anger that many educated/urban/upper-middle-class people demonstrate toward Christians and rural people (especially southerners)” in my post The Phobia(s) That May Destroy America:
https://ricochet.com/548927/archives/the-phobias-that-may-destroy-america-2/
Geoffrey Britain. I believe you said, more or less, that on der tag, secular Jewishness won’t be a protection. Did I hear you correctly?
Richard,
Yes, they’ll quite possibly be the first on the left to be led into the lion’s den. There’s historical precedent for that. Lenin’s very earliest leadership was overwhelmingly Jewish and soon after his death, that group began to be purged from the party.
Membership in a tribe, however tangential has no place in the collective.
“IIRC, the higher average IQ is only found among Ashkenazi Jews, the Sephardic Jews are, well, average. ”
you dont need to be an Einstein to be smarter than arabs
Geoffrey Britain:
About those Jewish Bolsheviks:
Jews tried to escape persecution by going to Israel. I dunno, maybe we need to build a spaceship and leave the planet?
So, why did the Jews build two temples on Alpha Centauri? Ah, that one we pray in… that one? we never go.
But, even if there are no more Jews in the future, what are the odds that antisemites will still blame the Jews?
The Reform are heading down a similar party as the Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc. The religions that don’t have strict rules are bleeding congregants. (Two of the older churches in my home town, a Presbyterian one and a Lutheran one, have disbanded. Their beautiful churches’ futures are up in the air. A Reform synagogue when I used to teach — a huge facility that once had a thousand families as members — was sold not long ago to a Hindu congregation and the Reform congregation moved to (ironically enough) a Presbyterian church, which is much, much smaller. (The Presbyterian congregation is either disbanding or moving to smaller digs.)
But the Orthodox congregations and the Evangelical Christian congregations keep growing.
And the ones losing members don’t seem to understand that continuing to chase and pursue the politically correct isn’t helping them.
Take a look at this analysis of this issue on Tablet at
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/289871/democratic-party-becoming-unsalvageable
“ about those Jewish Bolsheviks”
Neo , you best me too it.
You’re the fastest gun in the east!
Lee:
One reason they keep growing, though, is that they have a lot of kids. Not all the kids stay in the fold, but a great many do.
We also support civil rights and diversity. We know what it’s like to be an oppressed minority for we “were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
We may feel very comfortable and secure in America, but we recoil when any American is targeted as “the other” — whether it be the Mexican you accuse of being a rapist or the Muslim you stereotype as being a terrorist — because so often we have been “otherized.”
The Jew with horns, the Jewish moneylender, the Jew with dual “loyalties.” We know that a frenzied mob calling for an American citizen of color to be kicked out of the country might be chanting to kick us out too one day soon. For there is one thing we know for sure: Those folks who don’t like people because they are black, brown or Muslims don’t like Jews much either.
https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/458428-most-jews-dont-vote-for-trump-because-we-dont-share-his-values
neo: I read this today and had trouble believing this is how liberal Jews think about Trump and conservatives. The majority of Jews have been voting Democratic long before immigration became an issue.
I’m sure Jews could sympathize with blacks as persecuted underdogs during the Civil Rights movement, and good for them, though I’m not entirely sure how that worked either.
Neo: But they’re also doing a great job at attracting new members.
Charles Murray wrote an essay for Commentary called Jewish Genius, in which he tries to explain the empirical fact that Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ about 1 standard deviation higher than the general public’s average IQ. He attributes it to the economic restrictions on Jews in Europe vs the Muslim world, where Jews had much more economic freedom (and Sephardi Jews don’t show the IQ bump, though they have produced their share of genius rabbis). In Europe, Jews often could not own land, making them tenant farmers and sharecroppers, and they could not join the guilds, effectively restricting them to being merchants. Tenant farming and being a merchant are both margin businesses and it helps to have a head for math to survive. Murray believes that Jewish parents, when chossing possible husbands for their daughters, favored boys who could do math. Fortunately, the rabbis have mandated compulsary education for Jewish boys since the First Century and Jewish culture has a system by which bright boys can be identified – it’s called the Yeshiva. If you can handle Talmudic logic, you’re smart enough to do math.
Here’s a link to Murray’s Jewish Genius essay, republished at AEI. http://www.aei.org/publication/jewish-genius/
Ben David: – It is safe to ignore any of their statements that begin with “As a Jew…” because they are ignorant and actively hostile to Judaism.
As some old Jews would say, “A Hunnert Percent!”
Those same non-Jewish Jews are quick to accuse politically conservative religiously observant Jews as abandoning or betraying “Jewish values” because they voted for and/or support Pres. Trump. When challenged about their own lack of knowledge or adherance to traditional Jewish beliefs and practices (e.g. “When was the last time you were in a synagogue? Do you send your kids to Jewish schools? What’s the mishnah?” they will get indignant, “How dare you call me a bad Jew?!” I guess it’s different when they do it.