Why Are Jews Liberals?

I’m hoping buyer’s remorse on Obama will finally cause a Jewish shift to the right.

By Norman Podhoretz, WSJ

One of the most extraordinary features of Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain was his capture of 78% of the Jewish vote. To be sure, there was nothing extraordinary about the number itself. Since 1928, the average Jewish vote for the Democrat in presidential elections has been an amazing 75%—far higher than that of any other ethno-religious group.

Yet there were reasons to think that it would be different in 2008. The main one was Israel. Despite some slippage in concern for Israel among American Jews, most of them were still telling pollsters that their votes would be strongly influenced by the positions of the two candidates on the Jewish state. This being the case, Mr. McCain’s long history of sympathy with Israel should have given him a distinct advantage over Mr. Obama, whose own history consisted of associating with outright enemies of the Jewish state like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the historian Rashid Khalidi.

Hebrew campaign buttons for Barack Obama.

Hebrew campaign buttons for Barack Obama. Associated Press

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama beat Mr. McCain among Jewish voters by a staggering 57 points. Except for African Americans, who gave him 95% of their vote, Mr. Obama did far better with Jews than with any other ethnic or religious group. Thus the Jewish vote for him was 25 points higher than the 53% he scored with the electorate as a whole; 35 points higher than the 43% he scored with whites; 11 points higher than the 67% he scored with Hispanics; 33 points higher than the 45% he scored with Protestants; and 24 points higher than the 54% he scored with Catholics.

These numbers remind us of the extent to which the continued Jewish commitment to the Democratic Party has become an anomaly. All the other ethno-religious groups that, like the Jews, formed part of the coalition forged by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s have followed the rule that increasing prosperity generally leads to an increasing identification with the Republican Party. But not the Jews. As the late Jewish scholar Milton Himmelfarb said in the 1950s: “Jews earn like Episcopalians”—then the most prosperous minority group in America—”and vote like Puerto Ricans,” who were then the poorest.

Jews also remain far more heavily committed to the liberal agenda than any of their old ethno-religious New Deal partners. As the eminent sociologist Nathan Glazer has put it, “whatever the promptings of their economic interests,” Jews have consistently supported “increased government spending, expanded benefits to the poor and lower classes, greater regulations on business, and the power of organized labor.”

As with these old political and economic questions, so with the newer issues being fought out in the culture wars today. On abortion, gay rights, school prayer, gun control and assisted suicide, the survey data show that Jews are by far the most liberal of any group in America.

Most American Jews sincerely believe that their liberalism, together with their commitment to the Democratic Party as its main political vehicle, stems from the teachings of Judaism and reflects the heritage of “Jewish values.” But if this theory were valid, the Orthodox would be the most liberal sector of the Jewish community. After all, it is they who are most familiar with the Jewish religious tradition and who shape their lives around its commandments.

Yet the Orthodox enclaves are the only Jewish neighborhoods where Republican candidates get any votes to speak of. Even more telling is that on every single cultural issue, the Orthodox oppose the politically correct liberal positions taken by most other American Jews precisely because these positions conflict with Jewish law. To cite just a few examples: Jewish law permits abortion only to protect the life of the mother; it forbids sex between men; and it prohibits suicide (except when the only alternatives are forced conversion or incest).

The upshot is that in virtually every instance of a clash between Jewish law and contemporary liberalism, it is the liberal creed that prevails for most American Jews. Which is to say that for them, liberalism has become more than a political outlook. It has for all practical purposes superseded Judaism and become a religion in its own right. And to the dogmas and commandments of this religion they give the kind of steadfast devotion their forefathers gave to the religion of the Hebrew Bible. For many, moving to the right is invested with much the same horror their forefathers felt about conversion to Christianity.

All this applies most fully to Jews who are Jewish only in an ethnic sense. Indeed, many such secular Jews, when asked how they would define “a good Jew,” reply that it is equivalent to being a good liberal.

But avowed secularists are not the only Jews who confuse Judaism with liberalism; so do many non-Orthodox Jews who practice this or that traditional observance. It is not for nothing that a cruel wag has described the Reform movement—the largest of the religious denominations within the American Jewish community—as “the Democratic Party with holidays thrown in,” and the services in a Reform temple as “the Democratic Party at prayer.”

As a Jew who moved from left to right more than four decades ago, I have been hoping for many years that my fellow Jews would come to see that in contrast to what was the case in the past, our true friends are now located not among liberals, but among conservatives.

Of course in speaking of the difference between left and right, or between liberals and conservatives, I have in mind a divide wider than the conflict between Democrats and Republicans and deeper than electoral politics. The great issue between the two political communities is how they feel about the nature of American society. With all exceptions duly noted, I think it fair to say that what liberals mainly see when they look at this country is injustice and oppression of every kind—economic, social and political. By sharp contrast, conservatives see a nation shaped by a complex of traditions, principles and institutions that has afforded more freedom and, even factoring in periodic economic downturns, more prosperity to more of its citizens than in any society in human history. It follows that what liberals believe needs to be changed or discarded—and apologized for to other nations—is precisely what conservatives are dedicated to preserving, reinvigorating and proudly defending against attack.

In this realm, too, American Jewry surely belongs with the conservatives rather than the liberals. For the social, political and moral system that liberals wish to transform is the very system in and through which Jews found a home such as they had never discovered in all their forced wanderings throughout the centuries over the face of the earth.

The Jewish immigrants who began coming here from Eastern Europe in the 1880s were right to call America “the golden land.” They soon learned that there was no gold in the streets, as some of them may have imagined, which meant that they had to struggle, and struggle hard. But there was another, more precious kind of gold in America. There was freedom and there was opportunity. Blessed with these conditions, we children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these immigrants flourished—and not just in material terms—to an extent unmatched in the history of our people.

What I am saying is that if anything bears eloquent testimony to the infinitely precious virtues of the traditional American system, it is the Jewish experience in this country. Surely, then, we Jews ought to be joining with its defenders against those who are blind or indifferent or antagonistic to the philosophical principles, the moral values, and the socioeconomic institutions on whose health and vitality the traditional American system depends.

In 2008, we were faced with a candidate who ran to an unprecedented degree on the premise that the American system was seriously flawed and in desperate need of radical change—not to mention a record powerfully indicating that he would pursue policies dangerous to the security of Israel. Because of all this, I hoped that my fellow Jews would finally break free of the liberalism to which they have remained in thrall long past the point where it has served either their interests or their ideals.

That possibility having been resoundingly dashed, I now grasp for some encouragement from the signs that buyer’s remorse is beginning to set in among Jews, as it also seems to be doing among independents. Which is why I am hoping against hope that the exposure of Mr. Obama as a false messiah will at last open the eyes of my fellow Jews to the correlative falsity of the political creed he so perfectly personifies and to which they have for so long been so misguidedly loyal.

Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary from 1960 to 1995. His latest book, “Why Are Jews Liberals?” is just out from Doubleday.

January 18, 2019 | 22 Comments »

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  1. @ honeybee:

    Jews have an instinctive aversion to christianity… they feel instinctively safer by aligning with any cause, movement or idea that diminishes the power of christian conservative norms, values societal dominance. This inherent fear and disdain of christianity is the underlying subliminal reason you will find Jews leading the pack in the porn industry, abortion advocacy, and entertainment industries… or any educational and cultural milieu that challenges the christian moral majority.

  4. @ adamdalgliesh:
    Bingo! When I used to attend Green Party meetings, my local chapter was 99% Jewish, some of them were members of the local reform temple. I was astonished to learn that I was the only member who worked in the private sector. They were all teachers, librarians, social workers, etc. When 9/11 happened, they were happy they could use it to bash American involvement in Afghanistan. That’s when I left. Later on, when open anti-semites were making anti-semitic comments, at the Green Party national leadership level, I e-mailed my former mentor in the Greens, and asked, how can Jews support this party? He e-mailed me that I should come back to the party and work on this issue from within. Hopeless. (I registered as a Republican instead.)

  6. A rare piece of good news from the American Jewish Front: That infamous rag “The Forward has partially shut down. This from the New York Post via Elder of Ziyon:

    The Jewish Daily Forward @jdforward fires editor-in-chief. It has hemorrhaged over $70 million over the years.
    From The New York Post:
    The Forward is stopping — its print editions.

    The storied Jewish-American publication is suspending its print operations and plans to lay off about 40 percent of its editorial staff — including Editor-in-Chief Jane Eisner — while moving to digital-only.

    A print publication for 121 years, The Forward will continue to produce an English-language and a Yiddish-language edition online.

    The Forward is eyeing growth among its under-35 readers who prefer to read news online. Currently that segments amounts to a third of total readers.

    “The revenue is not really there,” said a source. “They’ve been losing money for years but lately the losses have been more than $5 million a year.”

    The publication is owned by The Forward Association, a not-for-profit whose endowment swelled to more than $100 million when the association sold its former headquarters on the Lower East Side as well as the radio station WEVD.
    Back in November, Forward writer Jonathan Nathan-Kazis asked people to help him find dirt on Jewish charities – but his own non-profit employer has been throwing away far more money than most of the supposed scandals he has been reporting on in the Jewish world.

    That $100 million that the Forward Association used to have? That was in 2001, when it sold WEVD to Disney for $78 million.

    As of 2016, its total assets dipped below $40 million, and at the rate of losing over $5 million a year, that means it is now down to probably less than $30 million. (They have not yet filed their 2017 forms, let alone 2018.)

    Eisner’s compensation of some $250,000 a year will hardly make a dent in the amount The Forward is hemorrhaging.

    My back of the envelope estimate is that the annual losses at the Forward will now be trimmed to “only” $3.2 million or so (possibly more if their print subscriptions were a majority of the subscription revenue.)

    As far as trying to appeal to more people under 35, I guess we can expect more “journalism” like the literally antisemitic article about the 15 Women You Meet When You Date Jews In New York.

    The Forward has already slid into irrelevance. Young Jews who care about Judaism and Israel won’t read it, so the new webzine will amp up its articles targeted at its audience of young Jews who hate Israel and Judaism. And why should they want to read an ostensibly Jewish newspaper?

    I predict that The Jewish Daily Forward will drop the “Jewish” part within five years.

  7. @ adamdalgliesh:

    Most Jews working in the Diamond Center are either orthodox, Israeli or both LOL Same situation in any other urban area where there are sizable numbers of Jews, I doubt there would be a similar reaction. Most American Jews even if supportive are wusses and con-confrontational unless it’s for leftist causes on social justice, climate change or saving some near extinct animal or plant.

  8. Great!!! Also, seems to bear out my theory that Jews employed by private industry are less committed to a liberal agenda, and hence less inhibited about supporting Israel, than those in the “public sector.”

  10. Let’s not leave out the labor unions, such as the American Federation of Teachers, that employ many Jews in their administration, and are of course fervent advocates of liberal agendas.

    In general, the percentage of American Jews who are employed by agencies who institutional interests coincide with a liberal agenda, and who require this agenda to obtain funding for their staffs, is probably greatly disproportionate to the percentage of other Americans employed by these agencies. Most Americans are employed in the private, for-profit sector, either as employees or owners. They have on the whole less incentive on average to support a liberal political agenda than the majority of American Jews. Even, so, of course, nearly half of all Americans (the 47% identifies by Mitt Romney in an unnguarded moment) support a liberal political agenda, or at least vote for liberals on a regular basis.

  11. It is possible that there is more of an element of self-interest in American Jewish ‘liberalism” than meets the eye. Despite the stereotype of the wealthy American Jew, probabably a majority of American Jews are employed by the “public sector” in one form or another. This includes schoolteachers, college professors, social workers, employees of government agencies, Federal, State and municipal, and even private “nonprofits” that receive substantial government subsidies, such hospital systems, and even physicians who receive Medicare and Medicaid payments as a substantial part of their incomes. Many are employed by agencies that dispense and administer the every “entitlements” that the majority of American Jews endorse, such as Medicare, Medicade, unemployment benefits, state employment agencies, etc. Others work for agencies that administer Federal largesse for “refugee” settlement in the U.S., such as HIAS. The disproportionate number of American Jews employed in the government sector and its bureaucracies may be the real cause of American Jewish “liberalism.”

    How many American Jewish successful entrepreneurs are liberals? Some, certainly, but probably not the majority.

  12. Steve Plaut was correct in all he said about the hold of liberalism on most (not all) American Jews. Also, the more conservative views of Orthodox American Jews. He was wrong, however, about the support of American “Zionists” for Israel and Jewish national identity. Many of the American groups that call themselves “Zionist” today support the Israeli Labor Party, Meretz and further-left groups in supporting “THe Palestinians” against Israel. Todo most Reform and Conservative rabbis. Only the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has remained a genuine Zionist organization. The Conference of Presidents, originally an organization formed to facilitate pro-Israel lobbying, has ceased to perform that function due to its inclusion of “pro-Israel” anti-Israel groups such as “J-Street.”

    Of course, this situation among American Jewry echoes the de facto abandonment of Zionist by most of Israel’s political parties, even if they still use the “Zionist” label to identify themselves, and the avid attempts to throttle Zionism by Israel’s self-appointed “gatekeepers,” whose enforcement arms are the Supreme Court and Attorney General.

  15. @ Ted Belman:

    I think you have the wrong Steven Plaut but maybe I am mistaken?

    Steven Plaut (1951 – January 17, 2017) was an American-born Israeli economist, academic and writer. He was an associate professor of Business Administration at the University of Haifa as well as a member of the editorial board of the Middle East Quarterly, a publication of the Middle East Forum think tank.

    Biography
    Steven Plaut was born in Philadelphia. In 1981, Plaut immigrated to Israel with his family. He died on January 17, 2017, in Haifa, Israel at the age of 65 after battling cancer for many years.

    Academic career
    Plaut received his undergraduate degree from Temple University in Philadelphia and his MA from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University,specializing in international and urban economics and later in finance. Plaut worked at the Federal Reserve Bank. Before his professorship at the Haifa University, he taught at Oberlin College, the Technion, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, Central European University, Tel Aviv University, University of Nantes, and Athens Laboratory for Business Administration.

    Literary career
    In his 1985 book titled The Joy of Capitalism, Plaut argues for free market economics and compares the profit motive to the libido. In the book he discusses energy, housing, banking and agricultural policy as well as equality and income distribution.

    In his 2002 book The Scout Steven Plaut describes his near-death experience as a kidney cancer patient at an intensive care ward. The historical novel is a series of life stories exchanged between him and another patient in the ward, an Israeli Bedouin scout.

    Political views
    Steven Plaut was an outspoken critic of the Israeli-Arab peace process and Israel’s unilateral withdrawal policy. Since the Oslo Accords, he argued that Arab leaders would continue to seek the destruction of Israel through violence and terrorism.[5] Some of his political writings are criticisms of Nakba Day.

    Plaut was critical of many Israeli left-wing figures, as well as some Americans such as Michael Lerner and Norman Finkelstein, whom he described as self-hating Jews and apologists for terrorism that are promoting the destruction of Israel. Plaut was opposed to what he saw as left-wing extremism in Israeli universities, and was actively involved in Isracampus, a self-proclaimed watchdog organization that publicizes anti-Israel people and groups.In the Canadian Jewish Tribune, he denounced Anarchists Against the Wall, a group protesting the Israeli West Bank barrier which he said was composed of “violent hooligans and anarcho-fascist thugs.”

    “ The most important lesson of recent years, and it is by now understood by everyone except university leftists and anti-Israel journalists, is that nothing will really put an end to the terror and rockets from Gaza other than some good old-fashioned R&D – Reoccupation and Denazification. Everything else is a delusion. Israel must re-occupy the Gaza Strip, subject it to martial law, and carry out a decades-long program of Denazification. ”
    —?FrontpageMag.com, November 26, 2012
    Libel case
    Plaut was sued for libel by Neve Gordon, a faculty member at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Department of Politics and Government, claiming that Plaut slandered him in certain articles and alleged e-mails. In May 2006, the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court ruled in favor of Gordon, and ordered Plaut to pay Gordon 80,000 shekels in compensation plus 15,000 shekels in legal fees. Both sides appealed to the Nazareth District Court, and in February 2008, the court reversed three out of four of the libel claims but upheld a libel judgment relating to the fourth, a publication in which Plaut called Gordon a “Judenrat Wannabe”. It reduced the damages to 10,000 shekels (about $2,700) on the basis that, in the court’s view, Plaut was entitled to criticize Gordon.

    Letter to Turkish Prime Minister
    In March 2013, a letter from Plaut was received by the office of Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, Prime Minister of Turkey. The letter condemned as illegal Turkey’s occupation of Northern Cyprus and attacked the Turkish Prime Minister, accusing him of being behind the Gaza Flotilla “terrorist attack” on Israeli soldiers. Plaut apologized for Israel not killing a larger number of “terrorists” on the flotilla ship. He claimed it was time to give back “occupied Constantinople” to its “true owner”, namely, Greece.

  16. @ yamit82:
    Stephen Plaut, the author, was the Rabbi of the Holy Blossom Temple., the largest Reform congregation in Canada. He was much loved.

    UNder his influence he began the restoration of nationhood for his congregants. They became more Zionistic as a result.

    Plaut also restored tradition . Many congregants began wearing kippahs in services.

  18. Norman Podhoretz’ article was written ten years ago, in 2009, just after Barak Obama was elected to his irst term as President. Amazing how accurately it has predicted the behavior of most American Jews, and most American Jewish leaders, since then. Nothing has changed in American Jewish political behavior. We still villify our friends and support our enemies.

    I have always believed that the true test of intelligence is not some set of questions devised by a psychologist, but one’s ability to advance one’s own interests within a social setting. We Jews seem to get a below-average score on this real-life IQ test. We have the word sechel, but no sechel.

  19. @ yamit82:


    How Did Liberalism Become Judaism?

    While the bulk of the American Jewish community, and to a lesser extent other Western Diaspora Jewish communities, was carried away by the new “religion” of liberalism, there remained two smaller opposition movements to “Liberalism as Judaism”. The first was the Orthodox community, which had never substituted liberalism – or for that matter anything else – for traditional Judaism. Orthodoxy had never jettisoned the nationalist aspects of Jewish tradition and identity. The Orthodox were by and large unapologetic Jews, unwilling to dilute their tradition and undergo partial-Protestantization of their religious practice. In many cases they were also non-liberal and especially non-PC, opposing radical feminism and gay rights. They were and are a small fraction of the total number of Americans of Jewish ancestry, although a far larger percent (possibly even a majority) of those Jews who today still unambiguously identify themselves as Jews.

    The other, even smaller, minority was the Zionist movement. Zionists by definition rejected the attempt by assimilationists and “reformers” to jettison Jewish national identity. While Zionists ranged in terms of religiosity from the Orthodox to the radical-secularist anti-religious, they were united in their celebration of Jewish nationality, especially in its main manifestation – Jewish statehood in Israel. Thus, Zionism is necessarily and quintessentially a negation of the assimilationist “Liberalism as Judaism” orthodoxy that dominates American (and other Western) Jewry.

    Zionism must necessarily play an Opposition role to liberal pseudo-Judaism within the Diaspora. Zionism is in essence the movement of Jewish national survivalism, and so must negate Jewish assimilationism and the pseudo-religion of “Liberalism as Judaism”.

  22. I read Mr Podhoretz excellent book years ago. Jews are suicidal, self hating, liberals who feel bad and try to befriend those who vow to destroy them. Social Gospel ie Social Justice is preached in the Temples across the country. Rabbi’s frame Pacha about the weekly Torah readings to indicate that G-D supported big government, gay rights, gun control, abortion and even Obamacare. Rabbi’s tell us its our duty to take in Syrian refugees even though it has been shown 85% of them support terrorist policies against Jews. It is the leaders in the temples, at the ADL, CJP, and other alphabet Jewish organizations that preach such fallacies. Those that read the NYT and see CNN as Talmudic teachings, are the 90% Jews who are liberal democrats.

    If there were cemeteries for Liberal Democrats, the Jews would want to be buried there. They identify as that pollical label much more then being known as a Jew.

    I believe that Conservative Temples are going away mainly because of semantics. What Jew can fathom being called a Conservative in this day and age. Your brethren will scream and tar and feather you faster than you can say Trump. BTW the best Pro-Isreal US president ever and most hated among the Jewish majority. Very sad.