A dissection of irrational Jewish voting patterns.
Imagine driving from New York to San Francisco. For three days, you stay on I-80, only getting off for gas and a bed. As you approach your destination, just north of the once beautiful city, you simply keep driving straight. Your family tells you that you have missed the exit and the one after it. You can’t change. You’ve been going straight for endless hours and you are simply on autopilot to keep doing the same until the road ends.
Why do very large percentages of Jews still vote for Democrat candidates? This is the number one question in comments related to Jews, the Republican Party and Israel. I will try to address several issues that come into play when discussing Jewish voting behavior in the United States.
1. The Breakdown of Jews in the US
The number of Jews in the United States is approximately 6.5 million, give or take a lot. As to affiliation by size, it would be unaffiliated, reform, conservative and orthodox/ultraorthodox. The latter group is the only one growing in the US, though it is the smallest by numbers. Orthodox Jews are staunch supporters of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. A recent White House-initiated and sponsored Sabbath event had many religious Jews present, thankful for both the United States and the current occupant of the Oval Office, who declared the “National Sabbath” in honor of America’s 250th birthday.
The fact that most Jews are not Orthodox has ramifications for voting patterns today. Orthodox Jews vote strongly for Republicans because the latter are generally strong supporters of Israel and also traditional values. If you want your representative to vote against the forced teaching of anti-religious concepts in schools, a Republican is more than likely to be your choice.
2. Historical Relationship of Jews and American Political Parties.
Here is where we get onto I-80 heading West. For the decades prior to Ronald Reagan, the Democrat Party was the unquestioned home of American Jews. Democrat officials tended to be more pro-Israel and pro-guy in the street than their country club Republican opposition. The Republican Party was cool to Israel and seemed to be more tied to business interests than the needs of immigrants, of which Jews were a major group. My mother said that her German father used to say, “Better a dead Democrat than a live Republican.” My parents voted for one Republican over their entire lives. She was a family friend running for a judgeship in Illinois. Democrats were more likely to take up the cause of Israel, and it was then the party of the immigrant, working man and those in need.
The parties have changed, but it would seem that much of the Jewish world missed the exit ramp. One might tie it to the presidency of Ronald Reagan, when a Republican president seemed to be a good friend of Israel. Nixon was as well, but his Jewish Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, almost choked Israel to death by slow-walking weapons delivery during the hot Yom Kippur War of 1973. Only when Golda Meir threatened nuclear weapons (using “all means”) did Nixon go over Kissinger, and C-130s were landing at Ben Gurion Airport every 30 minutes. But it was during and after Reagan that it became clear that Republicans were looking at Israel as an asset and not a nuisance, and it became obvious to many Jews that if you cared about truly American values, the Republicans were your address.
3. Judaism Changed to Fit the Democrat Descent
In more recent years, Jews from all affiliations should have concluded that they have no future in the leftist “rainbow”. Many Jewish organizations and synagogues that openly supported Black Lives Matter and other knee-jerk lefty causes, like an overrun border, were flummoxed when, post-October 7, 2023, their supposed “friends” openly came out on the side of Hamas. These Jewish organizations had assumed that they were part of some larger network dedicated to leftist bromides sold as “democratic socialism” and “progressiveness”. What happened to non-orthodox Judaism, in this author’s humble opinion (and I grew up in a Conservative synagogue through bar mitzvah), changed to fit the times instead of rejecting the times and staying true to Jewish values. Reform and Conservative movements decided that “tikun olam” (a Talmudic concept of “fixing the world”) would override Jewish learning and commandment performance. Helping illegals, giving money to BLM, and electing lunatics like AOC became more important than honoring the Sabbath, eating kosher, or praying three times a day. The people remained Jewish, though many married outside of the faith and many others simply left. But the goals and values changed so as to fit into the Democrat/Lefty program. And then on October 7th, the divorce papers were filed: we accepted you until now. Take a hike. We like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islam.
4. Donald Trump
If you talk to a liberal Jew about Donald Trump, you might want to either stand behind glass or wear noise-canceling headphones. You’ll hear every calumny, including antisemite, dictator, pedophile, thief, rapist, murderer and more. None has any basis in reality, but like many things in life, once an impression is made, it’s very hard to unmake it. A liberal Jew, still thinking of Republicans as they were in the 1970s (we were convinced that one of our senators, Charles Percy, was an antisemite) and remembering the smash-mouth reality star Donald Trump, simply cannot accept that the president is not the man of their delusions. His daughter converted to Judaism; he has been the best friend in the White House Israel has ever had, he has been a staunch supporter and good friend of American Jews, and he has pushed forth programs for the betterment of the United States. He is not the access seller that Biden was or the philanderer-in-chief of Bill Clinton. Yet, if you speak to these people, they will invent new adjectives in order to tell you how much they hate Donald Trump and thus push themselves further into the party that, of late, has suggested sending “Zionists” to ICE detention centers.
5. Israel
My mother related that she and her favorite cousin were on Broadway in New York when the news ticker announced the declaration of the state of Israel. She said that she cried, and it was nearly axiomatic for several decades that American Jews loved Israel. They bought billions in Israeli bonds, and they visited and bought homes. They prayed during the darkest hours and reveled in the country’s triumphs. That was then. And while much of American Jewry is still quite pro-Israel, it is not a universal feeling. There are Jews who buy into the canard that Israel drives antisemitism. Whatever the country does, they suffer for it. They also don’t like anything that puts Jews and Judaism front and center. Much of their existence has been to run from their faith: to eat wherever they please, do whatever they want on the Sabbath, etc. A proud Jewish state based on Judaism is not their cup of tea. Forget about the nuts who dress orthodox and march with the Muslims; they’re kooks. We’re talking about the Reform Jewish lawyer who has never been to Israel and is not interested in her future. The situation became so dire that Sheldon Adelson and others plunked down millions to fly young Jews to Israel for an all-expenses-paid “Birthright” trip. The program has been successful in connecting younger Jews with the Jewish state.
All Jews should be voting Republican in 2026. The fact that such is not the case is based partially on historic inertia and partially on a skewed view of our political parties today. May our brethren wake up before it’s too late.
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