JustASC

Joseph Epstein in the WSJ, suggesting why most Jews continue to vote Democratic:

The reason it is so difficult for Jews to vote for Republicans is largely historical. The GOP for many years seemed the party of the large corporations, the excluding country clubs, the restricted neighborhoods — all institutions dedicated to keeping Jews out — so that even now the Republican Party is associated, in the minds of Jews of a certain age, with anti-Semitism.

This only makes sense if you assume that there are no major policy differences between the two parties. But survey results suggest Jews as a group are more liberal (not just more Democratic) than not. According to the American Jewish Committee’s 2007 Annual Survey of Jewish Opinion,  43 percent placed themselves on a scale from “extremely liberal” to “slightly liberal,” while only 25 percent described thenselves as “slightly” to  ”extremely” conservative. (31 percent said they were “middle of the road.”)

It’s more than a little condescending to suggest that all those Jewish Democrats (66% of Jews identify as Democratic or Democratic-leaning, according to a June 23 survey by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life) are merely voting atavistically, as opposed to weighing the policies of one party against another.

That’s not to say whether or not Jews should or should not vote Republican — Mr. Epstein, like Rabbi David Saperstein, is entitled to his opinion of what constitutes Jewish self-interest. And yet according to the same Pew study, Jewish respondents had the highest percentage (68%) of those who said they follow government and public affairs most of the time. If “Jews cling to the Democratic Party,” it’s not because they’re not paying attention, or hopelessly stuck on Roosevelt.