JustASC

Last week the ADL blasted Rush Limbaugh for equating Jews and bankers.

I agreed with ADL’s Abe Foxman that Limbaugh appeared to be trafficking in an anti-Semitic stereotype (as opposed to “reporting” on one). But see if you can spot the disingenuous remark in the ADL statement:

Limbaugh’s references to Jews and money in a discussion of Massachusetts politics were offensive and inappropriate. While the age-old stereotype about Jews and money has a long and sordid history, it also remains one of the main pillars of anti-Semitism and is widely accepted by many Americans. His notion that Jews vote based on their religion, rather than on their interests as Americans, plays into the hands of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

C’mon, Abe. It’s hardly anti-Semitic for someone to suggest that “Jews vote based on their religion.” We all talk about the “Jewish vote,” and with just cause: Of course Jews vote “their interests as Americans,” but there’s an entire scholarly literature – and campaign apparatus – based on how Jews vote their particular interests as well.

Granted, that’s not necessarily a “religious” vote (although certainly a large segment of the Jewish community votes according to their “religious” values, from “tikun olam” liberals to the family values that have drawn many Orthodox into the Republican column). And of course there’s Israel, which is a top Jewish concern for a tangled web of historical, ethnic, and yes, religious reasons.

Every ethnic and religious group has voting tendencies based in part on their religion. Hell, every year the American Jewish Committee polls Jews about their political attitudes. A tendency is not the same as a conspiracy. Plenty of Jews either diverge from the prevailing Jewish pattern or don’t consider “Jewish” issues at all whenthey enter the voting booth. But a politican would have to be an idiot to wander into, say, New York politics without giving strong heed to the Jewish vote — or, for that matter, the Catholic vote, the Main Line Protestant vote, the Evangelical vote, etc.

Limbaugh’s remarks were offensive because of their content — not because he suggested the existence of a “Jewish vote.”