History
From the moment of their arrival in New Amsterdam one can document the unfolding of this unique connection between the North American continent and the Jewish people. Peter Stuyvesant, the then-governor of New Amsterdam, petitioned the Dutch West India Company, requesting the right to bar this community of Jews from settling in the colony. The company's response laid out the first core principle that has come to define the Jewish "contract" with America, directing Stuyvesant to permit Jews to remain and in turn charged that Jews would be responsible for "caring of their own." Creating the infrastructure of communities, social and human services, and synagogues and cemeteries represented an age-old Jewish imperative, but in the American context the meaning of this event would come to symbolize more than a level of toleration. It would reflect the partnership between the public and private sectors in meeting core communal religious and social concerns (Windmeuller, 2003).
Research shows that the Jewish vote only constitutes 3% of the national electorate, and has been consistently in support of the Democratic Party. A researcher would have to go back to the Presidential election of Warren Harding to find the Jewish vote over 40% in favor of the Republican Party. However, within the American political scene a person can predict that 60-90% of the Jewish voters are going to vote for the Democratic Party, second only to the African-American voter (Lefkowitz, 2005 p. 1).
The United States of America never promoted a practice of state-sponsored or state-supported anti-Semitism as in other nations as remembered in Europe. The Virginia Declaration on Religious Freedom, crafted by Thomas Jefferson, affirmed the principle of separation of church from state, a standard embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thereby removing from the American political culture any direct alignment between the state and its religious elements (Windmeuller, 2003). The American Jewish Congress still promotes this strict separation of Church and State and cringes when an attempt is made to close that gap. Similarly, an environment of personal toleration and acceptance was established in the constitution's central text, where no religious tests were to be established, permitting the full participation of citizens in the public sector (Windmeuller, 2003). With this political culture it has allowed the Jewish people the ability to voice their opinion and make a difference in government actions.
Question
Traditionally, since 1916, the Jewish block has voted for the Democratic Party (Lefkowitz, 2005, p. 1). The question has to be asked, why is the Jewish vote so important? Have the events surrounding September 11, 2001 and the war on terror caused the Jewish vote to move to the Republican Party?
Literature Review
The first important aspect that makes the Jewish vote important is that the Jewish voter bloc participates in greater numbers (78%) as compared to their Protestant (52%) and Catholic (36%) counterparts (Windmeuller, 2003). This is primarily caused by the belief that Jews are welcome in the United States as stated above. In addition to the heavy Jewish turnout, there are nine key states with significant Jewish populations account for 212 electoral votes or 78 percent of the total needed to secure the White House (Windmeuller, 2003). In any of these battleground states the Jewish vote can make the difference in any presidential election.
The next issue of importance in the Jewish voting bloc is money. American Jews stand at the top of the “American Dream”. Jews comprise over 25% of the names on the Forbes magazine annual list of America’s richest people. Five of the eight presidents of the Ivy League universities, and ten U.S. Senators, have Jewish parents (Shapiro 1998). Historically, Jewish donors provide as much as 50% of the money that the Democratic National Committee received from individual donors in the 1998 and 2000 election cycles (Stone 2004). Research by University of Akron political scientist John Green, an expert on religion and politics, revealed that in the 2000 presidential primary, Democratic candidates Al Gore and Bill Bradley raised a staggering 21 percent of their contributions from Jews. In dollar terms, that means $13 million of the $62 million raised by the two presidential contenders came from the Jewish community - a stunning revelation considering that Jewish voters accounted for just 3 percent of voters in the 2000 elections (Keller 2004). According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based group that tracks the flow of money in the campaign system, pro-Israel interests has contributed $41.3 million in individual, PAC (political action committee) and soft money contributions to federal candidates and party committees over the past decade , most of this money going to the DNC (Keller 2003). During the 2004 election campaign President Bush courted the Jewish vote because of the wealth that is found there. An added bonus to the Republican Party is that for every dollar that is given to the Republicans is a dollar taken away from the Democrats. In affect every Jewish Dollar given to the Republican National Party is worth two. Three Jews; Michael Lebovitz, Fred Zeidman, and Sheldon Kamins assisted Bush in the raising of over $200,000.00 for his re-election campaign (Stone 2004). Between October, 2003 and May, 2004 Bush and Cheney hosted several kosher dinners across America in major Jewish population centers which brought in about $2.15 million dollars. These Jewish converts to the Republican Party are being called “Bush Rangers” (Stone 2004). George W. Bush followed the leadership of Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon in that he publicly showed his support for Israel and their right to fight terrorism especially after 9/11. This support for the State of Israel aided the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Joe Gildenhorn in raising close to $4 million for the Bush election.
Another issue that is important to the Jewish voting bloc regardless of how religious the Jewish people are is Israel and its’ security. September 11, 2001 brought terrorism home to many Americans but none as much as the Jews who have been living safe and sound in America since 1948. When the towers went down American Jews felt what Jews in Israel have felt for decades. Sixty years after the Holocaust, a new wave of anti-Semitism has swept the globe, spearheaded by radical Muslims in the Middle East and Europe but taken up with gusto in democratic Western society not only by right-wing nationalists and neo-Nazis but also by liberal and left wing "anti-Zionists." With frightening regularity, Jews have been assaulted either physically or in venomous words, synagogues and community centers have been bombed or incinerated in places as far-flung as Turkey, Tunisia, Argentina, England, and France, anti-Zionist rallies on American college campuses have deteriorated into anti-Jewish harangues, and Jews and Israelis have been blamed for everything from using the blood of Palestinian children for baking matzos to masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States (Wertheimer 2004). In the immediate postwar decades, such questions, if asked at all, were brushed aside. Just as Jewish voters overwhelmingly favored candidates fielded by the Democratic party, Jewish organizations instinctively made common cause with groups within the New Deal coalition--liberal Protestants and Catholics, labor unions, other minorities (especially black Americans), and secular liberal organizations. This was understandable enough. Evangelical Protestants were, at the time, quiescent; the Republican Party was an alien entity, still tainted by isolationism; corporate America excluded Jews from major positions; rural populations were at a far remove; and insofar as anti-Semitism was noticeable, it emanated from conservative, nationalist quarters, the traditional locus of anti-Jewish animus in the modern era. If, on the issue of Israel, Jewish groups have had a hard time coping with their abandonment by allies (real or imagined) on the Left, they have had perhaps an even harder struggle making sense of the warm support for Israel shown by the Christian Right (Wertheimer 2004). Evangelicals raise money for Israel; lobby for congressional support of Israel, and at the height of the Palestinian Intifada did not shy away from visiting the Jewish state even as American Jews kept away in droves. They have been no less forthright in their condemnation of the anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric emanating from the Muslim world and from advanced sectors of Western society. Who would have imagined, as the Israeli writer Hillel Halkin has paraphrased the Jewish reaction, that "after 1,500 years of persecution by Christianity, our biggest allies are now devout Christians--and not only devout Christians but often the most unlettered, unworldly, and unsophisticated of the devout, people with whom we seem to have absolutely nothing in common" (Wertheimer 2004)? These Christians are being found in the Republican Party.
Bush's support of Israel and snubbing of Yasser Arafat endeared him to normally Democratic Jewish voters and turned what was supposed to be a desperately close fight into a comfortable win. For his part, Bush no doubt increased his standing among New Jersey and New York Jewish voters because of his steadfast support for Israel. But beyond those factors, little else--other than a "9/11 effect"--can account for the often dramatic changes in voting behavior in pockets of the country that typically are the most hostile to the Republican Party. Yet it was the Queens-and-Brooklyn-based 9th District of Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner that witnessed the wildest swing. In 2000, Gore won in a 37-point landslide, garnering 67 percent of the vote to Bush's 30 percent. But last year, the cops, firefighters, middle-class homeowners, Catholics, and Orthodox Jews of the polyglot 9th deserted the Democratic ticket in droves. Kerry won by just 12 points, 56 percent to 44 percent. That 25-percentage-point erosion in the Democratic margin of victory marked the district as the most volatile in the nation (Burka 2004).
In his 1997 book, The New War, Kerry--who has the endorsements of both the Muslim American PAC and the Arab America PAC--spoke glowingly of Arafat as a "statesman" and "role model." You bet. The PLO honcho is widely emulated in Tehran and Tora Bora. In a Nov. 17, 2003, speech to the Arab American Institute, Kerry called Israel's security barrier, "a barrier to peace." (It's a great inconvenience for suicide bombers.) When Jewish leaders complained, the senator reversed himself. Worse, from an Israeli perspective, are Kerry's Middle East advisors--veteran appeasers such as former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, who: 1) Helped devise the disastrous Oslo Accords, 2) Persuaded Clinton that Arafat was big teddy bear, 3) As ambassador, called all Israeli settlements "illegal" and 4) Wants to station U.S. forces in the West Bank and Gaza to cover an Israeli withdrawal. Little wonder Israeli journalist David Bedein writes, "The very mention of Indyk's name sends shudders down the spine of senior members of the Israel defense and foreign policy establishment." Equally troubling is the senator's passion for the United Nations. If the world body were composed of imams and mullahs, it could not be more anti-Israel. And John Kerry wants to put the UN in charge of the war on terrorism. All this is one reason why Bush is getting support from some surprising quarters. In a January 9, 2004, article in The Forward former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a life-long Democrat, said he's never voted for a Republican presidential candidate before, but he was voting for Bush this year. Koch wrote, "President Bush has earned my vote because he has shown the resolve necessary to wage the war against terrorism" (Koch, 2004). On October 18, New Republic Editor Martin Peretz--a social liberal but a staunch Zionist--did a column whose title says it all--"A President Kerry Would Be a Disaster for Israel" (Feder 2004).
The last aspect of why the Jewish vote is important and how it appears to be moving right is the level of religious observance within Judaism, and if that increase in observance has caused an increase in the Jewish move to the right of center. With all of the talk of “Judeo-Christian” values and morals it could be thought that the three religions, Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism would be of the same thought politically. This does not appear to be the case. Judaism is almost famous for how liberal it is while the two Christian religions are for the majority is extremely conservative. One of the many causes championed by the late Murray Friedman, whose death in May 2005 brought to a close a long and fruitful career, was the recovery of a genuine, if largely forgotten, strain of conservatism in the American Jewish past. Given the unwavering commitment to liberalism of most American Jews, a more counter-intuitive proposition would have been hard to find. But Friedman, an accomplished historian who served as mid-Atlantic director for the American Jewish Committee, vice chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and founding director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University, was a patient and a hopeful man (McClay 2006). Nor did the goal of excavating an American Jewish conservatism seem any more quixotic to Friedman than Russell Kirk's project a half-century earlier in The Conservative Mind (1953). After all, when Kirk's book was launched, conventional wisdom had it that America possessed but one intellectual tradition, namely liberalism, outside of which there was nothing but an uncharted territory of irritable mental gestures. Kirk provided a plausible historical background for a very different collection of ideas, and a very different intellectual and moral disposition--an American outlook that had been there all along but that lacked the means of identifying itself (McClay 2006).
Most accounts of neo-conservatism, particularly those that seek to distinguish it from "paleoconservatism," tend to emphasize its acceptance of certain features of liberalism, including the basic structures of the welfare state. That is fair enough; hut there is another and nearly opposite distinguishing feature. Nearly all neoconservatives, with the possible exception of the younger ones, have had a painful experience of "breaking ranks" (to borrow the title of Norman Podhoretz's 1979 book) in their intellectual development, a revolt against powerful tribal norms, so to speak, that has often proved extraordinarily costly in terms of ruptured relationships, lost professional opportunities, and personal isolation (Friedman 2005).
In 1997, running for reelection in New York City against an all-out liberal Jewish Democrat, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a law-and-order Republican, garnered some 75 percent of the Jewish vote; in his previous two races against David L. Dinkins, who served as mayor from 1990 to early 1994, Giuliani had already won two-thirds of that vote. Much the same pattern has emerged in the second largest center of American Jewry, Los Angeles, where a liberal administration heavily supported by Jews was overturned by Republican Richard J. Riordan, a Roman Catholic businessman whose trademark issues have been efficient government, jobs, and public safety. In his successful bid for reelection in 1997 against state senator and former student radical Tom Hayden, Riordan's share of the Jewish vote climbed to 71 percent. Strong Jewish backing likewise helped elect Republicans George Pataki in New York, Jeb Bush in Florida, and Christine Todd Whitman in New Jersey (though Senator Alfonse D'Amato's share of the Jewish vote fell from a previous high of 40 percent to 27 percent in his unsuccessful 1998 bid for reelection in New York against Charles Schumer (Friedman, 2000).
The vocational profile of Jews has changed significantly. Civil service, once the route to upward mobility, has become less attractive. With a lowered stake in public-sector employment, Jews are commensurately less likely to favor expansionary government programs. As like all groups as the career goals of the group move from public to private, political interests also move to protect the interests of private industry. This is seen in the Republican Party. As Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban planning at New York University, has put it, "Most Jews in New York are concerned with safety, quality of life, and taxes, not public schools and social services, the two largest areas of municipal expenditures" (Friedman, 2000). There are indications, too, that younger Jews are beginning to shape their political worldview along somewhat different lines from their parents or grandparents. For the current generation, which knew not JFK, let alone FDR, even the civil-rights and anti-Vietnam movements of the 60's have no real resonance. A poll taken by the Zogby organization during the New Jersey gubernatorial election in 1997 showed that Jews under sixty-five were significantly more likely to vote for the Republican Christine Todd Whitman than were those over sixty-five (Friedman 2000). In addition to the generational change, 700,000 Eastern European and Russian Jews have immigrated to the United States, have turned out to be conservative and voting for the Republican Party (McClay, 2006).
With these issues in mind this paper hopes to show without a doubt that the political culture of American Jews is moving to the right and that there exists a conservative revolution among the most reliable voting bloc for the Democratic Party and liberalism.
Methodology
In this paper will use the exit polls taken by the Pew Research Center and Zogby International between World War II and the 2004 Presidential elections. The information found in these polls tracks the level of partisan support for the Republican and Democratic Parties.
Data and Analysis
A Zogby poll published in December 2003 asked the question of Jewish voters where their political ideology. Those individuals that stated that they were independents were asked which Party they lean towards Republican or Democrat. The findings in 1998 showed that 73% of the Jewish population considers themselves as liberal or moderate with left leanings, 23% claimed that they were conservative, leaving 4% that did not declare allegiance to either Party. This poll was taken post September 11, 2001, thus it can be assumed that the Jewish population as a whole has not moved to the right because of the terrorist attacks that struck America on that frightful day.
Next we are going to look at the Presidential voting record by religion between 2000 and 2004, more specifically, a look at the Jewish vote between 2000 and 2004 and the changes that were seen. The figure to the left was created by the Pew Research Center with assistance from the Voter News Service and the National Election Pool. This data shows that in the 2000 Presidential election George W. Bush received 19% support from the Jewish voting block. This is the second lowest level support for a Republican Presidential candidate, next to his father in the 1992 election. In the 2004 Presidential election George W. Bush saw a drastic increase of 6% giving him 25% of the vote. This increase raised the questions of whether or not the Jewish block is moving to the right. A 6% increase between elections is significant enough to state that the contention that the Jewish voter is moving right.
The above chart is a time series chart of Support for Republican Party in Presidential elections from 1992 to 2004. This chart looks at Republican support over the 12 years and 4 Presidential elections of Presidents Clinton and Bush. This chart shows that there has been a steady increase over the four years with a small hiccup in the 2000 election. Over the 12 years there is a total 14% increase in Republican support. With this increase many people can make the statement and be accurate that the Jewish voting bloc is moving to the right of center.
To be fair and balanced to the issue you need to look at any other previous trends in Jews voting for the Republican Party. The following chart shows several peaks and valleys in the support that the Jewish voting bloc has given to the Republican Party. Post World War II through 1956 saw some of the greatest support for the Republican Party topping out at 40%. This was the time that Israel was created and the Republican Administration gave increasing support to the fledgling nation, the Jewish Homeland, Israel (Lefkowitz 2005). The 1960’s saw a decrease in support when the America’s first Catholic President in JFK. After the Six-Day war and the Yom Kippur Wars in the late 60’s and early 70’s the Jewish vote went back to the Republican Party. It again in the 1980’s when Israel was in peril Jewish support had gone back to the Republicans.
During the 90’s Israel seemed to be safe and support returned to the Democratic Party and President Clinton. Now that it appears that Israel is in trouble, rather has been in trouble with the Second Intifada Jewish support turned to the Republicans once again. The time series shows that the Jewish voting bloc, votes Israel first. America’s Jews vote with Israel. When Israel appears to be safe and secure they vote for the Democrats that support social issues and promote domestic programs. When Israel is in trouble or it looks like Israel may go to war the Jewish vote swings to the Republican Party who seems to have a greater support for Israel.
The upcoming 2006 mid-term elections and the Presidential elections of 2008 should be able to give a better determination on whether the Jewish vote is moving to the right. However, if the nuclear threat from Iran and Hamas running the Palestinian Authority continues on its course, I can predict that the Republicans will win both of these elections.
References
Burka, P. Why Bush Won. Texas Monthly [serial online]. 2004;32(12):18-22. Available from: Academic Search Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed Feb 22, 2006.
Feder, D. (2004). Will American Jews Vote With Arafat This Year?. Human Events, 60(36), 20-25. Retrieved Saturday, April 29, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Friedman, M. (2000). Are American Jews Moving to the Right?. Commentary, 109(4), 50. Retrieved Sunday, Feb 18, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Friedman, Murray (2005) Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and Shaping of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Keller, Amy. (Jan 17, 2003) “Chasing Jewish Dollars: Can GOP narrow money gap in 2004?” Jewish Renaissance Media; Atlanta Jewish Times [online] http://www.atljewishtimes.com/archives/ 2003/011703cs.htm
Koch, Edward, (2004) “Bolting for Bush” Forward Jan. 9, 2004.
Lefkowitz, Jay (Feb 2005), The Election and the Jewish Vote, Commentary, Vol. 119, Issue 2 retrieved from the Academic Search Premier March 21, 2006.
Mahtesian, C. (2005). The 9/11 Effect. National Journal, 37(16), 1156-1156. Retrieved Saturday, April 29, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
McClay, W. (2006). Right Turn. Commentary, 121(2), 71-74. Retrieved Saturday, April 29, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Pew Research Center, (2004) Presidential Vote by Religion 2000-2004.
Shapiro, Edward S., (Fall 1998) “Liberal Politics and American Jewish identity” Judaism Vol. 47, Issue 4
Stone, Peter H. (Jan. 24, 2004) “Bush’s Jewish Bloc” National Journal, Vol. 36, Issue 4, Retrieved from the Academic Search Premier, March 21, 2006.
Wertheimer, J. (2004) “Jewish Security & Jewish Interests”, Commentary, 118(3), 54-59. Retrieved March 21, 2006 from the Academic Search Premier database.
Windmeuller, Steven, (Dec. 15, 2003) “Are American Jews becoming More Republican? Insights into Jewish Political Behavior” Jewish Viewpoints, no 509 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem [online] http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp509.htm.
Zogby International (1998) Jewish Declaration of Political Ideology.
Labels: Elections, Jewish voting
