OPINION:
The predictions of a major political realignment of the American Jews are wishful thinking.
Jews are horrified by crashing waves of antisemitism here and abroad — a bloodbath in Israel, internet death threats, and college campuses reminiscent of German universities just before the Nazis came to power.
If men were guided by reason, Jewish donors would open their checkbooks to the Republican Party.
But most Jews are so heavily invested in the Democrats and their agenda that even the atrocities of Oct. 7 — the highest daily Jewish death toll since the Holocaust — won’t have a long-term impact.
The liberalism of American Jewry is proverbial.
In every presidential election over the past 40 years, Republicans got about one-third of the Jewish vote.
In 2020, the most pro-Israel president in our lifetime won only 30% of the Jewish vote. A June opinion poll showed 61% of Jewish voters viewed President Biden favorably, 20 points higher than among the general public.
Orthodox Jews are the exception. In a 2020 survey, 75% said they were Republicans. Support for the GOP is even higher among Hasidic Jews. Fortunately for conservatives, this demographic is growing, because the Orthodox are the only Jews having children at above replacement level.
On issue after issue, Jewish voters march in lockstep with progressives. In a June 2018 poll, 88% supported abortion on demand, 70% wanted stronger gun control, and 46% favored increased immigration, while only 17% wanted to see it decreased. Potential terrorists streaming across our border probably won’t put a dent in that thinking.
Even on issues directly related to Jewish survival, American Jews are aligned with the left.
In a recent survey, 59% either favored or strongly favored what us called a two-state solution, which would quickly become a one-state solution, leading to the Final Solution 2.0.
Liberalism is the secular religion of assimilated Jews — even when it’s clearly against their self-interest.
American Jews are alienated from Torah values. In a 2018 survey, 56% said they considered being Jewish more a matter of ethnicity or culture (bagels and lox Judaism), versus 24% who consider it a religion.
According to Pew Research, only 10% attend synagogue services at least once a week, while 49% attend a few times a year and 31% seldom or never.
Liberalism is the creed of the alienated — whether lapsed Catholics, indifferent Protestants or secular Jews.
Like traditional religion, liberalism offers a vision of good and evil and a path to salvation.
The good is sacrificing for the collective, especially with higher taxes and green energy, supporting the agenda of the sexual revolution (including abortion on demand, transgenderism and population control), favoring criminals over victims (“defund the police,” cashless bail and gun control), and what’s called racial justice (quotas, reparations and the collective punishment of Whites).
If you follow this prescription, in the eyes of liberals, you are entitled to think of yourself as a good person. Evil is the opposite — Judeo-Christian morality, patriotism, gun ownership and equal application of the law.
Evildoers will be punished not in the world to come — which liberals have rejected as a myth — but in the here and now, by the minions of the state, mainstream media and Big Tech, and by being investigated, harassed and censored.
The Biden administration is giving Jewish voters just enough excuses for inertia. After the Oct. 7 pogrom, the president went to Israel to pledge his support. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is now there for the third time. An aid package has been promised, but not the one House Republicans just passed.
At the same time, Mr. Biden keeps pushing for humanitarian aid, which he knows will end up in Hamas’ hands, while he tries to restrain Israel. Instead of a cease-fire, he says he wants a “pause,” which amounts to the same thing.
The Union for Reform Judaism, the Vatican of Jewish liberals, echoed the president’s call for a “humanitarian pause” — which would give Hamas a chance to regroup, resupply and continue their war of extermination at a later date.
Jewish liberalism is a death wish, one that American Jews can’t seem to resist.
It’s like a man who is morbidly obese going for one more piece of cheesecake. If he thought about it rationally, he’d realize that he’s killing himself, but he can’t stop.
That’s why, despite all expectations to the contrary, Jewish voters will not seek sanctuary in the Republican Party next year.
• Don Feder is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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