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by Jonathan Singer, Thu Oct 23, 2008 at 09:02:30 PM EST

We have this conversation every four years, and have had it for longer than I've been alive -- are Jewish voters on the verge of defecting the Democratic coalition? Of course the evidence for this trend, which is apparently always on the horizon, is scant. But nevertheless, every four years, the punditry, goaded on by smooth talking Republican strategists, plays the role of the concern troll and wonders whether Jewish voters would be joining the Republican coalition. Well wonder no longer.

Jewish voters nationwide have grown increasingly comfortable with voting for Barack Obama for president since the Illinois senator secured the Democratic nomination in June. They now favor Obama over John McCain by more than 3 to 1, 74% to 22%.

The Obama/Biden ticket is poised to perform about on par with other recent Democratic presidential tickets when it comes to support from American Jewish voters.

The nomination of Sarah Palin, who as recently as two weeks before she was added to the GOP ticket had attended an address by the founder of "Jews for Jesus" and who (to put it lightly) is not very attuned to the concerns of Jewish Americans, certainly did a great deal to help assuage the concerns of the few Jewish voters who had previously been reluctant to back the Democratic ticket this fall. The general trend within the electorate did a great deal to help move the Jewish vote, too (as The Solomon Project [.pdf] has shown, Jews tend to move with the electorate, albeit about 30 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole).

But more than the specifics, this polling provides an yet another opportunity to call to question some of the wholly unfounded and unsubstantiated prattling of pundits this campaign season. Barack Obama can't win Hispanics, they said (though he's actually beating John McCain by better than a 2-to-1 margin). Obama can't unite the Democratic Party, they predicted (though he's pulling in a greater share of Democrats than McCain is pulling in of Republicans). Obama might be the first Democrat to lose the Jewish vote. How wrong were they. As I asked earlier today, isn't it about time for the establishment media to put on those who understand today's electorate and political environment, not those who are stuck in a reality that went the way of the car phone and Beverly Hills 90210 (well, the original one, at least)?

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Originally posted by Stockholm:

The nomination of Sarah Palin, who as recently as two weeks before she was added to the GOP ticket had attended an address by the founder of "Jews for Jesus" and who (to put it lightly) is not very attuned to the concerns of Jewish Americans, certainly did a great deal to help assuage the concerns of the few Jewish voters who had previously been reluctant to back the Democratic ticket this fall.

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[ 23 October 2008: Message edited by: genstrike ]

[ 23 October 2008: Message edited by: genstrike ]

[ 23 October 2008: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Thornhill is one of the richest ridings in Canada full of the ugliest and most ostentatious monster homes you've ever seen.

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Well at least we agree on that.

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Whatever you think of Peter Kent - he marches in the gay pride parade, supports abortion etc... someone like him would never even get a GOP nomination anywhere in the US.

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Rudy Giuliani is pro-choice as well. He was the twice-elected REPUBLICAN mayor of NYC (who BTW got about 75% of the Jewish vote there).

I don't think highly of Kent at all and I think it's a damn shame so many people in Thornhill decided to cast their vote based entirely on the Israel issue. If you visited the religious area between Bathurst and Yonge, it was a sea of blue - though it was hard to tell whether those were Conservative signs or Israeli flags! Kent saw the bigger increase in the Tory vote in the GTA - do you think it's a mere coincidence? Given that result, it's pretty clear the Canadian Jewish community now supports the Conservatives. George Jonas was proven right!

[ 24 October 2008: Message edited by: Max Bialystock ]

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Originally posted by genstrike:
I think there is more to this issue than simply pundits saying stupid things and being wrong every few years. I think what is going on here is that the right wants to both pick up Jewish votes, try to smear the left as anti-semitic and encourage Jewish voters to vote for militarist policies regarding the Middle East in the hopes that by saying it often enough, some Jewish people might pick up on it and it will become true. Of course, so far it isn't working because Jewish voters aren't stupid (well, no more stupid than other voters...) and care about more issues than just relations with one tiny country that engages in morally questionable acts.

[ 23 October 2008: Message edited by: genstrike ]

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Meanwhile, a small part of that spectrum, the pro-Israel lobby, has high hopes for Obama military action against Iran.

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Top Obama Adviser Signs on to Roadmap to War with Iran

If you haven’t seen it already, check out the op-ed by former Sens. Daniel Coats and Charles Robb in the Washington Post today, entitled “Stopping a Nuclear Tehran.” It is the summary of a report issued last month by an organization called The Bipartisan Policy Center (at whose website you can find the full report), and it amounts to a roadmap to war with Iran to which a senior Middle East adviser in the Obama campaign — namely, Dennis Ross — has apparently signed on.

[UPDATE: Make sure you also read in this connection today’s New York Times article by David Sanger, particularly the part about the purported e-mail from Obama that was routed through an unidentified “aide,” who I presume to be Ross. The coincidence of the appearance of this article with the Coats-Robb op-ed suggests an effort to box Obama into a pre-election position. The Iran part of the story by Sanger, who considers himself a foreign-policy player, as well as a reporter, tracks the report’s narrative quite nicely.]....

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[ 24 October 2008: Message edited by: contrarianna ]

According to them this will signify the end of the world, as they are the only people saving the world.

As such, they cannot understand why American Jews would support Obama. They apparently believe that he will pull funding and support from Israel.

According to fundamentalist belief, the Jews must rebuild the Temple on the Mount in order for the anti Christ to come, thus bringing on Armageddon and "The Rapture".

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Rudy Giuliani is pro-choice as well. He was the twice-elected REPUBLICAN mayor of NYC (who BTW got about 75% of the Jewish vote there).

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An aside.

Last week, McCain and Obama, as part of tradition, attended a fundraising dinner where they were supposed to make light hearted jests at one another and themselves.

Obama segued to Guliani's cross dressing and pro choice stand, and turned to McCain and said, "Tough Primary, eh John?"

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Originally posted by Mojoroad1:
According to fundamentalist belief, the Jews must rebuild the Temple on the Mount in order for the anti Christ to come, thus bringing on Armageddon and "The Rapture".

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I mean, think about it this way to see their weird discontinuity on all of this and one has to ask how did they get there.

If they do not support Israel and Israel fails, God will smite America and thus the world will fall apart, and be smote.

However, if they keep on supporting Israel, and Israel can eventually meet "the Christ mandate" required for Armageddon to occur...well Armageddon occurs and the world is smote.

So, either supporting Israel, or not, means exactly the same thing. God will smote the USA and in turn the world, either way. Its a good gig for Israel though.

Seriously, how can people worship/believe in an entity that is all about smoting, no matter what you do?

This brings up the reality that as they believe apparently that smoting happens either way, there has to be a conceptual framework at play that hinders the smoting. Because not all people are assured the Rapture, only the special ones.

So what do they...the non-assured Rapturers do? Give the appearance of assisting Israel, but not doing enough to assure they gain headway for their needed expansion and Temple building. But not giving too little, so that they fall on their faces. Does this mean status quo must be kept, just in case?

It appears so, to me, as if they are frightened of Obama pulling funding, and thus they will be smote, and they won't do enough for Israel to bring about the needed mandate. There can only be status quo.

Moreover, one wonders how they are overlooking the fact that God knows everything anyway. I mean all knowing, all seeing, and all being, is essential to the principles of Christianity. How can God know if you deserve the Rapture, or not, otherwise? So how can the fundamentalist Christians believe they could be "tricking" God?

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Originally posted by remind:
[QB]
Ya, I know that, but I find this other supposedly opposing belief to be...well...deeply strange. In fact, so much so, I do not know how they can wrap their heads around it, to believe the 2 things at the same time. I know I can't.

I mean, think about it this way to see their weird discontinuity on all of this and one has to ask how did they get there.

If they do not support Israel and Israel fails, God will smite America and thus the world will fall apart, and be smote.

However, if they keep on supporting Israel, and Israel can eventually meet "the Christ mandate" required for Armageddon to occur...well Armageddon occurs and the world is smote.

So, either supporting Israel, or not, means exactly the same thing. God will smote the USA and in turn the world, either way. Its a good gig for Israel though.

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It's not the same thing though. The world gets smoted either way yes, but one way with a perceived 'good' outcome, Christ comes back a bunch of bad stuff happens and the world eventually gets redone into something better , the other way is just a smoting and everything just ends. The 'Rapture' part isn't universial either in end times belief that includes Israel.

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Seriously, how can people worship/believe in an entity that is all about smoting, no matter what you do?

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This brings up the reality that as they believe apparently that smoting happens either way, there has to be a conceptual framework at play that hinders the smoting. Because not all people are assured the Rapture, only the special ones.

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So what do they...the non-assured Rapturers do?

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Moreover, one wonders how they are overlooking the fact that God knows everything anyway. I mean all knowing, all seeing, and all being, is essential to the principles of Christianity. How can God know if you deserve the Rapture, or not, otherwise? So how can the fundamentalist Christians believe they could be "tricking" God?

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The mental gymnastics done by Christian fundamentalists must be incredible, seriously. Or are they are all so whacked, one can fill em full of shit every Sunday and they are good for a week?

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Originally posted by Max Bialystock:
Kent saw the bigger increase in the Tory vote in the GTA - do you think it's a mere coincidence? Given that result, it's pretty clear the Canadian Jewish community now supports the Conservatives. George Jonas was proven right!

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I think it's a damn shame so many people in Thornhill decided to cast their vote based entirely on the Israel issue.

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As for Kent, maybe his result says something more specific about Thornhill or certain subsets like the Orthodox Jews, than it does about Canadian Jews as a whole. The Conservatives actually got fewer votes in St. Paul's and Westmount, for example.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

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Pennsylvania Republicans are disavowing an e-mail sent to Jewish voters that likens a vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to events that led up to the Holocaust.

"Jewish Americans cannot afford to make the wrong decision on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008," the e-mail reads. "Many of our ancestors ignored the warning signs in the 1930s and 1940s and made a tragic mistake. Let's not make a similar one this year!"

A copy of the e-mail, provided by Democratic officials, says it was "Paid for by the Republican Federal Committee of PA — Victory 2008."

It warns "Fellow Jewish Voters" of the danger of a second Holocaust due to the threats to Israel from its neighbors and touts Republican presidential candidate John McCain's qualifications over those of Obama.

State GOP officials disavowed the e-mail and said the strategist who helped draft it had been fired.

"The Republican Party of Pennsylvania did not authorize that e-mail," Michael Barley, communications director for the state party, told The Associated Press on Saturday evening.

Barley said a "correction" would be sent out to everyone who received it.

The e-mail was sent Thursday morning to 75,000 Jewish voters.

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Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
Whenever it's shown that Jews have not embraced neocon politics, you'll read over at Free Republic etc. that "Jews would vote for Adolf Hitler if he was a Democrat."

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Originally posted by St. Paul's Progressive:...whatever gains McCain could have made have been eroded by Sarah Palin - who scares the living daylight out of most Jews.

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Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:

As for Kent, maybe his result says something more specific about Thornhill or certain subsets like the Orthodox Jews, than it does about Canadian Jews as a whole. The Conservatives actually got fewer votes in St. Paul's and Westmount, for example.

[ 25 October 2008: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

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I saw some data after the last u.S. election by some pollster who analyzed exit poll results and the basic finding was that while Jews as a whole voted overwhelmingly for Kerry, Orthodox Jews voted strongly for Bush. Right now the Orthodox make up a fairly small segment of the overall Jewish population, but due to significantly higher birth rates are growing at a much higher rate than any other jewish group.

The same is basically true of Christians as well. There's some statistic that shows that like people who go to church at least once a week tend to vote Republican in much higehr numbers than Christians who rarely or enver go to church.

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Originally posted by Star Spangled Canadian:
Right now the Orthodox make up a fairly small segment of the overall Jewish population, but due to significantly higher birth rates are growing at a much higher rate than any other jewish group.

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Orthodox Judaism is not hereditary.

Trust me on that one.

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Originally posted by unionist:

Orthodox Judaism is not hereditary.

Trust me on that one.

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Originally posted by Star Spangled Canadian:
For instance, someone who grows up as a Satmar Hasid in Kiryas Yoel, NY, speaks only Yiddish and has only ever studied at yeshivas and is married by 18 is fairly unlikely to leave the community.

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I'm ok with Satmar. They're anti-Zionist!

I still remember visiting New York as a kid, in the dead of winter. In one area of Brooklyn, there were posters up, in Yiddish, blasting the Satmar Rebbe for [paraphrase] "warming his behind in Florida instead of holidaying in Eretz Yisroel".

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Originally posted by unionist:

I have no idea how they vote in presidential elections. But on Israel... You go, Satmar!

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They vote however the Rebbe tells them to vote. If you get teh Rebbe's vote, you get the vote of every Satmar in the community. Now, however, Satmar is split among the two sons of the previous Rebbe with one controlling Brooklyn and one controlling Kiryas Yoel.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
If they are anti-Zionist I can assure you it has NOTHINg to do with any compassion for the Palestinians (any more than Zionist Christians have any actual affection for Jews) - these religious freaks just think that a Jewish state can only be created after the return of the Messiah and since that hasn't happened - they think the current state of Israel is illegitimate.

If they decided that the Messiah had actually appeared - they would be the first ones to want to wipe the palestinians off the face of the earth.

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Originally posted by unionist:
I'm ok with Satmar. They're anti-Zionist!

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Originally posted by St. Paul's Progressive:

I'm not. They are very reactionary.

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People have the right to be "very reactionary". I may differ with them on every single position and value.

But if, as Jews, they do not collaborate with the crimes of the "Jewish" state, I hail that stand and do not look behind the curtain as to whether their "intentions" are pure.

Likewise, I support the struggle of the Palestinian people for their national rights, whether some are atheists or Muslims or Christians or homophobic or whatever.

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Originally posted by St. Paul's Progressive:
Unionist, where do the Outremont Hassidim stand on Zionism?

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It depends more on "court" or "sect" of Hasidism than where tehy currently live. I think Outremont (like Brooklyn or jerusalem or bnei Brak) has all sorts of different types of Hasidim living in fairly clsoe proximity.

When the state of Israel was about to be established in 1948, basically ALL Hasidic groups were agaisnt it (also agaisnt it were non-Hasidic ultra-orthodox Jews). By the way, if you want an interesting depiction of this, there's a great movie (based on a better novel by Chaim Potok) called The Chosen which dramatizes some of the conflcit among the ultra-orthodox and the more secular over the establishment of a state.

Even today, msot Hasidim will tell you that tehy are THEOLOGICALLY opposed to zionism (based on a certain passage of gemara which I am not nearly smart enough to recall but absically says that a jewish state can only be established by the Messiah and that the Jews should remain in exile until G-d decrees otehrwise and in the meantime should not rebell against their current governments). Some hasidic groups, while remaining opposed to the principle behind zionism have pragmatically decided to support the existence of the state for one of two main reasons: 1)whether the state SHOULD exist or not, it currently DOES and so they feel that there is a duty to defend it and the lives of Jews who live there; and b)many Hasidic groups are getting massive amounts of government money from the state to support their alrge families, schools, etc. and don't want to bite the hand that feeds.

The Hasidic groups that today tend to be more tolerant of zionism would be Chabad-Lubavitch, Ger, Bobov and Breslov. On the otehr hand, you have groups that remain damantly opposed to zionism and refuse to recognize the state - they will not vote, serve in teh military or accept any funding in welfare payments, schools, etc. Most will not live in or even visit parts of the land captured in the 1967 war, including hte Western Wall. The biggest group in this category is Satmar which is the biggest hasidic group in the world. it also includes smaller ones like Dushinsky and Toldos Aharon.

The so-called Modern Orthodox are also politically conservative and they are probably the most Zionist of all. Thornhill is a Modern Orthodox stronghold in the GTA and that riding just went Tory.

[ 27 October 2008: Message edited by: St. Paul's Progressive ]

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Originally posted by St. Paul's Progressive:
Unionist, where do the Outremont Hassidim stand on Zionism?

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What Star Spangled Banner said. One could go into more detail (like, the Tasher Hassidim, who settled in Boisbriand and who tend to support the PQ), but I think the point has been made.

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Originally posted by St. Paul's Progressive:
Even if they're anti-Zionist theologically though, they'd probably like the social conservatism of the Republicans in the US and Conservatives in Canada on issues such as religious school funding and gay marriage.

The so-called Modern Orthodox are also politically conservative and they are probably the most Zionist of all. Thornhill is a Modern Orthodox stronghold in the GTA and that riding just went Tory.

[ 27 October 2008: Message edited by: St. Paul's Progressive ]

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yeah, I think that you're right on both counts. The modern Orthodox (and I think even most reform and conservative Jews) tend to be fairly pro-Israel (reflexively and emotionally so to a degree). I think that much of the strong anti-zionism among Jews (for non theological reasons) tends to come from secular Jews on the left.

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Originally posted by Star Spangled Canadian:
Just alst week in Israel, the governing coalition fell apart after PM Livni (whose photo and name are prohibited from appearing in Orthodox newspapers, btw) refused to concede to the demands of the Sephardi ultra-orthodox Shas party for more subsidized housing and more welfare payments.

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Originally posted by unionist:

That includes the shameful grinding poverty to which almost half of Holocaust survivors in Israel are condemned.

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Originally posted by Star Spangled Canadian:
Do you know the reason so many survivors live in poverty?

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Several reasons - here you'll find a brief survey:

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From the earliest days of the Jewish state, the country has had an uneasy relationship with survivors of the Shoah. Israeli society in its infancy was focused on building a new archetype of a strong Jew, and the survivors’ discomfort brought about widespread discomfort.

Survivors themselves protested Israel’s acceptance of $750 million in German reparations in the early 1950s, dubbing it blood money. The money was paid directly to Israel rather than to survivors, leading to some of the recent bitterness. ...

While the German government has since begun to provide pensions for survivors, the Israeli government has given little in the way of extra benefits.

The government’s belated acknowledgement of the survivors’ situation follows a pair of reports giving the revelation that a third of Israel’s Holocaust survivors live well below the poverty line. The first report, published in April by the Holocaust Survivors’ Welfare Fund, found that as many as 80,000 survivors in Israel depend predominantly on government welfare.

The second report, published August 16 by Israel’s comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, found that 143,000 of the survivors are ineligible for state aid — the bulk of them so-called “Holocaust refugees,” needy survivors who fled Europe for the former Soviet Union. ...

Israeli historian Tom Segev said that given Germany’s extensive reparations program for Holocaust survivors, “it could be that Germany treated the survivors better than the State of Israel did.”

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Originally posted by Star Spangled Canadian:
Obama even handed down a moderate ass-kicking in Florida.

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Mazel Tov, Sarah, you potty-mouthed political genius.

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Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
Obama received 77% of the Jewish vote according to MSNBC exit polls.

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Originally posted by unionist:
Must be the Sarah Silverman effect.

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I think Sarah Palin had more of an impact on the Jewish vote than Sarah Silverman.

In fact I read that the Jewish elderly are the most pro-Obama and it's the younger Jews who are more likely to vote GOP.

[ 07 November 2008: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

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Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:
I think Sarah Palin had more of an impact on the Jewish vote than Sarah Silverman.

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In fact I read that the Jewish elderly are the most pro-Obama and it's the younger Jews who are more likely to vote GOP.

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If true, that's sad indeed.

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Originally posted by Lord Palmerston:

In fact I read that the Jewish elderly are the most pro-Obama and it's the younger Jews who are more likely to vote GOP.

[ 07 November 2008: Message edited by: Lord Palmerston ]

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This was based on a pre-election study done by Gallup:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111424/Obama-Winning-Over-Jewish-Vote.aspx