- Feb 5, 2002
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A new study charts the political shifts among Orthodox Jews.
Decades ago, the late Milton Himmelfarb famously summed up the Jewish vote by saying “Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans,” suggesting that the ballots of high-earning Jews unexpectedly looked like those of low-income voters. This pithy observation summed up Jewish demographics and voting for half a century. It also launched a trove of articles and more than a few books on the mystery of Jewish voting patterns. Why didn’t Jews follow the pattern of other white ethnic groups like the Irish or the Italians, who became more conservative as they assimilated?
Answers abounded: Jews were more sympathetic to the plight of minorities; they were more committed to Tikkun Olam—repairing the world; they had been socialist critics of the czar back in Russia. Many a sociologist and political scientist proffered theories, but the mystery was never definitively solved.
A new Pew study on Jewish Americans suggests that the behavior is no longer a mystery: the bulk of the Jewish community remains liberal, but this allegiance no longer puts them out of step with the group’s demographics. The study found that “Jewish Americans, on average, are older, have higher levels of education, earn higher incomes, and are more geographically concentrated in the Northeast than Americans overall.” Accordingly, the study shows that secular Jews vote like other secular, highly educated, and urbanized populations. As Pew’s Becka Alper and Alan Cooperman wrote, “71 percent of Jewish adults (including 80 percent of Reform Jews) are Democrats or independents who lean toward the Democratic Party.”
Continued below.
Orthodox Jews Live Near Blues, Vote Like Reds | City Journal
Decades ago, the late Milton Himmelfarb famously summed up the Jewish vote by saying “Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans,” suggesting that the ballots of high-earning Jews unexpectedly looked like those of low-income voters. This pithy observation summed up Jewish demographics and voting for half a century. It also launched a trove of articles and more than a few books on the mystery of Jewish voting patterns. Why didn’t Jews follow the pattern of other white ethnic groups like the Irish or the Italians, who became more conservative as they assimilated?
Answers abounded: Jews were more sympathetic to the plight of minorities; they were more committed to Tikkun Olam—repairing the world; they had been socialist critics of the czar back in Russia. Many a sociologist and political scientist proffered theories, but the mystery was never definitively solved.
A new Pew study on Jewish Americans suggests that the behavior is no longer a mystery: the bulk of the Jewish community remains liberal, but this allegiance no longer puts them out of step with the group’s demographics. The study found that “Jewish Americans, on average, are older, have higher levels of education, earn higher incomes, and are more geographically concentrated in the Northeast than Americans overall.” Accordingly, the study shows that secular Jews vote like other secular, highly educated, and urbanized populations. As Pew’s Becka Alper and Alan Cooperman wrote, “71 percent of Jewish adults (including 80 percent of Reform Jews) are Democrats or independents who lean toward the Democratic Party.”
Continued below.
Orthodox Jews Live Near Blues, Vote Like Reds | City Journal
