Uzi Reshun
Jerusalem Post, Sept. 4, 2024
“It stands to reason, however, that Jews will give undue weight to considerations related to Israel. If so, Kamala Harris’s somewhat ambivalent statements about the current war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in general may weaken American Jews’ support for her candidacy.”
Appearing before Jewish donors in New Jersey, former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that he had asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their recent meeting why Jews vote Democrat. Netanyahu replied, according to Trump, that it was out of habit. Indeed, over the past 100 years, except in 1980, a solid majority of American Jews have cast their ballots for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
Several explanations have been offered for this political preference. The first is historical. Liberal ideas have served the Jews well in the practical sense. Ever since the French Revolution, Jews have found their allies in liberal circles, as they had in circles of the radical socialist Left that developed in both Europe and the United States.
Given their Diasporic experience as guests in host societies, Jews realized that they could best advance under liberal regimes that allow achievement to determine social and economic mobility and ban discrimination by law. Moreover, given that liberalism also rests at the core of the American ethos, loyalty to its principles allows Jews to prove their full identification with the United States.
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