Expert: Dennis - 10/13/2004

Question
Hello Dennis,

I've always been curious as to why the vast majority of Jewish Americans are liberal democrats. Generally speaking, Jews are more intelligent, better educated, pay more taxes and make more money than average Americans. Also, they depend much less on social programs and the public school system since they often send their children to private schools. In general, they are much less dependent upon government programs than most others in our society. For these reasons, it would seem logical that the majority of them would be conservative republicans....why do you suppose that is not the case? Thank you very much for your thoughts. By the way, I'm not Jewish and have no strong feelings about Jews, one way or the other.

Charlie  

Answer
I think it has to do something with the historical Jewish experience. Starting with FDR (1930s), the government got into helping the downtrodden in a big way. Jews, because of their personal experiences with discrimination (anti-semitism, persecution, etc.) identified with those people that were being kept down. They therefore identified with the Party that they saw helping the underprivileged  - namely the Democrats.

It is interesting to note, that when you break down the Jewish voters into age groups, the most Democratic are the oldest - 60+. Their Democratic percentage is something like 80%. Between the ages of 35-59 the Jewish voters that identify themselves as Democrats fall to the 55% range. The 18-35 age of Jewish voters have a Democratic self-identifier of only around 35%.

The younger the Jewish voter, the more likely they are to be Republican, or at least, not Democratic.

You also must remember that in the politization process, the "primacy principle" takes place (what you learn first -you learn best).

If grandma, grandpa, pop and mom were Democrats, YOU probably will be a Democrat unless your experiences are so different than those of your parents. The grandparents who lived through the Great Depression, and the parents who lived through the Holocaust, have experienced different things than does the current generation.

The Republicans' staunch defense of Israel has had more impact on the younger Jewish voter than the other experiences mentioned, because the young Jews weren't around when the Democrats were the only ones helping all the downtrodden in the 1930s.

It is likely that, for all the reasons you mentioned, the Jewish vote in America will become more prgresively Republican as time goes on.