Why are Jews liberals?
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More in Actual Politics, Culture Clash, Theology
That is the title of Norman Podhoretz’s new book. It won’t be out until September 8th, but the current issue of Commentary presents a symposium on the book, with contributions from prominent Jewish authors, mostly conservatives.
Best I can tell from the symposium, the main thrust of Podhoretz’s argument is that American Jews have confused the Torah of Judaism with “the Torah of liberalism”. Authentic Jewish values have been displaced by liberal ideology, masquerading as a viable substitute for religion. If that is Podhoretz’s argument, then I completely disagree. Either way, I’d like to offer some of my own thoughts on why American Jews are so liberal, based on my twenty-plus years as a liberal American Jew and my shorter years as a part of the Republican Jewish minority.
If you knit together the arguments made by the participants in Commentary’s symposium, you get a very robust picture of why American Jews are overwhelmingly liberal. Rabbi David Wolpe observes that Jews
Have felt like outsiders for three millenia…somewhere in the Jewish soul, there lurks a scintilla of suspicion as to our Americanness.
Or to put it slighly differently, there lurks considerable suspicion as to whether “real” Americans sincere truly accept American Jews as part of America, or merely tolerate them because America demands a certain tolerance.
I grew up Jewish in New York. My family belonged to a liberal Conservative congregation, while my brothers and I attended a much more conservative Orthodox day school. On both sides of the divide, there was always considerable doubt as to what the goyim truly believed. We insisted that we were 100% American, but we insisted so forcefully because we were never sure.
Liberalism is the discourse of the outsider, of the victim and of diversity. Is it any surprise that a people of outsiders, with a long history of victimization, now subscribe to a political philosophy that demands respect for all forms of diversity?
To appreciate more fully the way in which American Jews think of themselves as outsiders, it is essential to consider their relationship with Christianity. As Michael Medved points out, there is no question which party identifies itself more closely with Christian values and which with secular ones. I think Medved pushes his argument way too far when he writes that in America today, “the sole basis of Jewish identity involves rejection of Christianity.”
But American Jews’ deep and abiding fear of Christianity — especially evangelicals — should not be underestimated. Growing up in Jewish New York, I shared the conviction that somewhere out in Middle America, there were tens of millions of Christian conservatives who wanted to write the Bible into law. Their Bible, the one that had served so often as a pretext for pervasive anti-Semitism. The only way to protect our Bible and ourselves was to fight aggressively for a secular America with an iron wall separating church and state.
Medved notes that the only Jews who reliably vote Republican are the Orthodox, who have considerable reservations about a full-on commitment to secular values. I think that’s right. In my experience, Orthodox Jews share a deep fear of Christianity, but also sense that liberalism does not respect their way of life. They are outsiders among the outsiders. With no outlet for their values, they are more inclined to vote their interests, which are better represented by Republicans.
Jonathan Sarna, the Brandeis historian, adds another critical piece to the puzzle of Jewish politics. In order to understand why American Jews are so liberal, one cannot remain narrowly focused on politics in America. In Britain, Canada and Australia, Jews are evenly divided between center-right and center-left. The critical difference between those countries and our own is that only the United States has a left-of-center party that is so vocally pro-Israel. The hard left may not have much nice to say about Israel, but Democratic politicians are almost as enthusiastic as their Republican counterparts.
All I would add to Sarna’s observation is that the relentless efforts of American Jews are one of the principal reasons that the Democratic Party is so pro-Israel. Thus, American Jews have reinforced their own commitment to liberal politics by ensuring that liberal politics reflected their commitment to Israel.
The liberalism of American Jews should not be a mystery. The essential concerns of the American Jewish community are also essential concerns of the Democratic Party: respect for diversity, the firm separation of religion and politics, and an enduring commitment to Israel.
Republicans will never be able to talk about diversity in the same way Democrats — nor should they. Barack Obama may be antagonizing many supporters of Israel at the moment, but I suspect he will not change the nature of his party.
Only when it comes to church and state is there potential for a change of heart among American Jews. I believe that Jewish fears of evangelical Christianity are so powerful because American Jews don’t know much about evangelicals and don’t have much occasion to interact. There is no reason to expect that will change any time soon, even if change would be for the good.
Until then, Jewish Republicans will have to enjoy being outsiders.
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3 Comments - add your own
Roy Rambler — August 30, 2009 at 4:07 pm
David,
This is really thoughtful, instructive, and well put.
However, speaking out of my own ignorance, and not really knowing Podhoretz’ argument, I think there is something to the idea that liberalism has somehow become conflated with the ideas of the Torah, or at least with its integrity and legacy.
If we were to depict this as a sort of faith in liberalism among American Jews, though, I think it would be more accurate to say that this faith has become corrupted, or perhaps more fanatical, rather than saying that they have come to this faith recently.
I think you are right to say that Jews and their consciousness about being outsiders and their well-placed suspicions of the state are not only why the Democratic party is as thoughtful (and pro-Israel) as it is, but a large part of why Liberalism is as strong as it is.
When I consider my limited knowledge of the history of the rise of liberalism in the West, it seems that Jews, more than any other sect or minority, have been integral to it taking hold as a political principle, almost to the extent that, politically speaking, the values many Jews hold, and have held, has largely overlapped with and became almost synonymous with the values of liberalism (both as it was originally defined, and in terms of how its meaning has changed in the past 400 years or so).
Podhoretz’ book reminds me of E.J. Dionne’s similar call for evangelicals to be Democrats, but I think E.J., on the surface, may have the stronger case.
It is not Jews who seem out of place in the DNC, as much as evangelicals seem to be in the vaguely pro-business, libertarian GOP.
As you say, Podhoretz is wrong if he means to say that Jews have confused liberalism for the Torah.
It seems that they commonly take a strong stance for secularism and rights is precisely because of their attachment to their traditions and awareness of the dangers of non-secular powers.
It is more strange that evangelicals do not also see themselves in a similar situation as a minority, protected rather than threatened by secularism.
Of course, some do and can be devoted democrats because they would wish to protect their churches from politics more than they would like to see their values reflected in public policy.
But this seeming anomaly is also attributed to experience.
The very existence of the religious right as a voting bloc is often said to be due to the threat Christians losing their special tax-exempt status for not adhering to the dictates of diversity in their private schools.
If this is true, then it does seem that the main difference between these groups is the perceived strength of their numbers: evangelicals having come to see themselves as the moral majority of the city upon the hill, and Jews retain a view of themselves as a suspected or disdained permanent minority of outsiders. (I think the Jews’ views are more grounded on reality on this score.)
Ultimately, though, I think Dionne is wrong and Podhoretz would have the stronger case if the GOP had the noble wherewithal to redefine themselves as defenders of liberalism, rightly understood in its classical sense, as opposed to the false hyper-liberalism of Democrats who champion diversity rather than mere tolerance.
But it is hard to claim that the GOP today is the true party of toleration and liberalism when they think they can get more votes by courting “value voters” on the basis of their values, rather than their protection and toleration.
And even if the GOP explicitly took on the classical liberal mantle in their platform, it makes sense that a religious minority would still feel more protected by the party that wants to positively promote all sects and subgroups, rather than remain ‘colorblind’ and neutral in the religious claims of all factions because of their experience, just as the evangelical experience in the ‘culture wars’ with the party of diversity would explain their attachment to the GOP, but both of these experiences only skew these groups’ view of religious freedom and the protection of minorities.
Perhaps it is too much to ask Jews to accept that a large portion of society will always vilify and hate them, but at the same time trust that the state will never pass any law or take any action against them.
But still I wish some politician or party would run on this issue and insist that classical liberalism, rather than multiculturalism and diversity, is the only resolution to culture wars and religious persecution, and make clear that it is not truly “liberal” to ask the state to recognize anyone’s views of a healthy society as authoritative for public policy.
The real shame though, is that neither party today is willing to point out that it is too much to ask a liberal democracy to demand anything more than toleration of others in our actions.
True liberalism in matters of religion is a delicate balance of passive secularism – perhaps a balance that is too delicate and unrealistic among a people who care about what is right and for their due respect from others. But the project of making society more to our tastes, whether that is through legislating our morality according to the laws of God, or legislating it according to a sense of social justice and desire to be recognized, rather than merely tolerated leads down the same dangerous road of giving government the authority to authorize legitimate speech and beliefs.
I should hope that as we become more diverse religiously as a nation, and as diversity comes to supplant tolerance in our policies, perhaps more Jews may come to see that they have strayed too far from actual liberalism by becoming too allied with the project to promote social outcomes. But since their views on this matter are grounded in experience, it is only experience that might lead them to modify these views.
I am sure you are also right that the experience of Obama’s mishandling of Israeli relations is not enough to lead Jews to re-think the grounds of their liberalism, but I shudder to think what experience could change their views on this, and even if it did, I doubt that would necessarily lead them from the false hyper-liberalism of diversity and recognition back to the older, classical type that they commonly championed in the past.
The problem may not be with any minority, but the fragility of liberalism itself.
David Adesnik — August 31, 2009 at 10:12 am
Interesting points, Roy, especially about Jews shaping liberalism. The Jewish approach to social justice, including the concepts of tzedaka and tikkun olam, do provide fertile ground for modern liberalism to take hold. And I might even grant that this may lead to a limited confusion between the Torah of Judaism and the Torah of liberalism — or at least an indentification of one with the other. Presumably, Podhoretz’s book explores that point in greater depth.
Vegan Judge — August 31, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Thanks. Definitely sounds worth checking out.