The Liberalism of American Jews – Has It Been Explained?

Levey, Geoffrey Brahm

doi:10.1017/s000712340000750x

Cited by 26 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…As noted, Levey (1995aLevey ( , 1995b and others who advance the argumentative individualism theory suggest a peaking of liberalism in the middle of the Jewish identity spectrum. Our data refute that expectation.…”

Section: Support For African-americans and Banning Capital Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…As one of the formulators of this explanation claimed (Levey 1995b), liberal attitudes should manifest a curvilinear relationship with respect to Jewish involvement, peaking among those with middling involvement and lower among the most or least Jewishly involved.…”

Section: Empirical Implications Of the Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Milton Himmelfarb once said, they are like Episcopalians in income, but vote as if they were Puerto Ricans. (1995, p. 133) scholars to endorse the same explanation (Levey 1995a(Levey , 1995b. They may find it impossible to accept a particular explanation for Jewish liberalism when they find that other groups in apparently similar circumstances are not especially liberal.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Judaic Values-Argumentative Individualism: Some observers contend that a long-standing history of argumentation, or a more recent history of individualism in revolt against traditional authority, have provided Jews with a cultural affinity for contemporary political liberalism (Levey 1995a(Levey , 1995b. Thus, Walzer recently wrote: ''The style of liberal politics is also a Jewish style: skeptical, questioning, inconclusive.…”

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confidence: 99%

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American Jewish Liberalism: Unraveling the Strands

Cohen¹,

Liebman²

1997

Public Opinion Quarterly

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Section: Support For African-americans and Banning Capital Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Empirical Implications Of the Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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American Jewish Liberalism: Unraveling the Strands

Cohen¹,

Liebman²

1997

Public Opinion Quarterly

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“…The most common explanation in the literature for why Jews still vote Democratic stems from greater liberalism, as represented by support for social issues such as gay rights, abortion, gun control, and programs to end poverty. In turn, this commitment to progressive causes reflects a history of discrimination leading to identification with other victims, continuing feelings of vulnerability, the Jewish commandment to "heal the world," the strong community ties that reinforce these values and lead to social action, and the historical identification of Jews with socialist causes in Europe (Legge, 1995;Levey, 1996;Weisberg and Sylvan, 2003).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Two-Front War

Brill’s Digital Library of World War I

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Jews and non-Jews base their votes on previous votes, direction of the country, and party identification. Positions on Israel pushed many Jews to the Republicans, but attitudes toward evangelicals led others back to the Democrats. For non-Jews, attitudes toward evangelicals are closely linked to a larger culture war, but for Jews this correlation is small. The Jewish reaction to evangelicals is more of an issue of identity and the close ties of evangelicals to the Republican party keeps many Jews Democratic. Attitudes toward fundamentalists are far more important to Jewish voting behavior than for non-Jewish voters. 1 American Jews have always lived dual lives. They rapidly assimilated and became "ordinary Americans." Yet, they have also remained "a people apart" (Katznelson, 1995). Based upon a long history of discrimination, they band together in strong community institutions and they identify with other groups, such as African-Americans and gays, that continue to face discrimination (Fuchs, 1956, 175) even as they are the most successful and visible group of outsiders in American life. The Jewish voter is very much like the Jewish citizen. On the one hand, (s)he is like every other voter, casting ballots based upon party identification, ideology, and the state of the economy (Sigelman, 1991). On the other hand, Jews are distinctive in their political views. Jews, like other minority groups, became part of the Democratic coalition established in the 1930s with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Over the next 70 years, other groups (especially Catholics) drifted away from the Democratic coalition, while Jews and African-Americans remained loyal (Stanley and Niemi, 2005). Why are Jews and blacks still so loyal to the Democratic party when other parts of the New Deal coalition have, to varying degrees, defected? African-American loyalty to the Democrats is partially explicable by demographics. Working class people are more likely to vote Democratic (Bartels, 2005) and African-Americans are more likely to identify themselves as working class than middle or upper class. Jews saw themselves at the higher end of the class structure. So we might expect that Jews would vote Republican while African-Americans 1 would remain loyal to the Democrats.

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The Presidential Voting of American Jews

Weisberg

2020

American Jewish Year Book

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The Liberalism of American Jews – Has It Been Explained?

Cited by 26 publications

References 41 publications

American Jewish Liberalism: Unraveling the Strands

American Jewish Liberalism: Unraveling the Strands

Two-Front War

The Presidential Voting of American Jews

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