Why are most Jews Democrats?

[NY Jew]

They wouldn't necessarily, though. I don't see where a brace of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from, say, the Pinsk Marshes (where my ancestors on that side came from) a hundred years ago would be more 'conservative' on what would now or then be considered 'social issues' than most other groups in America, immigrant or otherwise, at that time.

If you look at Kinsey's report Orthodox jews were the least likley group to have homosexual relations and non Orthodox Jews (remember this was in the pre sexual revaluation days) were the least likley to have them then other non religious people.

Have you ever heard of the word "anachronism"? It's surprisingly reach in meaning. Google it.

what's your point Judaism's been an "anachronism" for the past 2,300 years?

[ag]

They wouldn't necessarily, though. I don't see where a brace of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from, say, the Pinsk Marshes (where my ancestors on that side came from) a hundred years ago would be more 'conservative' on what would now or then be considered 'social issues' than most other groups in America, immigrant or otherwise, at that time.

If you look at Kinsey's report Orthodox jews were the least likley group to have homosexual relations and non Orthodox Jews (remember this was in the pre sexual revaluation days) were the least likley to have them then other non religious people.

Have you ever heard of the word "anachronism"? It's surprisingly reach in meaning. Google it.

what's your point Judaism's been an "anachronism" for the past 2,300 years?

Judaism has varied a lot during the past 2,300 years - so, with some notable exceptions, it hasn't been that anachronistic (hey, Hasidim didn't even exist 400 years ago - it's very much an 18th century phenomenon).

My point has more to do w/ your reasoning.

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

The true reason is that they're liberal.

[NY Jew]

They wouldn't necessarily, though. I don't see where a brace of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from, say, the Pinsk Marshes (where my ancestors on that side came from) a hundred years ago would be more 'conservative' on what would now or then be considered 'social issues' than most other groups in America, immigrant or otherwise, at that time.

If you look at Kinsey's report Orthodox jews were the least likley group to have homosexual relations and non Orthodox Jews (remember this was in the pre sexual revaluation days) were the least likley to have them then other non religious people.

Have you ever heard of the word "anachronism"? It's surprisingly reach in meaning. Google it.

what's your point Judaism's been an "anachronism" for the past 2,300 years?

Judaism has varied a lot during the past 2,300 years - so, with some notable exceptions, it hasn't been that anachronistic (hey, Hasidim didn't even exist 400 years ago - it's very much an 18th century phenomenon).

My point has more to do w/ your reasoning.

the difference between a hasidic jew and and the avg Jew in Babylonia in 300 ACE is much smaller then the difference between the avg Orthodox Jew and the avg non Orthodox Jew today.  I doubt you could even know the reasons why Hasidiem were put in cherem with out looking it up.

[ag]

They wouldn't necessarily, though. I don't see where a brace of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from, say, the Pinsk Marshes (where my ancestors on that side came from) a hundred years ago would be more 'conservative' on what would now or then be considered 'social issues' than most other groups in America, immigrant or otherwise, at that time.

If you look at Kinsey's report Orthodox jews were the least likley group to have homosexual relations and non Orthodox Jews (remember this was in the pre sexual revaluation days) were the least likley to have them then other non religious people.

Have you ever heard of the word "anachronism"? It's surprisingly reach in meaning. Google it.

what's your point Judaism's been an "anachronism" for the past 2,300 years?

Judaism has varied a lot during the past 2,300 years - so, with some notable exceptions, it hasn't been that anachronistic (hey, Hasidim didn't even exist 400 years ago - it's very much an 18th century phenomenon).

My point has more to do w/ your reasoning.

the difference between a hasidic jew and and the avg Jew in Babylonia in 300 ACE is much smaller then the difference between the avg Orthodox Jew and the avg non Orthodox Jew today.  I doubt you could even know the reasons why Hasidiem were put in cherem with out looking it up.

Well, given how little we really know about life in Babylonia this is a very brave statement, based, primarily, on reconstruction of life in Babylonia from the present-day models )) Which brings me back to the idea of anachronism )

BTW, if you insist on using anachronistic arguments, you should recall that "traditional Jewish orthodox values" (circa 1800) involve what, according to the modern secular law, is pedophilia, child abuse and statutory rape. You are still arguing, these haven't changed? ))

[Gustaf]

In Sweden I'd say Jews are generally on the political right, regardless of whether they're secular or not. Then again, the party they typically have been identified with (the People's Party) is a type  of party who's voters would be on the left in many other settings.

There has been a fair share of Social Democrat Jews in Sweden as well, of course.

[dead0man]

Wouldn't most Jews today have significant Khazar ancestry? Then again I'd suppose they were basically absorbed into "the Orthodox" before 400 years ago.

That's something racist buy into that has been disproven with DNA testing.  I'm not suggesting you are a racist, just that you may be buying into racist propoganda.  cite

The theory that all or most Ashkenazi Jews might be descended from Khazars dates back to the racial studies of late 19th century Europe, and was frequently cited to assert that most modern Jews are not descended from Israelites and/or to refute Israeli claims to Israel. It was first publicly proposed in lecture given by the racial-theorist Ernest Renan on January 27, 1883, titled "Judaism as a Race and as Religion."[69] It was repeated in articles in The Dearborn Independent in 1923 and 1925, and popularized by racial theorist Lothrop Stoddard in a 1926 article in the Forum titled "The Pedigree of Judah", where he argued that Ashkenazi Jews were a mix of people, of which the Khazars were a primary element.[47][70] Stoddard's views were "based on nineteenth and twentieth-century concepts of race, in which small variations on facial features as well as presumed accompanying character traits were deemed to pass from generation to generation, subject only to the corrupting effects of marriage with members of other groups, the result of which would lower the superior stock without raising the inferior partners."[71] This theory was adopted by British Israelites, who saw it as a means of invalidating the claims of Jews (rather than themselves) to be the true descendants of the ancient Israelites, and was supported by early anti-Zionists.

<snip> (more on that subject at the link)

A 1999 study by Hammer et al., published in the Proceedings of the United States National Academy of Sciences compared the Y chromosomes of Ashkenazi, Roman, North African, Kurdish, Near Eastern, Yemenite, and Ethiopian Jews with 16 non-Jewish groups from similar geographic locations. It found that "Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level... The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora."[82] According to Nicholas Wade "The results accord with Jewish history and tradition and refute theories like those holding that Jewish communities consist mostly of converts from other faiths, or that they are descended from the Khazars, a medieval Turkish tribe that adopted Judaism."