Why are most Jews Democrats?

[memphis]

There are a few issues here. All are generalization, obviously, but here are my observations:
1. Most Jews are terrified of the Republican Party's Christian nationalism.
2. Jews have a soft spot for the politics of poverty. Huge numbers of Jewish women in particular are teachers and social workers. Jews want to help.
3. Jews place a high value on personal freedom, and particularly resent Republicans invasion of their bedrooms
4. Jews also frequently work in financial services and accounting and see everyday that our economy is strongly biased in favor of organized wealth. That doesn't sit well with Jewish notions of social justice.
5. This is a relatively new one, but the GOP has marketed itself strongly in recent years as an anti-intellectual party. Jews are true believers in the power of schooling and the progress of science in particular.
6. American Jews have a strong distaste for unnecessary military adventures.
7. American Jews are very likely to judge a candidate (and regular people too) based on how they present themselves. If you come up swaggering with a 10 gallon hat on, dropping your gs, and trying to be a "regular guy," that doesn't play well with Jews. We want somebody who looks more professional.
8. Jews don't buy into the good old days narrative of the Republican Party. They weren't so good for us.

[memphis]

The single most salient reason these days is that Jews are more secular than the general population.

But Orthodox aside, even the religiously engaged Jews vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats. I grew up forcibly attending a Conservative synagogue. My mother still attends every Saturday. And it's a very Democratic crowd. Mostly for the reasons that I articulated earlier.

[memphis]

Why is it that Russian Jews spoke Yiddish and not a Slavic language?

Because they came from Germany long ago. Luther and his German followers weren't too keen on the Jews. There is a touch of Slavic influence in Yiddish, but it's impressive how much the Jews of Eastern Europe avoided taking on the language of those around them. Yiddish was my grandmother's first language. I'm sad that I didn't pick up much from her. She and her friends would speak it when they didn't want the children to know what they were saying.

[memphis]

ag, you make an excellent point about how virtually all Jews in Russia were definitionally Orthodox

Except that religion is not a static thing. Belief systems evolve over time. It is a major fallacy of any religion that claims to be the alpha and the omega.