The single most salient reason these days is that Jews are more secular than the general population.
This pretty much.
Which explains why we haven't seen the shift in voting habits that we have in other traditionally Democratic immigrant groups (namely Catholics).
While taken at face value it is correct, I don't really like that answer because it ignores the historical background. It would be similar to saying that Cuban Americans are more likely to vote for Republicans because they live in Florida. Many Jewish immigrants had a strong influence in socialist and labor movement stretching back to the continent. Their roots as a persecuted minority and their location in the urban cores all had and continue to have a strong influence on their mores and voting patterns. The strength of the Nativist element, KKK and Bircher movements during periods of the GOP's history did not help matters either. Voting patterns for some groups are not as changeable as many think. Therefore, the current GOP would be wise to pump the brakes on a lot of their anti-immigration rhetoric.
Granted.
Jewish populations have traditionally been very progressive in regards to issues like labor and civil rights.
And as one of a few people who continually point out that the GOP wasn't all good in the 19th Century, I agree about the Nativist elements. Arguably, the adoption of Know Nothing members into the GOP back in the Civil War Era, along with the draft, arguably made groups like German, Irish, and Polish Catholics staunch Democrats in the urban areas. Jewish immigration into these urban areas, where the aforementioned immigrants were becoming influential in the urban machinery of the Democratic Party, naturally leaned Democratic after a few decades of settlement.
Arguably, Republican endorsements of movements like Women's Rights and Civil Rights for blacks probably kept the Jewish population less Democratic than their immigrant fellows. I don't have the numbers, but from what I gathered about Jewish voting habits it seems as if though Jewish support for Democrats didn't become "die hard" (ie 75% or above) until about FDR when the ideological lines of the parties got more clear. The GOP becoming the party of right wing economic policies and the Democrats adopting the Civil Rights plank in 1948 and other clear statements of ideological intent probably made the Jews even more Democratic.
This is in contrast to say Catholics who voted Democratic from the 19th Century-mid 20th Century more out of disdain of the moneyed WASP elites than actual ideology (except maybe opposition to anti-immigrant policies and maybe Prohibition).
So yes, a good deal of historical perspective goes into this and I apologize for making it sound so simple.
