Why are most Jews Democrats?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A point that someone else has made on here prior that I think is worth noting is that the rhetoric Republicans use can often bring up some uncomfortable connotations, even if entirely unintentional. Think of Sarah Palin talking about "Real America" or whatever, and thus implying that there are people who are "less American" than others...

One also should just note even though it's kind of boring that Jews disproportionately live in urban or at least inner suburban areas.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Considering how disproportionately Episcopalians and Congregationalists are clustered in New England I don't see how it's remotely possible they are a Republican-voting bloc today.

Hell just look at Connecticut where Obama won white Protestants by about 2:1. Yes, larger than the state number, (McCain actually won white Catholics, but this isn't too surprising when you consider there Catholics are probably "ethnic" whites living in areas with more racial tensions, and most Catholics in Connecticut live in the traditionally Republican areas.)

OK checking the exit polls it looks like I was a bit off, Obama "only" won white Protestants 55-42 in Connecticut, he won Protestants in general 2:1 (blacks no doubt accounting for the rest of that). But McCain also won white Catholics 56-40, a fairly wide margin and greater than his national numbers with white Catholics.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You seriously live in a bubble dude. Seriously, look at where Jews live in states like California, Florida, Illinois and Maryland. Where I live there's probably more Jews in my district and St. Paul's than the rest of the state combined despite those being only 1/4th of the state.

Oh and there is obviously no shortage of liberal Jews in NYC.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I've noticed that in the PCUSA too, but if it's a phenomenon that's present in the ECUSA it's considerably less stark and I haven't noticed it in years of being a practicing, every-week Episcopalian. As I said, ECUSA demographics are among other things overwhelmingly Northeastern.

Though let's be honest dude, you live in Amherst. If I based my estimates entirely on my experience in Minneapolis I'd conclude that a majority of evangelicals are Democrats and evangelical clergy are more likely than not to oppose anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives.

Since I suppose that lots of mainline churches especially in rural areas are mostly full of olds it wouldn't surprise me that they'd be more conservative/Republican, I'm sure plenty others also have a lot of upper middle class families who go more for societal benefits than actual beliefs and vote Republican on economics as well. But while this might be true for ELCA and PCUSA in some areas (though Obama obviously won ELCA members in Minnesota, and by a pretty wide margin at that), I can't see it being the case for Congregationalists and Episcopalians due to their clustering in New England.

Olds stubbornly refusing to leave their mainline churches despite them now being far more liberal than them and there being hordes of more conservative churches reminded me of kind of a funny story my grandmother told me shortly after I was baptized about her friend that was baptized about 5 years earlier. She had been a lifelong Lutheran for 60+ years and was an organist at her church, but got in some sort of dispute with the church over that so she quit it and joined the local Baptist church instead, and then got baptized. She joined the Baptist church out of lack of options, there's a total of four churches in that town, two ELCA, one Baptist and one Catholic (I didn't ask why she just didn't go to the other ELCA, though I'm going to assume it was probably another petty trivial reason.) So yeah that's what it'll take for an old to leave their church, not anything to do with politics or theology, lol.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You seriously live in a bubble dude. Seriously, look at where Jews live in states like California, Florida, Illinois and Maryland. Where I live there's probably more Jews in my district and St. Paul's than the rest of the state combined despite those being only 1/4th of the state.

Oh and there is obviously no shortage of liberal Jews in NYC.

I didn't say there wasn't I said Jews in big cities and it's suburbs are more likely to vote Republican than a jew in a rural or semi rural area.

Where are the heavily Jewish rural areas? The few Jews who did live in rural areas probably moved there and came from a more urban and liberal background and probably brought their voting habits with them. I have a feeling though that Jews who lives in exurbs are significantly more Republican than Jews in general since they would move to the exurbs for the same reasons non-Jewish whites do (caring more about owning a big house than having a sane commute to work or good culture and amenities around, and fear of minorities.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Something that came to me a few days ago while walking downtown was that fear of progressive taxation or "class warfare" is not necessarily the primary reason upper middle class Republicans vote that way because someone who makes $250k a year isn't going to see their lifestyle significantly threatened by having their taxes go up 3% or so (not saying it's not a factor for some people obviously.) But they might vote Republican if they feel their job and industry is threatened by Democratic policies. Industries like entertainment, fashion, tech and even banking don't feel threatened by Democrats. Industries like oil, health insurance, anything related to the military-industrial complex and industry/manufacturing in general with high unionization (since we're thinking of the management voting here) will feel threatened and thus tend to be more Republican.

Wealthy Jews are far more represented in the former categories than the latter.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not sure whether the orthodox Jews really compensate for this nationwide effect.  I'm also not sure how the hell to characterize the places they live on the urban/suburban scale...

Eh well his point is valid if you look at the parts of NYC he's talking about, but this is similar to someone in a Cuban part of Miami arguing that urban Hispanics aren't likely to be Democrats. He doesn't seem to realize that Jews outside of NYC exist (and by this we're even including the rest of New York State, since places like Monsey and Kiryas Joel are obviously not urban.)

And of course this all ignores the fact that the Orthodox are a very very small percentage of the national Jewish population if you disregard his No True Scotsman argument.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There's a difference between Orthodox Jews and what NY Jew is talking about, who are called Hasids or Haredi (sometimes "ultra-Orthodox" but that's kind of a silly term.) These are the those guys in the beards and black hats who live in their own segregated communes, speak Yiddish or Hebrew at home and aren't very integrated into society at all. Standard Orthodox are Jews that might be serious about keeping fast days and kosher laws and might even be socially conservative, but are still fairly integrated into society, don't dress any different than most people (at least out of synagogue) and don't vote in bloc 90+% for the candidate their rabbi tells them to. Joe Lieberman is actually one of these Orthodox. The types NY Jew is always talking about I'd be surprised if they were much more than 1% of the American Jewish population.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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.