Why are most Jews Democrats?

[Brittain33]

prove that.  The fact is that Orthodox Jews vote overwhelmingly Republican and are more likely to live in the big cities then their liberal Jewish counterparts increasing drastically their numbers.  Ditto with Russian Jews and other sub Jewish demographics that vote republican.

Russian Jews are settling heavily in suburbs, too, particularly in NJ. They're just following the traditional immigrant pattern.

[Brittain33]

ag, you make an excellent point about how virtually all Jews in Russia were definitionally Orthodox because that's what it meant to be Jewish and part of the community you were bound to. Which means that the label is pretty meaningless when we make comparisons to how we live today, where in theory people have more choices (although NY Jew was born into his lifestyle and raised into it, the same way I was born into Conservative-trending-secular Judaism.)

[Brittain33]

Has anyone touched on the issue that German Jews tend to be more Pub?  That is certainly the case in Cincinnati, and I suspect generally true.

I would wonder how many German Jews now are descended from the 1930s diaspora as opposed to the 1840s/1850s immigration, and how many of the latter have preserved an identity as German Jewish in the long term. So many of those smaller communities in places like Dixie have died out.

[Brittain33]

The stereotypical American secular Jew would love the ideal of the Lib Dems. The reality of the Lib Dems and the difference between secular American Jews and British Jews would explain why the LD share was so much lower than I expected.

[Brittain33]

The stereotypical American secular Jew would love the ideal of the Lib Dems. The reality of the Lib Dems and the difference between secular American Jews and British Jews would explain why the LD share was so much lower than I expected.

I would be interested in your views as to how you consider Jews of the two nationalities to be different. I have never thought about that before. Granted the Tories these days have a more secular - and less Christian-centric - image than the Pubs do these days, but you are suggesting it is less about the image of the parties, and more about the differences between the two groups of Jews themselves.

I believe British Jews have long favored the Tories. I'm out of my depth on this, but Thatcher represented a Jewish constituency (not that it mattered that much which one she represented) and she liked Jewish businessmen for representing the business side of Toryism rather than genteel paternalism she loathed. You just didn't have the same history that led to Jewish identification with the Dems that you have in the U.S.

I feel I know very little about British Jews other than where they live and roughly how they vote. If I got anything wrong in the above paragraph someone will come along and correct it.