Why are American Jews so Democratic if Republicans are so pro-Israel?

[Zaybay]

Well, there are multiple reasons.

1. Geography- Where you live has a lot to do with how you vote. Most Rurals vote Republican, and most Cities vote D. A core constituency of Cities happens to be Jews. From Miami to New York, Newark to the Bay Area, most Jews live in highly urban areas, with very few living in Rural or even Suburban areas.


2. History- The Democratic Party has a long history with Jews. For the past 100 years, from 1916-2016, Jews have voted for the Democrats in every election except in 1920(This was due in large part to the Socialist candidate Debs). Even during the sweeps of 1972, and 1984, the Jewish vote held firm for the Democrats. This long history has both bolstered D strength with the community, and also kept many Conservative Jews in the D fold(see: Selma).

(Graph courtesy of Comrade Funk)

3. Israel- As many others have noted on this thread, Israel is not an all-consuming issue for Jews. In fact, in a recent survey, Jews were actually one of the most sympathetic groups towards the Palestinian cause. The idea that Jews are single-issue voters on Israel has as much proof as the idea that Hispanics only vote based on Immigration issues, or Muslims only vote for candidates that uphold the Saudi alliance.


There are more reasons as well, such as the fact that many Jews come from more Working Class backgrounds, or that the Labor movement in the US was heavily supported by Jews fighting for better conditions, but these 3 are kinda the main ones.

[Zaybay]

Zaybay, where is that data from? If Reagan really did worse with Jewish voters in 1984 than 1980, it does indicate that foreign policy re: Israel is a huge vote-mover. But I'm skeptical.

Yeah, Comerade Funk made it by going back into the election files. Its a pretty great graph.

Anyway, while you could make such a connection, there really isnt any correlation elsewhere. Its much more of a coincidence than anything else(it seems a lot of Jewish voters in 1980 went to Anderson who would normally vote Democratic, so just like with Debs and Wallace, Im not sure if using such numbers when a 3rd party did rather well is analytically wise).