Dominic Green: US Jews are shifting rightwards

Demographic and political changes are slowly pushing American Jewry to the right

THE ORTHODOX Jews of Brooklyn or Borough Park may look like a throwback to another era, but at the ballot box they vote like typical mainstream, rightleaning Americans. Much more typical, in fact, than non-Orthodox Jews, who are the most socially liberal group in the country. As social conservatives, the Orthodox vote Republican. Not because they are “low-information voters” or transphobic bigots, but because the Republicans stand for religious freedom, low taxes, school vouchers and Israel.

The Democrats, meanwhile, support race-based coercion, high taxes and the corrupt teachers’ unions, not to mention the even more corrupt Palestinian Authority.

When coupled with demographic change, this is having a profound effect on the political centre of gravity of American Jewry.

As a proportion of the Jewish community, the Orthodox population has quintupled in the space of two generations — not because Jews are becoming more observant but because the inter-marrying liberal community is evaporating into secularism.

The Pew Research Center predicts that the Orthodox will outnumber the non-Orthodox by around 2050. Even today, nearly 80 per cent of the Jewish children in New York City are Orthodox, the majority of them Haredi.

Make no mistake: American Jews, once defined by suburban living, secularism and a legendary allegiance the Democratic Party, are becoming more Republican, more Orthodox, and much more partisan over Israel.

For decades, at least 70 per cent of Jewish Americans voted Democrat (apart from in 1980, when Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter). The figures for 2020 suggest that Joe Biden struggled to hit 70 per cent. Trump, meanwhile, won more Jewish votes than he did in 2016.

On the surface, the Biden administration marks a return to the post-JFK alliance of the Democrats and the Jews. The new President has appointed a veritable minyan of Jewish and Jew-ish secretaries and advisors, notably Anthony Blinken, the new Secretary of State, and his deputy Wendy Sherman.

In the final analysis, however, this is no guarantee of support for mainstream Jewish concerns – particularly over the Jewish state.

Israel was already a partisan football when Trump came into office. The left has always loathed the Evangelicals, Israel’s strongest advocates in Congress.

While Trump was making his mark as the most pro-Israel president ever, the Democratic grassroots were Corbynising themselves into a fury of anti-Zionism.

Now Biden is heading for a collision with Israel over reviving the Iran Deal – a deal designed and negotiated by Blinken and Sherman.

The non-Orthodox Jewish elites are shallow in their roots. The cracks began to show in 2015, when their political leadership supported the Iran Deal in the face of Israeli protests, and vaunted institutions like Aipac crumbled to Obama’s will.

Shamefully, the same Jewish elites then joined the pro-Democratic chorus that accused Trump – the president with Orthodox grandchildren – of ‘white supremacy’.

No less shamefully, the non-Orthodox leadership failed to respond to the blatant anti-Semitism of the Democratic left, and an unprecedented wave of physical assaults against Haredi Jews on the streets of New York City.

Nonetheless, if the Jewish American vote is reaching a tipping point, it’s as much due to demographics.

Reform and Conservative communities are greying fast. Across the country, the “shul with a pool” is closing due to late marriage, out marriage, and low fertility.

A third of Jewish Americans have little or no institutional links. They are older on average than the general population, with a lower fertility rate.

In contrast, the Orthodox are younger than the general population and the typical Orthodox woman has almost six children, nearly three times as many as her non-Jewish counterpart.

The electoral implications can already be seen in Florida, where Jewish votes prevented Biden from carrying the state in November. They may soon be seen in New York State, which would turn red with a 10 per cent swing.

Out-of-touch leadership, hollowed-out institutions, and demographic decay: the old Jewish American communities may vote Democratic to the end, but ultimately their votes won’t count.

The future belongs to those who turn up for it. The rightward, Orthodox shift is coming to American Jews like the bankruptcy in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: “Gradually, then suddenly.”

The future belongs to those who turn up for it. The rightward, Orthodox shift is coming’