"The Jews have three veltn (worlds): di velt (this world), yene velt (the next world), and Roosevelt."
--Judge Jonah Goldstein, the 1945 Republican candidate for mayor of New York City
In the nearly eighty years since President Franklin Roosevelt launched the New Deal with a pledge to "help the forgotten man," relations between American Jews and the Democratic Party have been as close as lips and teeth. Even as Jews prospered and assimilated into the mainstream of American life, most of them remained loyal to FDR's liberal vision and refrained from following the pattern of other affluent groups by shifting to the Republican Party. Over the course of the past twenty elections, a stunning 75 percent of the Jewish vote has on average gone to the Democratic presidential candidate. As the old saying goes: "Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans."
If further proof of this were needed, it was provided by the 2008 election of Barack Obama. On a key issue for many Jewish voters -- support for Israel -- the hawkish John McCain started off with a decisive advantage over Obama, whose past associations with the anti-Semitic Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the Israel-bashing Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi raised troubling questions in the minds of many Jews. And yet, when the vote was tallied, Obama trounced McCain among Jews by a staggering 57 point margin.
"After decades of involvement in the civil rights movement by American Jews, Obama stirred deep emotions in the Jewish community," Bret Stephens, the deputy editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, told us. "The black-Jewish alliance was shattered in the late 1960s, and Jews have yearned ever since to restore it. Jews felt good about voting for Obama, for not only were they voting for a guy they agreed with and liked, but they were also voting for their own personal redemption."
All this should provide comfort to President Obama as his party heads into the fall's hotly contested midterm elections and fights to hold onto its majorities in the House and Senate. Faced with public frustration over the flailing economy, high unemployment, massive federal deficits, out-of-control illegal immigration, and the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, Democratic candidates need all the help they can get from their friends. And although Jews represent a mere 4 percent of the American electorate, their political activism and fund-raising prowess give them leverage in important battleground states.
There's only one hitch. Today, a sizable number of American Jews are having a serious case of buyer's remorse when it comes to Barack Obama. Recent polls of the Jewish community reflect a significant decline in support from 2008, when 78 percent of Jewish voters pulled the lever for Obama. According to a recent McLaughlin & Associates poll, a plurality of Jewish voters would now consider voting for someone else for president.
These poll numbers do not begin to measure the depth of displeasure felt by many of Jews over President Obama's performance. Their bill of particulars covers a wide variety of complaints, including the president's frosty behavior toward businessmen in general and Wall Street in particular. But what really appears to irritate American Jews is the president's roughhouse treatment of Israel.
Obama has recently backed off from some of his public assaults on Israel, but he is still in trouble with large segments of the Jewish community. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the coordinating body for 52 Jewish groups, estimates that Obama may have lost the support of as much as one-third of Jewish voters. That may overstate the case, but as we discovered during interviews with more than a dozen Jewish leaders over the past several months, many Jews have become so annoyed with the Obama administration that they have closed their wallets and are seriously thinking of sitting out the 2010 election. According to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records by the Washington Post, contributions to Democratic candidates from the financial sector, where Jews hold important positions, are down 65 percent from two years ago.
"I started breaking with Obama ten months ago," says Martin Peretz, editor in chief of The New Republic. "And I know that a lot of West Coast Jews are also having buyer's remorse. The gut of it is Israel. Will Jews mobilize for Obama in the fall elections? They might be too embarrassed to come out directly against him. But I'll give you one sign of the times: Chuck Schumer [New York's senior Senator] waited a year and a half before he stood up for Israel, and he's been having trouble raising money on Wall Street."
"The assumption on the part of the Obama administration is that because Jews are liberals, they simply will not vote for Republicans," says the Hollywood billionaire Haim Saban, one of the Democratic Party's mega-donors. "Obama can invite the ten most prolific Jewish campaign bundlers to the White House for a discussion, and give a wonderful speech, and he'll think that this may resolve all his problems with American Jews. And it may--or it may not."
"The idea that we saw a black president in our lifetime is wonderful," says New York City's former mayor, Ed Koch. "It conveyed to us that this country has come such a long way. But I never fully accepted that Obama didn't hear his minister [Jeremiah Wright] make those awful anti-Semitic statements over 20 years. I wanted to believe him. I willed myself to believe him.... What he has done is break that trust. Like Humpty Dumpty, once you break it, you can't put it together again."
Correction: an earlier version said that Mr Saban had "privately expressed his dismay with 'the leftists' in the White House." Upon further investigation, the authors discovered Mr. Saban had made no such statement.
This is the end of part one of a five-part series. For part two, click here.
Leon T. Hadar: The Last Summit?
James Zogby: Myths and Realities
Daniel Levy: Why Netanyahu Canceled His DC Visit, and Why the GOP Is Applauding
Jacob Heilbrunn: Hillary Clinton and Israel
I think that quote from Mr.Haim Saban is the closest to the root of not only Jewish concern with today Democratic Party but Americans that believe in special connection between United States and Israel - far-left rhetoric and actions coming from the white House, DNC, and groups closely associated with the Democratic Party.
Heck its almost similar to the gay and lesbian comminity. Ignore what he says, watch what he does(or doesnt do) and who he hangs with.
Israeli missile defense programs gain further US backing (update)
In 2011, various anti-missile programs will get record funding of around $423 million.
3 August 10 10:50, Ran Dagoni, Washington
The latest US aid figures for Israeli missile Defense programs in the US 2011 fiscal year ought to please Israel’s defense establishment: next year, various anti-missile programs will get record funding of around $423 million, more than double the figure for 2010.
The jump in US funding for Israel's missile defense programs comes from a one-time $205 million grant for the procurement of ten Iron Dome batteries for defense against short-range missiles, which the government loudly trumpeted in May. The White House said at the time, "The President recognizes the threat to Israel from Hizbullah and Hamas's missile batteries."
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000579231
I agree. This article is no different in substance or tone then a writer presuming to speak for the entire African-American community by stating that they all plan on voting for Obama because he's black, or saying that African-Americans had buyer's remorse with x, y, or z politician because they didn't care enough about African countries. It's crass stereotyping.
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000579231
Tea Party candidates say they care about Israel, but they've said they wouldn't give financial aid for Israel's defense.
If the Israeli settlers want to stay on Palestinian land, then let them. However, they must ultimately do without protection of the Israeli army, their roads must be open to Palestinians to use, and they should pay taxes to the Palestinian government as residents. They can remain Israeli citizens, and they should be eligible to apply for citizenship in Palestine. The Palestinian police force has been demonstrating its competence at maintaining order and safety, so the settlements should become their responsibility like any other town in the state.
Win-win: the settlers get to stay on their presumed Biblical lands, but they have to abide by the laws of the state where that land resides, and the Palestinians get a contiguous land for their state. So, the negotiations can proceed.
The gesture today by the rabbis bringing the korans to the burnt mosque hints to me that Jewish settlements can live in harmony in a Palestinian state. There's no reason the settlers cannot keep their Jewish customs in the land that means so much to them. They don't need a Jewish government to maintain their roads.
I'm not really sure what you mean by 'a LARGE majority do support ISRAEL', I think most ethically minded people would not condone acts of oppression, abuse, war or terrorism no matter who is dealing it out.
"Obama has recently backed off from some of his public assaults on Israel, but he is still in trouble with large segments of the Jewish community"
Considering like all presidents, Obama has suffered a drop in popularity after being elected and those numbers are no higher in the Jewish community than in the rest of the American population, I'm a bit uncomfortable with this one author making enormous generalization for million of other people based on their ethnic group. This article seems to be making an inordinate amount of mass generalizations and stereotypes about Jewish Americans. A lot of this writing seems to be playing to the worst sorts of beliefs. If it were a non-Jewish writer putting out a doom and gloom piece implying that Jews control elections and Obama had better watch out because "large segments" of the American Jewish community are more loyal to Israel then they are to America they would rightly be called anti-Semitic.