The more Jewish the Jew, the more likely he will vote for Trump over Hillary.
I’ve met few Orthodox Jew who are enthused about Donald Trump (most I know wanted Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz), but about 70% of the frumies will vote for Trump (except for Hasidim who will do as their rebbes instruct and vote for Hillary to collect lots of welfare).
Orthodox Jews tend to be less concerned with anti-Semitism than more assimilated Jews. More secure in their identity, they are not as threatened by goyim who are strong in their racial, national and religious identity.
Jewish money in the presidential election is going to Hillary about 96-4. The same proportion holds for Wall Street, Hollywood and tech money. I wonder if there will be blowback on these sectors from a Trump presidency? He doesn’t seem like the forgive and forget kind of guy.
As each day passes, Orthodox Jews account for a higher percentage of all American Jews. Their power has been growing since the 1960s. Secular Judaism with its emphasis on left-wing tikkun olam is getting flushed down the toilet of history as secular Jews assimilate and have few kids.
Chaim Amalek writes: “Torah Yidden know and like generations of Trumps. Trump is the candidate of the Torah Jew. It is forbidden for them to vote for another.”
“If he wins, this next Christmas will truly be a White Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know, before the ’65 immigration act did its dusky work.”
“Virtually every Muslim who hates Trump also hates Jews.”
Armin Rosen writes for Tabletmag:
Donald Trump is a malevolent figure for many American Jews. The Republican candidate’s allegedly anti-Semitic cast of supporters, coupled with his nativist rhetoric and policies have seemingly unsettled the country’s cosmopolitan, left-leaning Jewish community. But at least one group of Jews will still vote for him in sizable numbers and, if history is any guide, a disproportionate number of Jewish voters for Trump are likely to be Orthodox, a sizable constituency that does not appear to share their coreligionists’ sense of anxiety or horror at the possibility of a Trump presidency.
For starters, Pew’s 2013 Portrait of Jewish Americans found that 56 percent of Orthodox Jews identified with the Republican party, while only 36 percent leaned Democrat. And, according to an AJC poll from earlier this month, Trump enjoys 19 percent support among American Jews, a number comparable to the share of the Jewish vote for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. Taken together, these polls hint that for many Orthodox voters, concern over Trump is unlikely to override a pre-existing tendency to vote for Republican candidates. Additionally, a September poll of Yeshiva University students found 37 percent support for Trump, compared to 27 percent for Clinton.
It’s not that Trump is especially popular among the community compared to past Republican presidential hopefuls. “Trump’s not doing better than expected among Orthodox Republicans,” said Steven M. Cohen, a professor at Hebrew Union College, a consultant on the Pew study, and one of the foremost demographers of the American Jewish community. “Their political identity is in supporting Trump the same way that liberal Democrats among Jews are supporting Secretary Clinton.”
And yet, the Trump campaign has made inroads with Orthodox Jews without having much of an organized effort targeting them. Richard H. Roberts, the vice-chair of Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee, claimed that there is “overwhelming support for Trump in the Orthodox community,” but said that he is “not aware of any targeting of the Orthodox Jewish community by the campaign” when asked about specific outreach efforts. David Algaze, a Queens-based Orthodox rabbi, told me that he is the co-chair of a “rabbis for Trump”-type group, but it is yet to announce its membership publicly. The pro-Trump side also doesn’t seem to have an equivalent of Rabbi Menachem Genack, the Clinton-supporting Yeshiva University professor and CEO of the Orthodox Union—there’s no one of his visibility or prominence making the case for Trump within the community in any kind of a coordinated fashion.
Even so, support for Trump becomes proportionally more frequent on the more religious end of the observance spectrum, suggesting that Orthodox voters are less likely to be repelled by someone who an ideologically diverse range of American Jews consider to be an enabler of anti-Semitism, among other bigotries. Ben Shapiro, an anti-Trump political conservative and himself an observant Jew, has drawn connections between Trump’s policies, rhetoric, and the anti-Semitism of some of his supporters. The estimates vary—one Orthodox source consulted for this story says that he expects Trump to win 70 precent of the vote in the Brooklyn orthodox stronghold of Borough Park, while another doubts that the Republican will get more than a third of the Orthodox vote, an estimate roughly in line with the Yeshiva University student poll—but a significant percentage of the Orthodox are still going to vote for him.
The Orthodox represent 10 percent of the U. S. Jewish population, and the Modern Orthodox account for only 3-4 percent, according to the 2013 Pew study. But because of their institutional strength and a rising political profile, the community’s impact is greater than that number suggests. As Cohen explained, the Modern Orthodox in particular view themselves as “having an important [position] in holding Jews together,” occupying the space between the two polar opposites that flank them on the religious spectrum. “They stand at a crossroads between the heavily sectarian ultra-Orthodox, and the highly inter-marrying non-orthodox,” Cohen said.
The fact that such a crucial group is so apparently out of step with American Jewish attitudes on the presidential election is proof that one of defining divisions in American politics has firmly established itself within the Jewish community as well. In the country’s fractious political climate—marked by intense partisan divisions along fundamental fault-lines of identity and values—even a Republican with little apparent religiosity and allegedly poor impulse control can count on the support of a critical mass of religious people, Jews included…
Yitzchok Feldheim, a Lakewood, New Jersey-based rabbi who spends much of the year traveling to college campuses to speak to Jewish student groups, explained Trump’s appeal in almost mystical terms. In his view, the Republican candidate is a needed corrective to contemporary liberalism’s vision of “a world without any beauty and any pride and any happiness.” Trump, in his view, is “fighting a battle that we have felt for a long time,” namely the conflict between traditional Jewish life and the spiritual emptiness, and perhaps the inevitable meaninglessness, of the world that he believes the modern-day, Clinton-supporting left envisions. Yet Feldheim realizes that Trump is an imperfect messenger. “He’s not the hero that we want, he’s the one we deserve,” he explained. “I wish we deserved this gallant, noble, refined spokesperson. But you know what, that guy would probably be laughed off his white horse.”
…“Trump has proudly met with visibly Jewish people this campaign season and given exclusive interviews to Jewish-audience publications too while Hillary largely—if not fully—avoids this community. That’s a reason for concern to many voters.”
As more than one person reminded me, Orthodox Jews travel to Israel more often than their conservative and reform coreligionists, and are likely to prioritize a strong pro-Israel stance above other issues. (According to the Pew study, 77 percent of Orthodox Jews and 86% of modern Orthodox Jews have traveled to Israel, compared to 43 percent among American Jews in general.
…Trump benefits from the Republicans’ success in associating their party with religion, and from the social and political polarization that turned religiosity into a indicator of partisan support. “The idea that there’s a fear of God—we call it Yerat Shemayim in Hebrew—that resonates heavily in the Republican party more so than in the Democratic party,” says Frager. “In general the Republican Party sticks to the same traditional values that the Orthodox Jewish community sticks to.”
Algaze made this point is starker terms: “I think we Jews who follow our tradition more strictly are freer. We are not subject to the brainwashing of the media or liberal philosophies that make us change our point of view.”
…Orthodox Jews “put Judaism before their liberalism, whereas more secular Jews who are not as connected to Judaism or to Israel put liberalism before their Judaism.”
…“Probably the biggest predictor of political identity in America is not income as people frequently think, but churchgoing,” Cohen said. “Orthodox Jews go to their church a lot more than other Jews.”
