Political engagement can be a double-edged sword for Jews. On the one hand, it can result in personal and communal empowerment; but on the other, it can lead to the false conflation of ancestral values with non-Jewish ideologies that are incompatible with Torah, and which prompt the erosion of Jewish identity. The tension is especially problematic in the US, where antisemitism, support for Israel, and now Christian nationalism have become trigger issues in different ways for Democrats and Republicans.
For their part, today’s Democrats count among their ranks progressives who hate Israel, embrace Hamas, and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. As a result, only a third of their party support Israel - an all-time low. In contrast, most Republicans (eighty-three percent) identify as pro-Israel, though some also espouse Christian nationalist views and refuse to distance themselves from those on the “woke right" who traffic in antisemitic stereotypes. Thus, while the party has had a strong record of supporting Israel and denouncing antisemitism since at least the 1990s, Jewish conservatives are uneasy about the reluctance or unwillingness of some to chastise fellow travelers who peddle anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric disguised as political speech.
Though more Jews than ever before seem to be voting Republican because of concern for Israel and anxiety over antisemitism in the mainstream, they would do well to remember that most Democrats also used to support Israel and oppose the kind of bigotry now expressed by progressive radicals who influence their party’s domestic and foreign policy agendas.
The takeaway from the Democrats’ moral devolution is that their past philosemitism was not based solely on historical justice or respect for Jewish values, but rather political and demographic considerations that made sense in Jewish voting hubs during and after the Cold War and yet changed over time.
As their party turned leftward, and as the left became increasingly antisemitic, the more they began to tolerate or embrace radicals, Islamists, and bigots - and the more hatred for Jews and Israel became socially acceptable.
It should be clear to anyone with historical perspective that party affiliation, whether Republican or Democratic, can never be seen as an a priori expression of Jewish identity and that neither party is intrinsically “Jewish." There is nothing wrong with Jews endorsing political agendas that happen to align with their priorities - if they recognize that such alignment is often impermanent and subject to partisan unpredictability. This is something liberals often do not understand after generations of equating Jewish tradition with progressive values and affiliating Democratic as a putative expression of Jewishness. In fact, many still believe that registering Democrat is - politically speaking - the most Jewish thing they can do, despite the party’s leftward turn and embrace of ideologies and special interests that are hostile to Israel and in conflict with (or extraneous to) traditional Judaism and Torah law.
If anything, the facile embrace of anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred by progressive Democrats shows that radical ideology is not only inconsistent with Jewish values, but contrary to them. It also shows that secular political values and party affiliations are not synonymous with Jewish tradition and can neither reinforce nor sustain Jewish identity, regardless of the decades-long effort by Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist clergy to emphasize liberal political values over traditional text and rabbinics (a trend that may well correspond to rising Jewish illiteracy in the non-Orthodox world).
In contrast, Jewish conservatives tend to be guided by traditional core values, e.g., support for Israel, opposition to antisemitism, and respect for Jewish religious, cultural, and moral autonomy, in exercising their voting preferences. Though they may agree with Republicans on fundamental matters of policy, they generally do not believe Jewish identity is synonymous with the Republican Party - only that their interests and priorities converge at this moment in time.
Still, given the Jews’ immigrant experience in America, it is logical to see how over the years many absorbed external political values (both individually and collectively) and how they came to identify as Democrats.
When Jews immigrated to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to escape pogroms and persecution in Russia and elsewhere, many found employment in urban sweatshops where working conditions were poor and employee protections nonexistent. As a result, many joined unions and became enmeshed in the American labor movement. It thus seemed natural to gravitate towards the party they identified with labor; and as many abandoned traditional observance and standards of piety, they sought out ideological substitutes - often political - to fill the resulting spiritual void. Indeed, many embraced Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal" with religious-like fervor - though they remained willfully blind to FDR’s patrician antisemitism, indifference to Jewish suffering, and refusal to aid or rescue Jews during the Holocaust.
It was during this period that many acculturated Jews came to view the Democratic Party as a spiritual destination, though it was their abdication of traditional Torah values that facilitated the unfounded belief that certain political ideologies were innately Jewish or mystically transcendent. As voting members of society, Jews are free to support whatever causes their consciences dictate. However, they cannot claim Jewish tradition demands support for platforms that contravene Jewish law. Though many nontraditional rabbis today use their pulpits to promote trans issues, for example, there is no halakha that approves or permits surgical or chemical alteration of the human body in the name of “gender affirming care."
Moreover, the endorsement of radical policies by secular Jews does not make them consistent with traditional Jewish norms, which ultimately derive from Torah, not politics or popular culture. In fact, no political agendas - whether liberal or conservative - are synonymous with Jewish tradition simply because Jews vote for them. Whereas Jewish voters can endorse or oppose any controversial topics upon which liberals and conservatives disagree (e.g., abortion or gun control), they cannot claim the imprimatur of tradition where Jewish law conflicts with those issues or takes no position on them.
Likewise, it cannot be claimed that the Republican Party or political conservativism are synonymous with Jewish identity, though there is a good deal of ideological overlap regarding support for Israel, respect for personal property rights, and the acknowledgement of historical antisemitism and need to combat it today.
Although the political right certainly has an odious regarding history with antisemitism, the left’s historical track record is no less shameful. Rising above their history, however, American conservatives have acknowledged their past culpability and have made thoughtful efforts to purge antisemitism from their ranks, as was eloquently demonstrated in 1992 by the late William F. Buckley in his pivotal work on the subject, “In Search of Anti-Semitism." No comparable literary testament has been produced by anybody on the left, despite the exponential increase in progressive hatred for Jews, Judaism, and Israel in recent years.
Unlike progressives who ignore, excuse, or validate antisemitism on the left, Jewish conservatives remain vigilant and sensitive to its reemergence on the extreme right (both secular and Christian) and are closely monitoring the conservative mainstream’s response to those who harbor antisemitic and anti-Israel animosity. There is also growing discomfort among Jewish conservatives regarding the conflation of conservative principles with evangelical Christianity, the tenets of which are inconsistent with Jewish scripture, tradition, and values. Increasingly, many are disquieted by the seemingly expanded influence of right-wing Christian nationalists, those within Christian Zionism who support Israel in order to missionize Jews, and seemingly discordant voices in organizations like Turning Point USA.
Moreover, while conservatives and Republicans may have an affinity for traditional Jewish ideals at this moment in history, they are not governed by the same scriptural and doctrinal imperatives that inform Jewish political sensibilities.
At the end of the day, Jewish survival and continuity do not require us to (a) treat any secular political system or agenda as synonymous with Jewishness; (b) embrace a “Judeo-Christian" banner that implies commonality between fundamentally incompatible belief systems; or (c) proclaim common cause with those who support Israel as subterfuge to proselytize and advance phantom prophesies found nowhere in Tanakh. Rather, it requires steadfastness of heritage and faith. There is nothing wrong with Jews participating in politics or government, as long as they remember that their unique heritage, spiritual legacy, and history are neither functions of, nor secondary to, the secular political process.
Perhaps that’s what the Sages meant in Pirkei Avot, when they said: “Be cautious with the government, for they only bring a person close to them for their own needs. They appear as friends when it benefits them, but they do not stand by a person in his time of difficulty." (Pirkei Avot, Chapter 2, Mishna 3.)