Poll: 69% of US Jews will vote for Kerry (Jerusalem Post)

[JoFerret]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1095743615399&p=1006688055060

Reports indicate that a new survey by the American Jewish Committee, scheduled to be released Wednesday, finds that only 24 percent of
American Jews would vote for President Bush, while 69 percent would vote for Senator John Kerry.

The finding represents a remarkable 23 percent drop in American Jewish support for President Bush since last December, when an
AJC poll found that 31 percent of American Jews would vote for President Bush at that time.

Due to the margin of error associated with polling, there is statistically no difference between AJC's finding of President Bush's support today and his support in 2000 among American Jews. Voter News Service exit polls found that then-Governor Bush received 19 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000.

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[JohnKleeb]

1. well Bush is in for a nice surprise

good job Kerry. I would love Kerry to get this amount among Catholics, maybe we need to show that Bob Jones tape around.

[Leilani]

4. Catholics need to know that Evangelicals

are biased against them...have smeared the Pope,

& think they aren t real Christians.

[JohnKleeb]

6. you're preaching to the choir

I know all too well about that, its why I really would love to get a Catholics for Kerry button, many things important to me such as my democratic identity, my ethnic identity, etc but my faith is very important, I know how the evanglicals regard us, it's sickening, I never liked the Protestant ethic anyway though :D.

[JoFerret]

8. Oy! Stacks of protestants....

...even evangelicals and born-agains vote Democrat. Check out the stats.

[JohnKleeb]

21. of course some vote democrat

but if you read the stats, the catholics have been in the democratic party since the first Irish got off the boat :D. Protestants do vote dem but not as much as Catholics, I saw the stats in the library, now i am sure we do better with mainline protestants but protestants in general have long voted repulican.

[Cheswick2.0]

30. too bad that is changing

around here democrats who are catholic are voting for republicans because they are preached at about abortion every week in chuch. If one day the whole state of Pa goes red, the catholic church will be largely responsible.

[aquart]

25. Democratic.

Please don't use Republican nomeclature.

[JohnKleeb]

31. sorry

[PROGRESSIVE1]

23. That's how I feel. We Catholics were around first.

They have the nerve to attack us. :grr:
Evangelicals and Born Agains are a cult, just like the KKK!!!

[salinen]

2. 31% of Jews are therefore

retarded.

[meti57b]

5. hey, that's a smaller percentage retardation than the general public, ....

where 50% are most apparently retarded. :-)

[Mountainman]

3. If I were a Jew I would not vote for a party supported by

Christian Fundamentalists even though they purportedly support Israel.

The last thing anyone should want is a theocracy and that's what the fundamentalist want to set up.

[skooooo]

7. I think there's something inherent in the Jewish tradition..

..that leans liberal. Ok, Israel doesn't count, but think about it. A great many of the progressive leaders and protestors of the past were Jewish.

Well that's my impression, I'm sure I'll get flamed now.

[a_random_joel]

10. No flames, this is absolutely correct.

Jews, not to sterreotype, but I learned this in Hebrew School, for what it's worth, are taught to be tolerant. This has as much to do with their own history as much as anything else. This is why a lot of Jews were active in the Civil Rights movement. Now, certainly thre are exceptions, but tolerance is a Jewish "value."

As is charity, the number one MITVAH(good deed). Jews are taught to help the least fortunate among us. That's probably where Jesus got the whole "help the meek thing" from. He was a rabbi, after all...

Further, many Jews are supporters of a secular state, in part because they don't their religion to be a political issue like it was in Europe.

Further, look at history's liberals... Many Jews make the list.

[skooooo]

12. yep!

Good, glad I'm not the only one who recognizes this.

[virgdem]

22. Very true about Jews being great supporters of a secular state...

The last thing that Jews want is to be tied to any Christian Evangelical movement. I don't know how you feel about the Mormons and other Evangelicals peddling their religion door to door, but I am completely pissed off at anyone trying to proselytize their religion to me. And don't EVER tell them you are Jewish - I made that mistake and never heard the end of it. I would also be surprised if more than 10-15% of Jews vote for *. Just ain't gonna happen.

[4_Legs_Good]

11. I think you're right and that we've been fed a load of hawk-jewish rubbish

over the past 4 years. All we hear about in the Jewish community is from the hawks in the administration and the hard core pro-Sharon camp. It's like they're trying to erase the long progressive history of Jews in this country.

Not to say they're one monolithic voting community, but they do tend both progressive and Democrat. I'm glad this poll reflects this as well. It'll hopefully bring us all back down to earth.

david

[skooooo]

13. Judaism stresses the importance of what you DO...

...rather than what you THINK.

[aquart]

27. Tend? Excuse me.

Three Jews and a typewriter equal five political parties.

We never agree. Never. THAT is our tradition.

[NNN0LHI]

14. American Jews have been...

...the leaders in fighting for civil rights and advocating progressive causes in this country since I can remember (I am 49). Its just a fact. Nothing to get flamed about.

Don

[jwirr]

29. The Jewish people are

extremely generous people and their generosity is reflected in their voting history. Thank God for these good Americans.

I also think that while bushie may be killing Arabs over there he is not making Israel any safer nor does he care. If all hell should break loose involving more than Iraq they are in grave danger. It is incorrect to think that just because they have a nuke they are safe. It would be insane to blow up a nuke in your own back yard. That goes for any of those nations over there. They are too close to use that type of warfare. You might win the war but you get to die slowly from radiation disease. What kind of victory is that?

[SquireJons]

9. Wow. This is good news.

I was afraid that large numbers of American Jews would defect and support bush for getting directly involved militarily in the middle east. Hats off to them for seeing beyond a single - though important issue.

[nodehopper]

15. it's not even seeing beyond the issue

It's addressing the issue in the correct way. The only way for peace to come to Israel and the Middle East is to stop Bush's, AIPAC's and the Likud's hawkish policies, stop building the wall, and negotiate a two-state solution.

[geek tragedy]

16. They earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans.

And bless them for that.

[henslee]

17. Yay, Jews. Bagels for everyone!!!!!!!!

on edit... Make mine pumperickel, toasted with a shmear.

[henslee]

18. Jewish businessmen might grasp that much of doing business internationally

is predicated on a stable world and a world where Americans will be welcome and trusted.

[jfalchion]

19. Not good

24% represents >25% increase in support for *. Somebody tell me I'm wrong.


How much cash is now going to the Rs rather than Democratic candidates?


:kick:

[geek tragedy]

20. Those numbers will bounce back.

Remember the NJ and NY poll results.

[SineOfNothing]

24. I pray that Kerry comes through for Israel

After hearing the UN slam Israel I hope Kerry backs away from that nonsense soon. Israel has a right to defend herself against the trash that is trying to kill her citizens and erase their existence. I hope Kerry chooses wisely.

[foo_bar]

32. Israel and the UN are both pinnacles of hypocrisy

The UN is hard to fathom when places like Nigeria and Cyprus lecture Israel about protecting minorities.

Israel merely betrays the central covenant of Judaism. It's the intentional conflation of "the House of Israel" (Beit Yisrael, God's promise to Abraham), "the Land of Israel" (Eretz Yisrael, a Talmudic revision of where Israel's borders would be if they weren't occupied), "the Sons of Israel" (Bnei Yisrael, descendents of the patriarch Jacob (later called Yisrael himself)), and "the Kingdom of Israel" (Malchut Yisrael, the period of Jewish sovereignty from 1000-721 BC, the working prototype for Israeli statehood). It's theologically incorrect, and the frummies agree with me 100% (except on the furry hat issue).

[Mr_Spock]

26. I know one of those stupid 24% of Jews who would vote for Dubya.

How can anybody be so misled you wonder? I know this person well and they are a thick-headed and in denial as any freeper. I just point out the facts and leave it at that - still amazes me that any Jew would vote for these fascists though.

[Charlie Brown]

28. The Right-wingers supporting Israel

aren't interested in protecting the well-being of Jews or the perseverence of their culture. They're only interested in assimilating Jews into the ranks of Christendom (Jews for Jesus, anyone?), and using Israel to protect the holy sites of Christianity from Muslim occupation. They despise Jews as much as they do everyone else who doesn't subscribe to their worldview (look at the comments of Mel Gibson's father on the Holocaust, though the irony there is that many fundamentalists feel the same way about Catholics).

[Princess Turandot]

39. Mel Gibson isn't a Catholic, remember..

he's part of a group which uses the Catholic Mass from the 1950's and a potpourri of beliefs, many of which are no longer held by Catholics. They've rejected the authority of the Popes since the 1950's,for reasons that are somewhat bizarre. Gibson as an example, believes that God demands that Mass be said in Latin, despite the fact that Jesus spoke aramaic. His "sect" is infitesimal compared to the rest of Catholicism.The media made little effort to make that clear during the hoopla around his movie. His father is a published bigot and probably nuts. The American bishops actually produced a lengthy document reaffirming the Catholic position that the Jews were not responsible for the death of Jesus, and distributed it to all US churches a few weeks before his movie came out.

I don't think fundamentalist Christians are primarily interested in converting Jews. The rightwingers simply believe that Israel will take better care of the Christian sites in the Holy Land than the Muslims, as they wait for the Rapture, when Jesus returns to the Holy Land and takes the good to heaven and sends the bad to hell.I believe they include Jews in the latter group (and probably Catholics as well!)

It's a pity that Kerry cannot comment during the debate that he was glad on behalf of his faith that Bush didn't make another stop at Bob Jones university this year, since its founder, the grandfather of its current president, was not only a racist but railed against the Catholic Popes for being the 'Anti-Christ'. I think but am not certain that the second Bob Jones preached the same crap, although his son does not say things like in public.

[DemFromMem]

33. Favorite subject

I actually wrote my senior political science paper on Jewish voting patterns in modern Presidential elections back in 1986. The thrust of the paper was the polling data all the way back to the 50s showed that the Democrat's support in the Jewish community averaged about 20% to 30% beyond the national numbers. The correlation was extremely tight. I also discussed how the Republicans even back then were speaking of a realignment of the Jewish vote. I've followed the polling data for the last four election and that realignment has not happened. Clinton's numbers were on the high end as well as Gore's.

Kerry is going to do fine with this constituency (of which I am a proud member). The Republicans have been trying to court the Jewish community for decades and it has not worked. Being pro-Israel is only one issue Jews look at. But Bush fails the test on too many other issues - social justice in particular - to be acceptable to Jewish voters. I think the gay marriage amendment especially has made Jewish voters uncomfortable with the President.

I'm still predicting that Kerry will get the 20 to 30 % margin from the Jewish community. The two polls out so far are backing this up despite a lot of pandering from Republicans.

[dennis4868]

34. how could any jew.....

vote for Bush when he is very close friends with Prince Bandar, who has given a hell of alot of money to anyone who is brave enough to blow themselves up in Israel in a large crowd....plus, Bush is an evangelical christian and it is pretty obvious why he favors Israel..it's not because he loves the jews...it is because he loves the baby jesus who will one day (according to Bush and friends) come back to Israel and kick the jews out of town. Why would any jew support this guy?

[vajraroshana]

35. endtimes prophecies protestants

have their agenda with Israel and some Jewish people know that and seem to "use" it in the sense of alligning with fundie xtian politicians.

All the Jewish people I'm fortunate to know are steadfastly liberal. And quite a few have either spent long times in Israel or have actually lived there (have homes there), and they're all "peaceniks". Mostly. I don't hear much from my from friend who lived there for a few years and then moved to Atlanta, but he used to passionately describe to me the "peace movement" in Israel. Jews and Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Christians, especially the younger generation are so cool (kinda like a 90s hippy/peace/love vibe community) and they would have "raves" together and it sounded so promising. He used to tell me that "we" in America have no idea how huge the "peace movement" is there, because all we ever here is the extremists' activities and the hard-line policies from the controlling government.

Nope, it doesn't surprise me at all to hear how many Jewish people are voting for Kerry. It does surprise me a bit that it isn't more.

[JSJ]

36. aipac would probably call the 'ajc' anti-semitic for this poll nt

[Itchinjim]

37. My Jewish dentist....

was giving me a root canal a few years ago, I was the first patient of the morning and as he was pumping my gums full of a couple of gallons of Novocaine, we both noticed that Rush Limbaugh was playing over the clinic's sound system (apparently the night cleaning people had tuned into the local right wing radio station) The good Dr. leapt up and ran out of the room and and changed the station. When he returned he said to me, "No need to make a visit to the dentist any more uncomfortable then it needs to be. Oy I do I hate that guy!"
And he really did say "oy" too.

[w4rma]

38. A Republican thought that most Jewish were Republicans and not Dems

His father is a radical right-wing corporate lawyer who is Jewish. He honestly thought that a majority of Catholics and Jews voted Republican. I even showed him the exit polls from the 2000 election where Gore had won like 70% of the Jewish vote, and he told me that he didn't believe the poll.

As far as I know he's still deluding himself about this.