From the Editors Desk The decline of the New York Jewish vote The Pew Research Center’s latest study of American Jews came out Tuesday, with few bombshells. That’s probably because the study confirms what anyone paying close attention has probably already suspected.
For example, the study felt right to me in its description of the most rapidly growing cohorts of young Jews: the Orthodox and what Pew describes as Jews who do not identify with Judaism as a religion.
Not only are the ranks of these divergent cohorts growing but, says Pew, the Jews of no religion “feel they have not much or nothing at all in common” with Orthodox Jews. Pew noted this in 2013, “[b]ut it is especially evident in the 2020 survey, conducted during a polarizing election campaign.”
Between these polarized cohorts is a shrinking middle – that is, Reform and Conservative Jews who identify as Jews by religion, but whose politics and religious observance tend to skew centrist or liberal. “Roughly four-in-ten Jewish adults under 30 identify with either Reform (29%) or Conservative Judaism (8%), compared with seven-in-ten Jews ages 65 and older,” according to Pew.
In most things, New York offers a new spin on the old joke: We’re just like the Jews, only more so. That our Orthodox community is larger than anywhere else is self-evident, and an important study of New York Jews in 2011 showed a growing secular, marginally affiliated community. “In the past, [synagogue] membership was more of a given,” Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue told Pew this year. “People felt they had to join a synagogue in order to belong and affiliate. Now I would say, there’s a lot more ‘do-it-yourself Judaism’ and internet Judaism and virtual Judaism.”
The current mayoral race is a reflection of this softening middle. To the degree that candidates have explicitly courted the “Jewish vote,” it’s mostly been a bid for the haredi Orthodox blocs. Frontrunners Andrew Yang and Eric Adams have been the most assertive in appealing to the concerns of haredi voters, especially their fears that the state and city will demand more rigorous standards for secular education at yeshivas. City Comptroller Scott Stringer, currently trying to fend off a #MeToo accusation, is the only Jewish candidate in the race, but he hasn’t really hit that very hard. Unless asked, no one is talking about antisemitism, a topic that only last year galvanized some 25,000 mostly non-Orthodox Jews to march across the Brooklyn Bridge. No candidate headed to Riverdale after a vandal smashed windows at four synagogues, including a Conservative one.
I’d suggest that outside the Orthodox community, there is no real “tribal” issue that would inspire Jewish voters and make them vote any differently than similarly situated gentiles – and candidates know this. The younger “nones” will take an interest in either progressive issues or the quality of life concerns that have been a big part of the mayoral forums, and will not vote according to any distinct Jewish interest. The “middle” voters – older, centrist, Jewishly affiliated -- probably are thinking about crime and economic recovery, the two big issues in the race. When two big nonprofits – UJA-Federation of NY and Met Council – held mayoral forums this year, the focus was largely on their sponsors’ secular concerns: social service delivery, COVID relief and assistance to nonprofits.
The conflict between Israel and Gaza would normally be the kind of issue that a candidate would use to establish his or her pro-Jewish bona fides across the Jewish spectrum. But only a few of the candidates issued statements of the “we stand with Israel” variety. (Only progressive candidate Dianne Morales appeared to criticize Israel, condemning “state violence.”)
Andrew Yang even had to walk back a one-sided statement of support for Israel, after criticism from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and, he said, members of his own staff. Although a centrist, Yang heard the concerns of progressives, and didn’t feel it would cost him many Jewish votes to acknowledge “the pain and suffering on both sides."
An increasingly diverse city has also led to the decline of non-Orthodox Jewish ethnic clout: In a 2012 article noting that there were no Jews running for mayor that year, the New York Times reported that the Jewish proportion of the citywide primary electorate had declined to 20 percent from twice that in the 1950s and 1960s. That’s why only the Orthodox, with their closely aligned self-interests, crowded precincts and bloc-voting, arouse much attention from candidates seeking specifically Jewish votes.
(Why, you may ask, are Orthodox voters significant in a Democratic primary when, according to Pew, some 75% of the community votes Republican? Because the next mayor of New York is almost guaranteed to be a Democrat, and the community wants to be heard in City Hall.)
Pew says “these generational shifts toward both Orthodoxy and secular Jewishness have the potential, in time, to reshape American Jewry.” I’d say the time is already here.
Social tedium If you want to see the depressing ways the fighting in Israel has played out on social media, check out the reaction to an anodyne tweet by actress Kerry Washington. “I am deeply saddened to see what is happening in Israel and Palestine,” she wrote, quite reasonably. “I urge you all to do your research before you spread misinformation, follow organizations that are taking action, and treat one another with RESPECT and KINDNESS.”
A lot of her commenters were neither respectful nor kind. They criticized Washington for refusing to condemn Israel. They called her naïve for suggesting there was more than one side to the conflict. “It isn’t hard,” someone tweeted back. “An entity with one of the best trained military forces in the world [is] bombing a civilian population with no standing armed forces.” (Yes, a few thousand rockets, but no standing armed forces.)
Some readers were grateful that she urged restraint, and her post got over 5,000 likes. Still it’s a small indicator of what feels different about this round of violence: Social media is convulsed with discussion over what’s happening in Israel and Gaza, in ways that no one was using to talk about, say, the war in Syria, the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya or China’s treatment of the Uyghurs. Israel has an inexplicable hold on the political imagination of social media users, who, no surprise, reject complexity and have no doubt who the villain is. My daughter, who is 24, said she has never seen anything like it among her friends and the people she follows.
The pro-Israel side responds to simplicity with their own reductionist arguments about Israeli blamelessness. Maybe that’s what they should do: fight one-sided fire with one-sided fire. I don’t know anymore. I’ve seen this show for over 20 years now, and neither side has been able to change the plot or the outcome. So I pray for peace, I pray wisdom, I pray for security. But I just don’t know who’s listening.
Nuanced arguments Let me recommend some helpful essays on the current conflict that I had a hand in editing, in my other role on the JTA oped desk: Leah Solomon of Encounter laments the policies that made this week’s violence inevitable. Tomer Persico of the Shalom Hartman Institute explains why the clashes in Israel’s “mixed” Arab and Jewish cities are so ominous. And Gilead Scher, former chief of staff and policy coordinator to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, talks about Jerusalem as a key to one day solving the conflict.
Say cheese Shavuot begins tonight at sundown. I hope you have a restful and peaceful holiday.
Photo, top: Brooklyn Borough President distributes masks outside the East Midwood Jewish Center, June 5, 2020. (Eric Adams Flickr) Thanks for reading. Reach me at editor@jewishweek.org. Follow me on Twitter, and don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your friends.
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