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How the GOP Won the Orthodox Vote
By Nathan Diament
As published in
The Forward newspaper
November 11, 2004
In the 2000 presidential
election, 70% of Orthodox Jews voted for the Democratic ticket; in
the 2004 presidential election, 70% of Orthodox Jews voted for the
Republican ticket. While most of the American Jewish community
remains stalwart in the Democratic camp, second only to African
Americans, the Orthodox segment is clearly a swing vote.
Despite constituting 10% of a Jewish community, which itself is
only 3% of the American electorate, Orthodox Jewish communities
are concentrated in many battleground states and districts and, in
a close election, can be decisive. Over the longer term, the most
recent National Jewish Population Survey demonstrated that the
Orthodox community is, on average, much younger and less
assimilating than the rest of the American Jewish population.
Thus, political leaders would do well to examine what they can do
to seek Orthodox electoral support.
The quickly forming cliché from the 2004 election is that "values"
drove religious traditionalists to support President Bush; this
dynamic was certainly present in the Orthodox community. Exit
polls indicate that just as Bush decisively won the votes of
Catholics and Protestants who attend church weekly, so too did he
win the votes of those going weekly or more to minyan at
synagogues. But frequency of worship attendance is merely an
indicator of a values orientation; what underlies it?
Indeed, religious American Christians and Jews may share many
faith-informed views on specific public policy issues. They view
with alarm societal sanction of same-sex marriage, with dismay the
denial of public funding to religious schools and social welfare
agencies, and with disgust the popular culture that is, in the
words of the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "defining
deviancy down."
Aside from seeing common threats, traditionalists across the
denominational divides share a common commitment to the respected
role that faith plays in forming the character of individuals and
communities. A devout Jew and a devout Christian may not share the
same theology, but they can speak in a language mutually
understood.
Still, theological differences exist. Orthodox Jews are not merely
evangelicals who read the Bible right to left, and theological
differences can result in different positions on matters of public
policy. The two best examples relate to "life" issues.
The Jewish view of conception and its interplay with the laws to
heal and preserve life are quite different from traditionalist
Christian views. Thus, while rabbinic law clearly would repudiate
resorting to abortion as a form of retroactive birth control, it
permits or mandates an abortion when the life or health of the
mother is imperiled. Orthodox Jews, therefore, must be reticent
about a wholesale legal restriction on abortion.
Similarly, rabbinic law has quite a different view than
Christianity on the cutting-edge questions of stem-cell and
cloning research. Judaism does not view an embryo in a laboratory
petri dish as possessing the status of personhood. Thus, the
compelling mandate of working to heal the ill trumps the ethical
concerns associated with this research and urges it onward.
Now, anyone including politicians can learn to speak the common
language of people of faith. In the closing weeks of the 2004
campaign, even Democratic candidate John Kerry began to sound
eloquent on these matters. But such talk will only resonate with
the faithful if they perceive it to be genuinely spoken, not just
poll-driven pandering; saying that the Fifth Commandment teaches
that we must not privatize social security as if it were a magic
spell is, of course, nonsense.
Despite Kerry's failure, one can point to successful national
Democrats such as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton or Joseph Lieberman
to see that this acumen is not restricted to Republicans.
But part of the political challenge here is translating
faith-informed values to where the rubber meets the road of
concrete policy initiatives. Religious communities, including the
Orthodox, have values, but they also have interests. Clearly, in
the wake of the 2004 election, Republicans have the upper hand in
holding on to the Orthodox community's support, along with the
support of other religious traditionalists. The fact that the GOP
controls the White House and Congress positions it, with the
greatest ability, to set the issues agenda and implement policies
which will benefit our community's institutions.
These policies would include an expansion of the president's
faith-based initiative to new programs; with additional funding,
that might open up federal grant funds to community social-welfare
agencies such as Ohel, Tomchei Shabbas and Yachad. The creation of
education tax credits would bring new resources not only into the
public school arena as it strives to implement the new
accountability measures of No Child Left Behind, but also to day
schools as well. And the passage of the Workplace Religious
Freedom Act would aid Orthodox Jews in being true to their faith
and not having to compromise it in order to earn a living.
All of these policy initiatives have, at least in the past,
enjoyed some degree of bipartisan support. Therefore, it need not
be a stretch for Democrats to bring a renewed energy to their
support for such initiatives and place them in a new context of
Democratic appeals to the Orthodox and other religious
traditionalists.
In addition, Democrats could recognize that, for Orthodox Jews
especially, support for Israel is a "values" issue a religious
matter.
It is no accident that a recent poll by the American Jewish
Committee showed that Orthodox Jews felt the closest affinity to
Israel in percentages far higher than other segments of the
community. Speaking about and showing support for Israel as more
than a strategic alliance as a moral consideration, as many
Republicans already do will also go a long way toward the goal of
garnering Orthodox electoral support.
The 2004 election campaign may, in reflection, be a watershed for
our community. For the first time, national political parties
began to court the Orthodox electorate explicitly and in ways
unique from the rest of the American Jewish community. For the
purposes of this election, one side accomplished more with its
efforts than the other. Time will tell whether our community
continues to receive appropriate attention from both political
camps for the benefit of our community and its values.
Nathan Diament is director of public policy at the Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
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