The Myth of Jewish Liberalism

__"American Jewish Liberalism: Unraveling the Strands" by Steven M. Cohen and Charles S. Liebman, in Public Opinion Quarterly (Fall 1997), Sociology Dept., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, Md. 20742–1315.__

American Jews are well known for their clude that the extent of Jewish liberalism is liberalism. Some scholars contend that this much exaggerated and Judaic values are not evolved naturally out of Jewish tradition, at its root. with its strong concern for social justice and The perception that political liberalism is the welfare of the poor. After analyzing com-unusually strong among Jews does have a bined data from national surveys conducted basis in fact, write Cohen, a professor at between 1972 and 1994, the authors con-Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, and Liebman, a professor of religion and politics at Bar-Ilan University, in Ramat Gan, Israel. American Jews are more likely than gentiles to identify themselves as liberals (47 percent, compared with 28 percent) and as Democrats or pro-Democrat (72 percent, compared with 52 percent). Jews are also more likely to oppose prayer in public schools; to favor civil liberties for atheists, communists, and homosexuals; to take permissive stands on abortion, divorce, and other social issues, and to favor increased government spending in such areas as health, education, and the environment. However, the level of Jewish support for increased spending on welfare, and for government efforts to aid the poor in general, was little different from that among non-Jews. The authors’ big discovery: when education, income, and other such factors are taken into account, the gap between Jews and gentiles is significantly reduced in almost all instances. On civil liberties, for instance, the 21-percentage-point difference shrinks to 10 points. The gap nearly vanishes with respect to support for government efforts to help the poor and ill, sympathy for African Americans, and opposition to capital punishment.

"Historically," Cohen and Liebman point out, "the premodern [Jewish] religious tradition harbors deep antagonism to, not to mention suspicion of, non-Jews." In this tradition, the concern for social justice and the welfare of the poor was chiefly about Jews. However, sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, a Wilson Center Senior Scholar, and others have argued that contemporary Jews have universalized this tribal sense of responsibility. But if traditional Judaic values underlie contemporary Jewish liberalism, Cohen and Liebman argue, then Jews who attend synagogue more frequently should be more liberal than other Jews; in fact, however, they are less liberal.

American Jews "have historically seen themselves as a vulnerable minority group and have seen the Democratic Party as the party more favorable to their group interests," Cohen and Liebman note. For similar reasons, Jews have supported a high barrier between church and state. Most Jews (the Orthodox excepted) also have taken a relatively permissive stance on sexual matters. But otherwise, conclude the authors, Jewish liberalism seems more myth than reality.