With Al Franken taking Norm Coleman's seat in the Senate, the 111th Congress is down to a single Republican, Virginia's Eric Cantor, among its 44 Jewish members. I wonder if this is something about which to worry, not because I am a Republican (I am a member of no political party), but because being so lopsided is rarely a healthy thing in the long run.
Why is it that when Jews vote, we vote democratic by a margin of 3 to 1, but when we get elected the margin shifts to 43 to 1? What does that say about who chooses to run and even more significantly about how welcome Jews are as elected officials in one party versus the other?
I also worry because with ratios like these, it becomes increasingly easy to make the claim that Jewish politics is necessarily liberal politics, and that is simply wrong. Jewish is a big category and has more than enough ideas to support both conservative and liberal views - one is not inherently more Jewish than the other.
Of course, I invite people on both sides to enter the fray and "prove" me wrong. But as you do, try and remember it's not my claim that you are attacking, but the fundamental premise that Jewish ideas are big ideas and part of a long interpretive tradition which has never been captive to a particular political ideology....
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
marans,
So you are saying that Cantor might be a little more to the left on the abortion/stem cell research issue if he were not representing a Bible Belt district in Virginia? He made a statement disapproving of Obama's decision to fund ESCR, and he made it sound like he was sincerely against that research. And are the politics of Ayn Rand conservative on economic issues, but liberal on issues like abortion and gay marriage? Orthodox Jews can be just as strict about the Bible as evangelical Christians, can they not? And the question is, why would a Jew like Eric Cantor WANT to get elected in a Bible Belt district if he wasn't in agreement with the social values held by conservative evangelicals? Might he have been better off running as a Randian Republican in a more moderate district?
I can understand Coleman's wife and her family putting pressure on him to adopt the Catholic position on abortion and stem cell research (against the vast majority of abortions and against ESCR)rather than the Jewish one (against abortion on demand, but for ESCR and abortion to save the mother's life).
As for Klinghoffer, would he really need to "convert" to Orthodox Judaism if he was born Jewish and raised as a Reform Jew? I thought a born-Jew wouldn't need to convert to Orthodox Judaism. But your comment about him identifying more with Jews For Jesus than Reform Jews was right on-it seems that he is more dedicated to conservatism than Judaism-which is why he is in the pocket of the Discovery Institute.
Alan Greenspan is not a proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. He abandoned her philosophy long ago. He's government interventionist policies into the economy are the primary cause of the economic crisis. Miss Rand called for a complete separation of state and economics.
Even while pointing out that Jews are not all the same, this article encourages the common, more fundatmetal mistake of collectivism. It worries about how "Jews" vote and are represented.
It speaks more of Jews as a group than as individuals. Similar to those who speak of the number of women and Blacks in congress, as if these factors determined -- or should determine -- views.
As if Jews should support Jews because they are Jews -- not because individuals deserve it or not. As if people should support Israel or not based on whether they are Jewish or not, rather than the principles of Israel's political system. Being "Jew" or not should not come into anyone's thinking on this and other issues.
The 'Jewish problem' is 'Jewish collectivism,' which furthers collectivism in general, leading to the socio-political motivations that became Nazi Germany, to the socialist floundering of Israel, to Jews voting Democratic, etc. (To blindness to the fact that collectivism destroys productivity and fosters failure. Muslim groups being even more collectivist.)
I suggest Peikoff's "Ominous Parallels" for pre-Nazi Jewish influences and Sowell's "Black Rednecks & White Liberals" for Jews against Jews in American immigration patterns -- based on their collectivist motivations.
Some "Jews" are leaders in individualism and capitalism today, not because they are Jewish, but because they don't care whether they are or not! They are individualists.
The author here says, "Jewish is a big category." Collectivist to the core. A significantly large "category" makes Jewish meaningless as a descriptor of values. Lumps together moral opponents.
(Greenspan admires most of Rand, but never fully grasped or agreed with her basic premises; so, he does not fully implement them.)
PhoenixOrion: as I said originally, Cantor is an opportunist. Keep in mind that Newt Gingrich was born and raised a Lutheran in Harrisburg, PA but when he decided to pursue a political career in Georgia, became a Southern Baptist! Now- presumably to mollify his current wife- he has converted to Catholicism.
Klinghoffer is of Welsh-Swedish descent, and was adopted as a child by Reform Jewish parents. Their lack of religious rigidity apparently offended him. So,as an adult, he decided to undergo "full" conversion to Orthodoxy (including- read his book - some attempts at self-circumcision).
I would say that we are mainly moderate-liberals, though. Very few of us are far-left radicals.
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