Abstract
Despite publicized divergences among them, American Jews, as a totality, continue an adherence to liberal political tenets in the current context. Explanations are manifold but groupable under the following categories: marginality, earlier historical experiences, religious cultural heritage. The last, most prominent, tends to assume a mythological character, ignores the “non-liberal” stances many Jews have everywhere exhibited. Instead, “out-group” social position plus specific historical experiences provide the most seminal interpretation, to which should be added the “milieu” factor, among fellow Jews and with others. An essential ingredient within this formula is the socialist heritage, not in literal form for most but as a continuing guide for political orientations.
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Notes
Examples of discussions about this subject are much too numerous to list. Several will be cited when explicitly appropriate.
Henry Feingold. “American liberalism and the Jewish Response,”Contemporary Jewry 9, pp. 19–45; Jonathan Frankel, “The State of Israel and the Liberal Experience,”Contemporary Jewry 9, pp.3–18; Robert M. Seltzer. “Jewish Liberalism in Late Tzarist Russia.”Contemporary Jewry 9, pp.47–66.
William Spinrad. “The Politics of American Jews,” in Josef Maeir and Chaim Waxman, eds..Social History and Ethnicity, New Brunswick, NJ, transaction, 1983, pp.249–272.
Analysis of a study of Jewish occupational elites, later described, poses three dimensions of liberalism, each statistically intracorrelated by factorial techniques: “expressive individualism,” “system alienation,” and “collectivist liberalism.” While recognizing the empirical soundness for the classification in this study, its relevance for appreciating popular political orientations is questionable. It may, in fact, be mostly an artifact of the specific questions asked, many of which do not refer to concrete issues in the public political arena. Furthermore, the actual terms applied seem in accord with typical social scientists’ tendencies toward overconceptualization. However, most challenging for our purpose is the “expressive individualism” category, most of whose items are linked with the “social issues” that have become so prominent Despite their current salience, we have not specifically identified them in our own categories, because, as concrete manifestations, they have not been part of the liberal complex discussed, except that attitudes on such issues seem implicit in the civil liberties orientation.
Robert Lerner, Althea K. Nagai, Stanley Rothman, “Marginality and Liberalism Among Jewish Elites,” an unpublished report of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change, Smith College, June, 1988. A version of the report has been accepted for publication inPublic Opinion Quarterly. The research was part of a larger study of those conventionally described as national occupational elites, the sample chosen randomly from published sources about military leaders, officers of large corporations, partners in large corporate law firms, senior civil service executives, officials in prominent lobbying organizations, leading figures in various media organizations. For our purpose it is appropriate to note that the Jewish sample of 375 was also random, and thus not chosen because of roles within the Jewish community.
Chaim I. Waxman.American Jews in Transition (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1983), pp.98–102.
Edgar Litt presents one telling argument against the status insecurity theme, by pointing out that insecure, marginal Jews exhibit the fearful orientation common in such types, implying an anomie conducive to non liberal values. In contrast, the “liberal Jew” has a more “positive Jewish identity.” Edgar Litt,Beyond Pluralism: Ethnic Politics in American (Glenview, Ill.: Scott Foresman, 1970), p.119.
For instance, note the reference to a “transcendental folk geist” in Lawrence Fuchs,The Political Behaviour of American Jews (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956), which is generally one of the most comprehensive empirically-based account of this subject.
Ibid. p.187.
Charles Liebman most aptly noted the tendencies toward “patriotism, nationalism, and political conservatism” sometimes exhibited in Jewish history. (Charles Liebman,The Ambivalent American Jew, Philadelphia, Jewish Society of American, 1973, p.158, cited in Waxman,op. cit. p.102). For an appreciation of the possible non-liberal outcomes from Judaic interpretations, per. se., see Frankel,op. cit. Historical examples of fervent chauvinistic nationalism among Jews in various national states are numerous. One of the most blatant exemplars, of all people, was Alfred Dreyfus in France after his official exoneration. (Ben Halpern, “The Roots of American Jewish Liberalism,”American Jewish Historical Quarterly 66, p.209.) Likewise, the tradition of Tzedakah did not always lead to a corresponding compassion for the less fortunate. For instance, the Maskilim Central and Eastern Europe in the early 19th Century, in their attempts to integrate Jews into the culture of the Western World frequently chastised the poor, in tones that resembled the style of the classical Protestant Ethic. (Raphael Mahler, “The Social and Political Aspects of Haskalah,”YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science 1, pp.64–85.)
Interestingly, the element in the contemporary liberal complex most related to the Judaic tradition may be the First Amendment type freedoms and protection of individual rights against arbitrary practices. Almost singularly among major religious traditions, the Jewish experience has not (with a few notable exceptions), contained fundamentalist doctrines, authoritative councils or synods, or forced confessions of heresy. One might also add the intellectual traditions, if appropriately modified. Religious learning and disputes did not, for much of Jewish history, extend to more general intellectual probing. But it did encourage a widespread interest in ideas and education.
For one valuable account of socialism among Eastern European Jews, see Lucy S. Davidowicz, “Introduction: The World of East European Jewry,” in Lucy S. Davidowicz, ed.,The Golden Tradition: Jewish Life and Thought in Eastern Europe (New York: Holt-Rinehart-Winston, 1969), pp.5–89.
The importance of socialists in the history of Israel, especially in the earliest days, must be appreciated. See, for instance, Frankel,op. cit.
As in many such discussions, Seltzer’s account of Russian Jewish liberalism, with its concentration on a few Jewish leaders and organizations, contains only passing references to the masses of Jews, such as an ad hoc reference to the appeal of the Bund and Zionist organizations, plus the report of a Czarist official, that Jews comprised half the revolutionary party memberships. Seltzer described the election of Jews to the National Assembly, the Duma, in 1906, but the population basis for their support is not indicated (Seltzer,op. cit.).
Irving Howe,World of our Fathers (New York: Harcourt Brace-Yovanovich, 1976); Arthur Liebman, “The Ties That Bind,”American Jewish Historical Quarterly 66, pp.285321; Henry L. Feingold, “The Jewish Radical and His American Habitat,” Judaism 22, pp. 92–105. Surprisingly, Feingold does not emphasize this feature in his recentContemporary Jewry article. (Feingold, “American Liberalism and the Jewish Response,”op. cit.)
Ibid., p.30. Again surprisingly, Feingold attaches the appellation “only” to his described 18% figure.
Lerner, et al.,op. cit., p.11.
An especially provocative implication from the occupational elite study, is the generally similar value of the Orthodox, if only 10 in the sample, and all the others. From the nature of the occupations in the sample, they are unlikely sectarian Orthodox. In other words, they are not likely to be, in most respects, divorced from the rest of secular society and its culture, with innumerable interpersonal contacts, Jews and non Jews. This is obviously in contrast to the sectarians, commonly physically and psychologically isolated from others and often alienated from the general culture. A revealing indication of both these phenomena can be found in a study of a Young Israel group by, interestingly enough, an Orthodox rabbi (Bertram A. Leff, “The Modern Orthodox Jew: Acculturation and Religious Identification,” Masters Thesis, Adelphi University Department of Sociology, 1974.) A report about a more extensive study appears to buttress these findings (Sara Bechtel and Allen Graubard, Saving Remnants, slated for publication in Fall, 1989 by Pantheon Books, New York.)
To note, as many have, the relative preponderance of Jewish friends among particular Jews, tells us little of relevance, for examining political opinion influences, which should focus on “who” their friends, and relatives actually are. One can reasonably propose that, for a major portion, it would include a sizeable number with liberal political inclinations, often the most articulate. Even those within this category who are, in some way, considered extreme, are generally not deemed pariahs, especially if Jewish-respected relatives, friends, etal. To take one well-known example, New Left adherents (to many representing a distortion of the liberal perspective and sometimes exhibiting anti-Israeli sentiments), were still commonly accepted as within the fold as relatives, colleagues, etc. Or to take a more challenging case, Communist Party supporters, representing to themselves a further development of basic liberal doctrines, but, to others, a complete break from that tradition, were not usually psychologically excommunicated by fellow Jews otherwise close to them, even among the Orthodox who were repelled by their proclaimed anti-religious orientation. This again suggests the need for more investigation of the aspect of American Jewry insufficiently considered in sociological accounts, details about interpersonal networks.
In the much-used categorization of a few years ago, they seem predominantly from the “New Class.” The accompanying implication is that few were from the small and medium-sized business sectors in which Jews are deemed particularly prominent, which, in line with the study’s quasi-Millsean emphasis on national “power elites,” were not conspicuous in the national sample. A meaningful sociological inquiry might then determine whether such “middle-level” business types are disproportionately in the leadership of major Jewish organizations, thus not symbolic of other “Jewish elites,” but perhaps more influential in affecting mass Jewish political opinions.
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Spinrad, W. Explaining American-Jewish liberalism: Another attempt. Cont Jewry 11, 107–119 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02965543
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02965543