Moment Magazine has an op-ed that writes Orthodox Jews vote Republican because “Haredim (Orthodox) do not watch television, and many don’t read secular newspapers or use the Internet. In America, that leaves only two main news sources: talk radio and Haredi newspapers. The former trends to the political right; the latter are socially conservative.” In addition, “the barriers to being a very identifiable Jew and Republican have fallen. William F. Buckley worked to exorcise anti-Semitism from the conservative movement, and he largely succeeded. In addition, pro-Israel evangelicals made fundamentalist religious observance a Republican norm and are welcoming Haredim with open arms.”
I won’t disagree with either of the above. However, I disagree where the article writes “Hasidim are disproportionately poor and rely heavily on social programs created by and kept alive by Democrats. But they will vote for candidates, who, like Bob Turner, seek to cut those programs.”
Well, many Orthodox Jews age 18-35 grew up with the last sentence as a rule of life, yet they noticed that the Democrats’ program is by designed tailored to keep people poor and thus connected to the Democrat Party for life. The new generation wants something new; an agenda which is pro business, and thus can help them too. Orthodox Jews know that no one died when Republicans cut the budget in the 1990’s and many are aware that Bush 43 – who doubled the tax credits for poor families – also increased domestic spending faster than Clinton, so the argument that ‘Republicans will kill you’ is worn out and is irrelevant to huge majorities of Hasidic Jews.
