Have Conservatives Written Off the Jewish Community?

David Streeter — September 21, 2009 – 12:58 pm | Civil Liberties | Civil Rights | Domestic Policy | GOP Hypocrisies | Reproductive Rights | Republicans | Stop the Smears | Women's Issues Comments (0) Add a comment

Last week, Norman Podhoretz asked “why are Jews liberals?” In response, many prominent Jewish and non-Jewish liberals drafted negative reviews and tore his conjecture to shreds in newspapers and on the Internet, as cited in NJDC’s blog post about the book. Perhaps though, the real answer to Podhoretz rests with the converse of his question: “why aren’t Jews conservative?”

It appears that Jews may have been written off completely by the conservative movement, as evidenced by the decision to hold their annual Values Voter conference on Rosh Hashanah. The only Jew who spoke at the conference was Eric Cantor (R-VA), however he spoke on Friday morning, before Rosh Hashanah began. But what’s even more troubling is the line up of ultraconservative Christian oriented topics during the break out sessions, including a session devoted to how to defund Planned Parenthood and impose an anti-choice agenda on America.

Podhoretz can pal around with Republicans and conservatives and complain all he wants about how he is lonely as one of the few Jews on their side. But if the conservative movement won’t even accommodate the Jewish community for an event with significant implications for the Republican presidential ticket, there should be little doubt why Jews overwhelmingly voted for President Barack Obama and why Jewish Democrats remain loyal to him.

Also, consider this: almost simultaneously as President Obama delivered his message of tolerance for Rosh Hashanah, unelected and former Miss California Carrie Prejean tearfully espoused anti-gay and lesbian rhetoric from her platform at the Values Voter summit.

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