Activist: Democratic Party Is “Natural Home” for Jews

David Streeter — January 21, 2010 – 3:15 pm | Civil Liberties | Civil Rights | Congress | Democrats | Domestic Policy | Foreign Policy | GOP Hypocrisies | Health Care | Israel | Reproductive Rights | Republicans | Separation of Church & State | Women's Issues Comments (2) Add a comment

Democratic and Pro-Israel activist Steve Sheffey published an article on The Huffington Post explaining why the Democratic Party is “the natural home for American Jewry.” Sheffey wrote:

Everyone who lives here is an immigrant or is descended from immigrants. Most ethnic groups start out as Democrats because Democrats are more focused on defending the weak and powerless. Democrats believe that there is a higher law than the law of the jungle and unfettered capitalism. Democrats see government as a powerful force for good, not as inherently evil. Government does not exist simply to enforce property rights and provide for the common defense. This is not to say that Democrats oppose free markets, but that Democrats recognize that some elements of society need health insurance, education, food, and shelter now, and cannot wait for those necessities to trickle down. Democrats recognize that growing income inequality is a sign that too many are being left behind and is a problem that must be addressed.

Democrats may disagree with one another about the best health care solution, but we all agree with Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at American Jewish University and chair of the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, that the fact that:

...more than 40 million Americans have no health insurance is, from a Jewish point of view, an intolerable dereliction of society’s moral duty. The Torah, the Prophets, and the Rabbis of our tradition all loudly proclaim that God commands us to take care of the poor, the starving and the sick. Given the current costs of health care, almost all of us fall into that category. On both moral and religious grounds, then, we simply cannot let the present condition continue; we are duty-bound to find a way to afford health care for all American citizens.

 And:

If anything, a stronger case can be made that the Democrats are better on Israel than the Republicans. Former President George W. Bush gave Hamas a legitimacy it could have never earned on its own by pressuring Israel to allow Hamas to participate in Gaza elections, ignoring warnings from both Israel and the Palestinian Authority that Hamas would win. Iran is the single biggest threat to Israel, yet in eight years, Bush took no military action against Iran, he failed to rally the international community to impose tough sanctions on Iran, he destroyed Iran’s natural enemy (Iraq), and he refused to talk to Iran. Consequently, Iran is now on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Imagine what those urging Jews to vote Republican would have done had the Democrats overwhelmingly opposed foreign aid to Israel, advocated arms sales to Saudi Arabia, put Hamas in power, and not only did nothing in eight years to halt Iran’s nuclear arms program, but rejected aid for an Israeli raid on Iran’s main nuclear site. The Bush administration also violated security related agreements with Israel by selling arms to Arab states, a situation the Obama administration is remedying.

Congressional Republicans have also come up short. In 2007, 164 Republicans opposed foreign aid to Israel and 80% of House Republicans voted to slash foreign aid without any exception for Israel. Remarkably few Republicans opposed the Bush plan to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, and the only votes against funding a museum of Polish Jewry in Warsaw were Republican votes. As recently as July 9, 2009, a majority of House Republicans voted against the foreign aid bill. And then on December 10, 2009, every Republican voted against the FY 2010 Consolidated Appropriation Act, which not only contained the entire security assistance package for Israel but funding for essential social programs.

Sheffey concluded:

The Democratic Party is Our Natural Home. The vast majority of both parties are not Jewish, which means that we have to choose the house we are most comfortable in. Would you join a country club whose steadily dwindling membership had 178 members, none of whom was African-American and only one of whom was Jewish? If so, then the House Republican Caucus is for you. But for most Jews, the Democratic party, with its message of social and economic justice, is our natural home—not the Republican party, whose main goal seems to be to help the rich get richer and make the world safe for plutocracy. A good example is the estate tax. As Al Gore points out in his book The Assault on Reason, under the Republican agenda,

...the need to eliminate inheritance taxes on the wealthiest 1/100 of 1 percent of families in American (the only taxpayers who are still subject to it) has been treated as a much more important priority than the need to provide at least minimal access to health care for tens of millions of families who currently have no access to health care coverage at all.

The 80% of Jews who vote Democratic are not stupid and are not any less concerned about Israel than the 20% who vote Republican; they simply continue to feel more comfortable with the Democratic party’s commitment to Jewish values.

 

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