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If Fuentes was smart, he would say he opposes the secular Jew but loves the Orthodox Jew. It renders the claim of anti semitism hollow while allowing him to say he appreciates the ethnic enclaves created by the ultra orthodox and wants something like that for white people.
With that said, for the first time in a long time Jewish support is up for grabs. The republicans would be silly to not dismiss Fuentes quickly. The one thing they should say though is “welcome to be hated — just like whites have been for awhile.”
He doesn't care about the claim of anti semitism. Why would he? He's anti semitic and that's a good thing
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Why would conservatives ally with people who have a culture fundamentally opposed to European/western values whose lobbying groups have been solidly against the interests of western conservatism? The natural relation between western conservatives and jews is one of antagonism and it has been the case for 2000 years. Israel is a massive waste of tax money and AIPAC is a major foreign influence on politics.
The ADL got conservatives banned off twitter and now they are supposed to suck up to them?
The British Jews have been solidly conservative since like, forever. Continental European Jews also tend to be right wing.
I'm pretty sure American Jews vote left wing because the American right has a history of racial discrimination, which Jews pattern match to Nazism.
The (global) Jews aren't opposed to western civilisation. The anglosphere left is opposed to western civilisation, and the American Jews have integrated into that.
Solidly Conservative, not solidly conservative. The Conservative Party has enthusiastically advanced mass migration along with the Labour Party, just like the Democratic and non-Maga Republican party, or the Australian Labour Party and the Australian Liberal/National Party.
If you define conservatism as Judeo-Christian values, mass migration, globalization, regime change abroad and so on... then sure, US Jews, British Jews are conservative. George Soros is nearly a conservative, albeit insufficiently supportive of police and dangerously opposed to Israel. If you define conservatism differently, conserving national identity and demographics, conserving national industries, conserving traditional values... then they're absolutely not conservative.
There's a distinction between traditional values and Judeo-Christian values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Christian_ethics
The latter is a kind of Orwell/FDR/Lyndon Johnson idea of innate human equality and social democracy pressed into service for the ideological struggle of WW2. The former is far older, stricter and embraces distinctions. Consider the 30 year old single mother on a dating app looking for a real man to support her - Judeo-Christian values would say something like 'man up, we're all equal in God, love your neighbour's children as yourself' whereas traditional values would probably scold you for being on Tinder in the first place and exclude the woman from polite society.
Traditional morality has no prohibition on marrying a single mother, and indeed encourages it. Mohammed himself (at least according to the Sunnis) married first a woman who had had children by two previous husbands, and married several other widows with many children between them. Remarriage was historically much more common because of widowhood; it's likely that fewer men have a wife with prior children today than at any previous time in history.
Even if we say that the single mother was not widowed and merely divorced, Muhammad and ancient Christians and Jews also married divorced women, and again this was religiously satisfactory in most cases and (in Islam especially) considered an auspicious act for one's chances in the afterlife. Indeed in Judaism, the only man who must marry a virgin is the singular High Priest, and even then only if he marries once in office, rather than before it.
Even if we go one step further and say that our single mother is neither widow nor divorcee but actual whore in the biblical sense, it is unclear how bad this is. Prostitutes being forgiven, even exalted, feature heavily in the New Testament and the Quran and Hadiths. Except for the prohibition for Kohanim, and a line in the Quran about how a 'fornicator' must marry a 'fornicatress' (which if anything is a limit on male promiscuity, but is widely interpreted by scholars as not applying literally for some reason). The only additional Christian prohibition I'm aware of is that if she was married and was divorced for something that was not adultery, she would not be able to remarry.
Possibly, but then only a very small percentage of even the native population would be considered 'conservative'. Since there are only two major parties in FPTP systems, the only information we have is about whether some population tends to vote for the more or less leftist one.
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Secular urbanites, which is what most self identified Jews are in practice, vote left wing. Religious Jews either block vote as part of machine politics or vote republican.
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Is that correct? If so, it would be pretty remarkable. As much as I hate it, the educated class tends to be left wing pretty much everywhere, and Jews are highly educated.
Would be interested in a source.
This doesn't seem to parse. Surely the German right wing has a much stronger history of racial discrimination?
American Jews vote the way they do because it matches their identity and status signalling, just like everyone else.
'Since forever' was hyperbole on my part, but this article suggests that Jews have been conservative for most of the post-war period. While they started off as poor, Eastern European immigrants (and voted left), they moved up the class pyramid and switched to voting right. This report suggests that the preference for Conservative voting was well established by 1995 but I couldn't find any data from earlier.
Plus the Victorian Britains elected the extremely Jewish-sounding Benjamin Disraeli as Conservative Prime Minister in 1874, although he had converted to the Church of England as a child so his Jewishness was ethnic if not religious. The end of (limited) legal discrimination against Jews is usually dated to 1858, when they were allowed to become members of Parliament without taking a Christian oath of office.
The big difference between British and American Jews is religion. Per Wikipedia, 46% of American Jews are synagogue members, but only 22% of the 46% are Orthodox. 56% of British Jews are synagogue members, and 69% of the 56% are some flavour of Orthodox. (The difference appears to be even higher based on survey data, but I think the synagogue membership numbers are more reliable because maintaining synagogue membership is a costly signal).
British secular (and Reform, although there are not enough regular synagogue-going Reform Jews in the UK to matter) Jews are as left-wing as American ones - the most significant secular Jewish family in the UK at the moment is probably the Milibands, where Ralph was a WW2-era Polish Jewish refugee who became a famous communist academic, and his sons David and Edward were respectively the leading centrist and left-wing candidates for the Labour leadership after the 2010 election defeat. (Both are also visibly happier living in the US - this is consistent with my experience of my school/university social circle where secular Jews who had the opportunity mostly moved to the US.) But Orthodox Jews are much higher percentage of the Jewish population, and they are right-wing for the obvious reasons.
Ed Miliband doesn't live in the US, he's still an MP! He will likely be energy minister when Labour wins.
I would put it differently. Secular American Jews often retain some aspects of their particular ethnic identity because we don't live in a society with as much of a monoculture as the UK. The same was historically true of other groups in the diverse East Coast cities, like the Irish and Italians.
Secular British Jews assimilate very rapidly (even though the overall intermarriage rate is lower because of the higher level of Orthodoxy as you note). Those great Anglo-Jewish families of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Rothschilds, the Goldsmiths and so on, are pretty much entirely gentile now - the younger Rothschilds were raised and baptised in the CofE. Even the 20th century secular Jews of more recent shtetl heritage assimilate quickly - look at how quickly Gerald Ronson's and Philip Green's (who himself married a gentile iirc) children have deserted the faith. And Ronson is a committed Jew! He donates to charities, sat on the board of various things and so on. But even then, it wasn't enough.
There is almost a kind of standard assimilatory narrative for British Jews who make some money. The parents send them to Eton or Harrow or Cheltenham and then Oxbridge, they do well in the city (perhaps in a Jewish firm, perhaps not) or in the arts or something else, then they marry a gentile Sloane Ranger (or a male aristo in the case of the women). In two generations, any residual Jewishness is a family memory, they celebrate Christmas, they have essentially fully assimilated into the British upper-middle or upper class.
The same happened in a different way with working class secular Jews, who largely joined the white exodus out of East London and headed toward Essex. Those who remained religious still exist in large numbers in places like Gants Hill, but many who weren't had within one generation fully assimilated into normal southeastern working class English culture. An example of that is Katie Price's family, or even Stacey Solomon's to some degree. The secular Jewish intellectual culture that exists in the US doesn't exist in Britain. Jews who stay Jewish are overwhelmingly Orthodox, those who don't become English very quickly.
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From 2019:
The first and as yet only Jewish Prime Minister was Disraeli in the 1860s and 1870s.
I would think the 2017 result is an outlier due to Corbyn's antisemitism.
But that is indeed remarkable. American Jews have been thoroughly captured by the Democrats. I expect Jews will continue to be big supporters in 2024 despite the vibe shift.
I suppose this speaks to class differences between the UK and the US. In the US, the Democrats are the "posh" party whereas the Republicans are for the proles. In the UK, it's more complicated.
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Doesn’t that likely have something to do with the Labour Party under Corbin being pretty openly antisemitic? The numbers might have been different otherwise.
Even in 2015 the Tories won the Jewish vote 50-29, and that was when the Labour candidate for Prime Minister was Jewish.
Jews voted more for Labour in the mid-20th century because many were poor recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and voting at that time in England was still very class-and-region based.
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I think you don’t know a lot of religious Jews if you think they are opposed to western values. Go to an orthodox (but not ultra orthodox) and they sound a lot like your average Republican voter.
The Modern Orthodox skew strongly Democratic, though not as much as other non-Haredi Jews.
Talk to them. Understanding their beliefs. They don’t fit with progressives.
Lots of Democrats are not progressives.
Too bad for them that their elected politicians are. Or stated differently there is a chance for a realignment.
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They still vote for the Democrats. And will continue to, because voting Republican (to a large and increasing extent) Just Isn't Done.
They do skew Democratic, although the reason for this given by the head of the polling company is:
It's likely that as the born Modern Orthodox population expands significantly those politics will shift over time. There have also been some questions about Nishma's data on some Orthodox forums. There's other stuff like:
Ami leans Chareidi but isn't exclusively so. It's a mixed bag, as the poll shows many people who call themselves Modern Orthodox are liberal Jews who were hooked by Chabad and started being religious later in life. They're not suddenly going to drop all their progressive politics because they become more faithful with age. But certainly it is true that being more religious is by far the single biggest predictor of conservative politics among Jews (as it is among whites and hispanics in many cases for that matter afaik).
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The far right has little knowledge of how ultra orthodox communities operate, which is a shame because it’s the perfect discursive weapon: either you must defend the orthodox practices (and then approve of similar white aspirations), or you must criticize them (and then ask, “how did they steal one billion dollars in public funds and not be prosecuted”)? It is a win-win discursive tool.
I don’t see why that would be. I find a lot to admire about heredi Jews, the Amish, Mennonites, and other similar groups. I think as a model for forming stronger communities these groups while different share common features that could be easily adapted to creating enclaves of traditional culture for those who wants that. The secret sauce seems to be a strict set of community rules, dress and sometimes language that differs from the mainstream, and a focal point in religious beliefs and practices.
Two very different models. The Haredim have a social model based on parasitism (both in Israel and the US) and the main source of income in Haredi communities is fiscal transfers. The Mennonites and Amish (which are descended from the same Swiss Anabaptist sect) are probably slightly fiscally negative at the margin but social model values economic self-sufficiency at the community level.
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I think language is a key enough part of the puzzle that it’s not export-able. Language revitalization is generally a failure and so I wouldn’t think that creating enclaves on their model would work.
Language definitely creates a strong barrier to departure although most Haredi communities still teach their children passable English. Not to any kind of secular world standard, but they still speak it better than plenty of first-gen immigrants who do fine in the lower levels of the economy.
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Right, but — if you are a critic of Fuentes(?) — you now have to argue that his doing that is bad, while asserting it is okay for Hasidim to do it in the middle of Manhattan; and you have to argue the latter while Fuentes cites stories about billion-dollar tax evasion, discrimination, whatever. Or, if Fuentes doing it is bad and Hasidim doing it is bad, Fuentes can press on why you and other ostensible progressive organizations do not seem to care about their enclave or crime. I’m just saying that it’s surprising the far right hasn’t latched onto this discussion point.
In NY state and in NJ it’s often secular Jews at the forefront of anti-Haredi policies. Every charity and organization designed to ‘deconvert’ (essentially deradicalize) Chareidim is funded by secular Jews, in many cases literally by George Soros. Consider that this is in marked contrast to, say, Islamist deradicalization efforts, which in the West are pretty much entirely funded by non-Muslims. It’s secular Jews who are most aggressive about lobbying the Israeli government to take away more privileges from the ultra orthodox too. In Haredi circles there are extremely common ‘conspiracy’ theories that secular Jews (who among other things they low key blame for the Holocaust) are trying to destroy their communities, both in the US and in Israel.
One of the reasons the ultra-orthodox have shifted so aggressively to the GOP in recent decades is precisely because the NY and NJ Democratic coalitions, which have a lot of senior Jewish politicians and leaders, have a fundamental contempt for them and their way of life, view them the way elite white northeastern Episcopalian progressives view Southern redneck trailer trash. They in turn spread this attitude to their Italian, Hispanic and black associates, which is why the most common complaint in Brooklyn 770 circles is that wealthy secular Jews said and did very little when eg. black people were attacking the black hats. Recently they’ve accused secular Jews of coming after the ultra-Orthodox by targeting the landlords/slumlords who finance a lot of the community.
Hasidim and Chabad have alliances with non-Orthodox Jewish groups and leaders. Some non-orthodox Jewish billionaires will help fund Hasidim or Chabad organizations. ADL and other Jewish advocacy groups never touch the Haredi issue. Chabad also has close ties with the Israeli state (Mossad finds them to be a key ally), and thus the secular Jews who promote Israel politically. Secular Jews may want some of the Haredim to become more secular, but by and large they are allied politically, culturally, and religiously with them, and do zero to combat their corruption. Meanwhile, Chabad houses are becoming the center of religious life for non-orthodox Jews in America.
This statement is the oppose of evidenced. They were nowhere to be found when Kiryas Joel, Ramapo, or Monroe were dealing with issues of Hasidim. The campaigning, journalism, and documentaries were almost exclusively driven by white Christians.
That’s again not true. Their secular advocacy groups made it a national news story. There were statements made by every politician. Their politicians secured them more security grants. They have a constant security presence outside. Task forces on antisemitism were made. The attacks entailed a younger black pedestrian punching one out of nowhere — this literally can’t be “policed”. They policed it maximally by actually releasing footage and dedicating police units to the area.
Okay, so are you referring to the slumlords that have gotten away with corruption / discrimination so far? What helped them get away with it for so long?
Who do you think funds efforts like this (given an extensive write-up by a Jewish journalist for NPR), where non-Haredi Jewish journalists are hired to dig up stories on political and financial corruption, sexual abuse and so on in that community, founded by an ex-Haredi guy who hates them?
I see how secular Jews (not just leftist or even progressive ones) talk about the ultra-orthodox. Many advocate Xinjiang-level re-education, completely unironically. They hate them, especially those that live near or alongside them. In New Jersey, the reality of state politics and the fact that the Democrats don't have a supermajority means that the ultra-orthodox can ally with the state GOP to stymie legislative measures against them.
NYC slumlords have always gotten away with it, the occasional lawsuit etc excepted, especially when it comes to simply having poor conditions rather than discriminating based on race. All these guys were sued dozens of times, pursued by the city. Again, that's true for all slumlords historically, including the many, many gentile ones. The aggressive pursuit now is arguably because the largely progressive Jewish donors who funded Bragg's DA campaign care about it a great deal.
The ADL lobbies harder about a swastika on an elite university campus than they do about dozens of attacks by black people on Jews in NYC. The biggest complaint is typically that they don't even, uh, 'name' the perpetrators, so to speak.
What exactly am I supposed to glean from the rare cases of non-religious Jewish journalists investing Haredi? When I know that billionaire Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire Guma Aguiar, the billionaire Kushners, the billionaire Lev Leviev, the billionaire Ron Perelman, the billionaire Tevfik Arif, the billionaire Israel Englander, and even the Ukrainian former billionaire Kolomoisky, are all either funding ultra orthodox schools and organizations, or have funded them in the past? You wrote “it’s often secular Jews at the forefront of anti-Haredi policies” — no, they are at the forefront of funding them. And a journalistic website is not a “policy”. You are showing me a puddle in the concrete and telling me that it’s the forefront of water in the area, while I look behind you and there’s an expansive ocean with waves crashing against the pier.
Did you mean to write, “some Jews write about things against the ultra orthodox”? Well, sure. You’ve missed the best ones though, like the guy who writes the FailedMessiah blog, or the writer who wrote “Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America”. But these guys don’t matter when they are a puddle, and the ocean = secular Jewish billions and literal Mossad.
If you have a source I would be interested in reading it. When NYT “aggressively” wrote a front page piece on ultra orthodox corruption in schools (which was honestly great journalism), nothing actually came from it.
Englander is Orthodox and attended yeshiva in Crown Heights growing up. Kaplan donates primarily to zionist causes and tiger conservation charities, I couldn't find much about very large contributions to chareidim but will assume you have done more research here than me. Aguiar was an Evangelical Christian of Jewish descent who became (with his formerly gentile wife) a revert/baal t'shuva to ultra-orthodox Judaism under Tovia Singer, for whom that's a life calling. He then seemed to steal a bunch of money from his uncle, Kaplan, and then used it to fund a rabbi with wacky views about the age of the earth in the hope that he would one day proclaim Aguiar to be the biblical messiah. Personally I don't consider that to be a standard story of secular Jewry funding the ultra-orthodox, but I digress. The Kushners are Orthodox and long have been. Leviev was born an (Orthodox) Bukharan Jew and remains Orthodox. Perelman was born to a conservative family but became Orthodox, writing "as soon as I got married, we kept a kosher house, we became much more observant. We moved to New York shortly thereafter and joined an Orthodox synagogue". Arif is not Jewish at all, though his business partner is.
So not one of the examples you cite (except, possibly, Kaplan with the weird messiah nephew, and I strongly doubt someone that invested in minutiae of the Israeli rabbinate around the issue of the age of the earth isn't religious) is, in fact, a secular Jew.
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Is fuentes encouraging people to move to the country and form a community? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him saying something like that. I wouldn’t have a problem with people advocating that they and people like them form close knit communities in the country and adopt whatever they consider to be the ideal lifestyle. I’d only really object to people imposing that lifestyle on other people.
I’m not even convinced language revivals in such isolated communities is as hard as you think. The issue is getting enough fluency that the next generation is raised speaking that language, rather than speaking the language of the broader culture.
The Irish and Welsh have aggressively tried language revival for decades to little avail. Billions spent on little-watched TV and other media in those languages, extremely regular classes for all grades in schools starting from a young age, all official documentation, forms, street signs etc in Welsh/Irish.
All it does is create a small middle class of true believer left-nationalists (common in Europe see Scotland or Catalonia) who subsist of taxpayer funding and are paid to act as a kind of living museum.
It only worked in Israel because at that time even most educated Arab and Shtetl Jews did not speak English as a common language, so they could pick their (re)invented language. If most early migrants to Israel had spoken English or Yiddish, one of them would have become the language. Actually, if the later wave of 70s to 90s Soviet migrants had moved to Israel in 48 the de facto official language would have been Yiddish.
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Don't people tend to employ infinite "Appeal to +power" arguments in these cases? Well it's different for white people, because they hold the power, or so it would go.
I think the argument would fail in this case, because there is clearly no greater evidence of power than the ability to steal billions for your group and go unpunished — indeed to have your reputation unstained. Only the most propagandized progressive would fall back to the “powerful tautology”, if you will — so about 5% of them.
I do sometimes wonder what the total Jewish balance of funds regarding US public finances is. If you count all tax contributions including capital gains, income taxes and so on, subtract all welfare and other spending (including aid to Israel), is it positive or negative? I suspect it is still positive in the long term, but I can see that being incorrect.
Are we counting the downstream effects of Jewish-led organizations and the policies that have resulted from those?
No, because I think in that case you’d also have to consider the downstream effects of all Jewish innovations in technology, science, medicine, engineering and other sectors of the economy, which would make it too difficult to calculate.
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