Jews and Trump

[whocares1970]

It seems to be a well established and confirmed piece of conventional wisdom that the American Jews overwhelmingly hate President Trump. And the statistics appears to confirm this. For example:

<< Asked whom they had voted for in the 2016 presidential election, 64% replied Hillary Clinton and 18% Donald Trump....
The AJC press release noted that the survey shows that 77% of American Jews surveyed indicated that they had an unfavorable opinion of President Trump. >>
https://www.jewishdatabank.org/databank/search-results/study/850

Given that even the African-Americans have ~26% approval of Trump
( http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/august_2019/black_approval_for_trump_returns_to_normal_range ), this makes the American Jews the most anti-Trump demographic group in the nation.

At the same time, it would be a huge mistake to paint all the Jews in this country with the same proverbial broad brush. There are some sharp divisions among the American Jews, and these divisions speak volumes. The average attitude toward the president is very much dependent on the specific Jewish denomination:

<< There is a marked division of views between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews on President Trump’s performance. Those who identify as Orthodox were the most supportive of Trump on Election Day and continue to give him high marks. Fifty-four percent (54%) of the Orthodox say they voted for Trump, compared to 24% of Conservative, 10% of Reform, 8% of Reconstructionist, and 14% of respondents who identify themselves as “Just Jewish.”

On President Trump’s performance to date, 71% of Orthodox respondents, 25% of Conservative, 11% of Reform, 8% of Reconstructionist, and 17% of Just Jewish view it favorably, while 27% of Orthodox, 73% of Conservative, 88% of Reform, 92% of Reconstructionist, and 81% of Just Jewish view his performance unfavorably. >>
https://www.jewishdatabank.org/databank/search-results/study/850

One again, the approval of President Trump among the American Jews is:
Orthodox - 71%
"Conservative" - 25%
Reform - 11%
"Just Jewish" - 17%

(for those who are not very familiar with the nuances of the Jewish denominations in this country:

The Orthodox Judaism considers the Bible/Torah to be the word of God. Therefore, the Jewish religious Law is mandatory and is based on the absolute God-given principles.

The Reform branch was founded with the specific purpose of doing away with the Jewish religious tradition, while preserving some religious-sounding language. For the Reform, the Bible/Torah is just "God-inspired", i.e., a piece of poetry. One can take whatever he/she wants from it. There is no obligatory religious law. One just has to be "a good person". Therefore, unlike the Orthodox, who base their decisions in life on the absolute religious principles (ideally), the Reform twist the religious "norms" to suit the current "progressive" political narrative. And all their "religious" rulings are always going in the direction of making their "religious" practice less and less strict. You can take a look at their press-releases on the official Union of Reform Judaism website: 

https://urj.org/blog-category/press-releases

They have become a political activism organization.

Finally, the so called "Conservative" branch is a splinter off the original Reform one. Their final goal is the same, but the "Conservative" founders wanted the change to proceed slower, so as to not to scare the Jews more used to the Jewish tradition too much. The spectrum of actual "Conservative" congregations is very broad. Some are no different than the outright Reform ones. Others still say that they believe in the Jewish law - except that this law is not seen as anything stable but is rather variable with the changing political and social climate. And some parts of Torah are declared as no longer relevant or even valid)

And so, 71% of the American Jews who actually are truly religious support Trump. Moreover, it is these Jews who are the easiest to identify as Jewish in their everyday life, and yet they support Trump, inspite of the leftist idea that Trump\s presidency promotes antisemitism.

It is also interesting to notice that the "just Jewish" segment has a higher Trump approval rate than the Reform one. I do not have any reliable data, but I believe that this is largely explained by the fact that quite a few Jews from the former Soviet Union support President Trump, though most of them are not religious. And this is natural too. The Jews who actually did experience the real antisemitism and discrimination firsthand, do not buy the anti-Trump progressive" hysteria. They know better.

It would also be wrong to assume that it is Trump who made the American Jews so anti-Republican. Only 19% and 25% of Jews voted for Bush-43 in 2000 and 2004, respectively. 21% voted for McCain in 2008. A slightly larger percentage (30%) voted for Romney in 2012.
https://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithful-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/

Nevertheless, the American Jews (except for the religious and Russian ones) have been a reliable part of the Democratic base for a long time.

Finally,
<< According to Pew, Israeli support for President Donald Trump jumped from 56% to 69% after the US Embassy moved to Jerusalem. Overall, 80% of respondents had a positive opinion of Trump, and 86% think that the current US administration genuinely considers Israeli interests. >>
https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/poll-israelis-love-trump-more-every-day/

<< A new Pew survey finds that 82 percent of Israelis have confidence in Trump's handling of global affairs >>
http://www.worldjewishdaily.com/israel-loves-trump.php

Let us summarize:

- The American Jews who are most devoted to Judaism overwhelmingly favor Trump.
- A significant percentage of the American Jews of Soviet/Russian origin, the Jews who actually experienced discrimination first-hand, support Trump.
- Jews of Israel, the people who have built and the only Jewish country in the world and have kept it alive and flourishing, overwhelmingly support Trump.

And those American Jews who claim that Trump is a terrible enemy of what they call "Jewish values" have no justifiable basis for their claim.