Barbara Amiel on Jews in the Nov 2nd Maclean's

Barbara Amiel asks why Jews keep voting against themselves. It is a good question but she fails to distinguish between U.S. Jews and Canadian Jews or properly answer her own question. One major difference between Canadian Jews and U.S. Jews is that Canadian Jews are mostly conservative, which means they stick more to tradition and their saving the world is done in a conservative, one small step at a time, manner, whereas U.S. Jews tend to be more reform, on the left, and seeking Tikkun Olum, improving the world, in a larger context which leads them from properly seeing the excellence of our democratic system, the evil of other systems, and that large changes bring large disruptions. Unfortunately the price of major change is always too high in that the new world is always preceded by destruction of the old, as happened under Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the Sandinistas.

U.S. Jews usually vote for the Democratic Party and around 75% voted for Obama. They voted for change and a brave new world. As stated above, this is not uncommon with both the Jewish and non-Jewish left. They desire a new world where everyone is happy. This intense liberal voting pattern is not being followed by Canadian Jews. This difference can easily be seen in the votes of three of our largest Jewish Greater Toronto Jewish Ridings. York Centre elected a Conservative M.P., and Thornhill and Eglinton-lawrence came very close to electing Conservative M.P.’s. This trend towards the Conservatives is mirrored in many immigrant communities, and for Jews is helped by the fact that the Harper’s Conservative government has been enormously supportive of the state of Israel or at least it aggressive acts in the United Nations against the continual demonization of Israel; whereas the Liberal government, before it, usually abstained from voting with Israel on such matters. In addition Conservative Jews still remember that Liberal policy on Jewish immigration at the beginning of WW2 was “none is too many”.

Barbara Amiel also assumes that Jews vote against their own interests and don’t know their own interests. The truth is that Jewish history is a series of hundreds of years of living in and identifying with various countries, being a small oppressed minority population within them, and then being evicted from them. This is certainly a cause for insecurity and constantly seeking change to provide the impossible complete security.
However with anti-Semitism being a constant reminder, even if it is minimal, Jews constantly remain as somewhat outsiders and thus mentally associate with other outsiders. Jews also have a tradition of supporting the poor. The important feast of Passover, annually encourages Jews to remember that “they were once slaves in Egypt”, and so they do by psychologically and financially supporting and the poor. These factors help explain why Jews have in the past voted for the Liberal and Democratic parties. However as Barbara Amiel states, many Jews, especially those who favour the left, have not realigned themselves with the realities of Canadian politics where the true supporters of the poor and the status quo which is excellent by any standards, are the Conservatives, not the Liberals.

Barbara Amiel is right. Jews, especially liberal Jews, must re-evaluate their situation, and vote for what is both in their interests and the interests of most Canadians.