8 | DECEMBER 19 • 2019

I

t’
s the perennial anomaly of
Jewish voter surveys: Vast
majorities feel an attach-
ment to Israel, but relatively
few are thinking about the
Jewish state when they cast
their vote.
On the day of
last year’
s mid-
term congres-
sional elections,
J Street, the
liberal Jewish
Middle East pol-
icy group, asked
Jewish voters to name their
two most important issues.
Just 4 percent chose Israel. The
same survey found that 65 per-
cent said they were somewhat
or very emotionally attached
to Israel.
The J Street survey is not an
outlier. The American Jewish
Committee, a foreign policy
and civil rights group, found a
similar discrepancy in its 2015
poll, in which barely a quarter
of respondents listed Israel as
one of their top three issues,
though more than 70 percent
agreed strongly or somewhat
that caring about Israel is “a
very important part” of being
Jewish.
What accounts for the dif-
ference?

Like most American voters,
Jewish Americans tend to care
about issues that directly affect
them more than what’
s going
on in a country an ocean away.
The J Street survey found
that 43 percent of Jewish
Americans listed health care as
one of their top two issues in
2018, a time when President
Donald Trump was attempt-
ing to dismantle health care
protections passed under
President Barack Obama. In
2015, the AJC survey found
that 41.7 percent of U.S. Jews
listed the economy as one of
their top concerns amid the
ongoing recovery from the
Great Recession of the late
2000s.
“When pollsters prod
Americans about their foreign
policy views, the results are
clear: They want the govern-
ment to focus less on the rest
of the world,” Daniel Drezner,
a professor of international
politics at Tufts University,
has written. “Short of a war
or other violent attacks on
American installations, foreign
policy rarely takes center stage
during presidential elections.
Presidential candidates almost
always campaign on how they
intend to jump-start the econ-

omy.”
In a hyperpolarized political
environment, policy particulars
tend to matter less than which
side a politician is on, accord-
ing to Kyle Kondik, the man-
aging editor of Sabato’
s Crystal
Ball, a political newsletter and
election handicapper at the
University of Virginia Center
for Politics. Thus, Jews are
likelier to vote for their favored
party than they are to consider
the specifics of Israel policy.
“
American politics also is
increasingly defined by the
concept of ‘
negative partisan-
ship’
— that is, voting more
against the other side than for
your side,” Kondik said in an
email.
All this presumes that candi-
dates meet a certain baseline of
support for Israel. Experts on
Jewish voting behavior say that
Jewish voters will prioritize
concerns other than Israel only
so long as a candidate meets a
basic threshold of support.
“If a candidate is sympa-
thetic to Israel, has expressed
support for Israel, that is a
bright line a candidate has to
have crossed in order to be
acceptable to the vast major-
ity of American Jews,” said
Jason Isaacson, the AJC’
s chief

policy and political affairs
officer. “The nuances of how
[being pro-Israel] is expressed
becomes less of a factor to
most American Jews.”
Case in point is Bernie
Sanders, the Jewish senator
from Vermont running for
the Democratic presidential
nomination. Sanders has been
extraordinarily critical of the
Israeli government by the
standards of American politics,
even suggesting recently that
some U.S. aid to Israel should
instead go to Gaza.
But at the same time,
Sanders insists he is pro-Israel
and has criticized those on the
left who would deny its right to
exist as a Jewish state.
Sanders’
expressions of sup-
port for Israel were “designed”
to meet the threshold for
Jewish voters, according to
Issacson.
“My assumption is for a seg-
ment of the American Jewish
community it will accomplish
that purpose,” Issacson said.
They might even be an asset,
according to Jim Gerstein, a
founding partner of GBAO,
the firm that conducts J Street’
s
surveys. Jewish Americans
are not as hawkish as Israelis,
Gerstein said, and are more
likely to favor a more even-
handed role for the United
States.
“They don’
t want the U.S.
putting itself in a position
where it affects its credibility
because it favors Israel over
the Palestinians,” Gerstein said.
“They want the U.S. to be cred-
ible. They don’
t support the
Israeli government’
s hawkish
policies.”
Most American presiden-
tial candidates have met the
Israel threshold, but there are

Ron
Kampeas
JTA

Views

commentary

Why Israel Isn’t A Top
Consideration For
American Jewish Voters

JOANA TORO/VIEWPRESS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

When Jewish Americans
enter the voting booth, they
are thinking more about
health care and the economy
than a country an ocean
away, polls find.

continued on page 10