Live Near Hipsters, Vote Like Mormons

[Valin]

City Journal

A new study charts the political shifts among Orthodox Jews.

Tevi Troy

May 13, 2021

Decades ago, the late Milton Himmelfarb famously summed up the Jewish vote by saying “Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans,” suggesting that the ballots of high-earning Jews unexpectedly looked like those of low-income voters. This pithy observation summed up Jewish demographics and voting for half a century. It also launched a trove of articles and more than a few books on the mystery of Jewish voting patterns. Why didn’t Jews follow the pattern of other white ethnic groups like the Irish or the Italians, who became more conservative as they assimilated?

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Decades ago, the late Milton Himmelfarb famously summed up the Jewish vote by saying “Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans,” suggesting that the ballots of high-earning Jews unexpectedly looked like those of low-income voters. This pithy observation summed up Jewish demographics and voting for half a century. It also launched a trove of articles and more than a few books on the mystery of Jewish voting patterns. Why didn’t Jews follow the pattern of other white ethnic groups like the Irish or the Italians, who became more conservative as they assimilated?

Answers abounded: Jews were more sympathetic to the plight of minorities; they were more committed to Tikkun Olam—repairing the world; they had been socialist critics of the czar back in Russia. Many a sociologist and political scientist proffered theories, but the mystery was never definitively solved.

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What the new Pew study reveals is that Himmelfarb’s memorable insight needs an update. If he were to reissue his aperçu today, he would overlook secular Jews, who now vote in a predictable way, and instead issue a wry observation about the growing Orthodox population: They live near hipsters but vote like Mormons.