The special election in New York to replace Twitter pervert Anthony Weiner is proving interesting.  It is not surprising that in a heavily Democratic district in New York that the Jewish vote would come to play.  It may be surprising how much the Jewish vote there has turned against Obama.  In the Wall Street Journal,  9/13/11, Dan Senor writes Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote.

The quick summary is that an accumulation of bad anti-Israel policies is having its effect:

Read the article to see a long list of public affronts to Israel.  Republican Robert Turner,  aided by a strong endorsement from Ed Koch,  is leading substantially in a district covering Queens and Brooklyn that Weiner easily carried,

This Rebel Yid was surprised that Obama got the strong Jewish support that he did, given his associations, but that is history.

Why is the Jewish vote so important to Obama? The Jewish influence in politics is not the result of sinister conspiracies, as many anti-Semitic theories contend.  There are three clear reasons.

1. Jews vote at twice the rate of most citizens.
2. Jews are concentrated in states with large  numbers of electoral votes.
3. Jews are engaged in politics and are more willing to work and fund their favorite candidates.

While Jews are only 2.2% of the population they are 8.4% of New York.  If they are twice as likely to vote than their fellow citizens then their impact in this state with substantial electoral votes is effectively 16%, quite a substantial block.  Jews also have above average representation in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida and California; all heavily blue states.  Florida may be the largest swing state. For Jewish voters by state see The Jewish Virtual Library.

Jews in red states tend to be less monolithic Democrats but are still less likely to vote GOP than the rest of the population.

While the Christian evangelists are also sensitive to Israel they largely vote Republican anyway.  A large swing of Jewish support away from key Democratic candidates, including the president, can have a serious impact on an election.

Jeff Jacoby writes a great and insightful summary of The Triumph of Chanukah

excerpt

But Chanukah isn’t about political power. It isn’t about military victory. It isn’t even about freedom of worship, notwithstanding the fact that the revolt of the Maccabees marks the first time in history that a people rose up to fight religious persecution.

What Chanukah commemorates at heart is the Jewish yearning for God, for the concentrated holiness of the Temple and its service. The defeat of the Syrian-Greeks was a wonder, but the spiritual climax of the Maccabees’ rebellion occurred when the menorah was rekindled and God’s presence among His people could be felt once again.

Chanukah is the only Jewish holiday not found in the Hebrew Bible and the only one rooted in a military campaign. And yet its focus is almost entirely spiritual, not physical. For example, there is no feast associated with Chanukah, the way there is with Passover and Purim, the two other Jewish festivals of deliverance. Its religious observance is concentrated on flame, nothing more. And the menorah’s lights may only be gazed at; it is forbidden to use them for any physical purpose — not even to read by.

This is the Intro to Yuri Slezkine’s “The Jewish Century”

I just found it to be a compelling observation.

The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the twentieth century, in particular is the Jewish Century.  Modernization is about everyone becoming urban, mobile, literate, articulate, intellectually intricate, physically fastidious, and occupationally flexible.  It is about learning how to cultivate people and symbols, not fields and herds.  It is about pursuing wealth for the sake of learning, learning for the sake of wealth, and both wealth and learning for their own sake.  It is about transforming peasants and princes into merchants and priests, replacing inherited privilege with acquired prestige, and dismantling social estates for the benefit of individuals, nuclear families, and book-reading tribes (nations).  Modernization, in other words is about everyone becoming Jewish.

Some peasants and princes have done better than others, but no one is better at being Jewish than the Jews themselves.  In the age of capital, they are the most creative entrepreneurs; in the age of alienation, they are the most experienced exiles; and in the age of expertise, they are the most proficient professionals.  Some of the oldest Jewish specialties-commerce, law, medicine, textual interpretation, and cultural medication-have become the most fundamental (and the most Jewish) of all modern pursuits.  It is by being exemplary ancients that the Jews have become model moderns.

The principal religion of the Modern Age is nationalism, a faith that represents the new society as the old community and allows newly urbanized princes and peasants to feel at home abroad.  Every state must be a tribe; every tribe must have a state.  Every land is promised, every language Adamic, every capital Jerusalem, and every people chosen (and ancient).  The Age of Nationalism, in other words, is about every nation becoming Jewish.

In nineteenth-century Europe (the birthplace of the Age of Nationalism), the greatest exception was Jews themselves.  The most successful of all modern tribes, they were also the most vulnerable.  The greatest beneficiaries of the Age of Capitalism, they would become the greatest victims of the Age of Nationalism.  More desperate than any other European nation for state protection, they were the least likely to receive it because no European nation-state could possibly claim to be the embodiment of the Jewish nation.  Most European nation-states, in other words, contained citizens who combined spectacular success with irredeemable tribal foreignness.  The Jewish age was also the Age of anti-Semitism.

“Despite their secularism, Jews may be the most religious ethnic group in the world. The problem is that their religion is rarely Judaism; rather it is every  ”ism” of the left. .. It is therefore usually as hard to shake a liberal Jew’s belief in the Left and in the Democratic Party as it is to shake an evangelical Christian’s belief in Christianity.  The big difference, however, is that the Christian believer acknowledges his Christianity is a belief, whereas a believer in liberalism views his belief as entirely the product of rational inquiry.”

Dennis Prager as quoted in Why Are Jews Liberals? By Norman Podhoretz

HKO comments: Poderhoretz makes a grand attempt to explain why Jews are Liberal. Most of the book deals with their history that both made them sympathetic to the downtrodden and in direct conflict with the conservatism of the established orders. But that explanation still left Podhoretz wondering why they were so reluctant to acknowledge the development of increasing anti-Semitism on the left and greater sympathy and support for Israel on the right. Even when Jews acknowledge the drifts toward anti-Semitism on the left they remain resistant to acknowledge the changes in the right that have become more accepting of the Jews and more outright supportive of the State of Israel.

A17 year old Orthodox Jewish boy was ‘wrapping tefillin’ on a flight from New York to Louisville. The plane made an emergency landing in Philadelphia because the pilot was concerned about some strange boxes that a passenger was strapping to his arm and his head.

Tefillin are also known as phylacteries and are ritual prayer objects. The origin  is ancient from Deuteronomy, “”And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a frontlet between your eyes.”

The text inside the two boxes of Tefillin is hand-written by a scribe, and consists of the four sets of biblical verses in which Tefillin are commanded (Exodus 13:1-10, 11-16; Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21). The text inside the Tefillin is hand-written and hand-crafted. A set of Tefillin is relatively expensive, and a well-made pair costs several hundred dollars.  (Info from Jewish Virtual Library)

The boxes are held in place on the arm and on the forehead with leather straps wrapped in a specific ritual manner. It must look strange to a non Jew, especially on a domestic flight.

This is a ritual that only the more observant and orthodox Jews regularly observe, and most of them either ‘wrap tefillin in private or in the synagogue or temple. This is not such a common custom that even an educated non Jew would expect to see on a plane.  It is certainly understandable that one unfamiliar with this unique ritual would have seen this as unusual and been alarmed.

The passenger meant no harm and was released.  On my first trip to Israel on El Al there were a handful of orthodox Jews in the back of the plane with tefillin and prayer books praying at sun up, when the ritual prayers wearing the tefillin are said. This young Jew was doing the same.

The funniest line to me in the play The Annual Putnam County  Spelling Bee was when the word ‘phylacteries’ was given. When asked to use the word in a sentence the word caller said, “Michael, put down those phylacteries, we’re Episcopalians.”

Now you have one less fear when you fly.  Perhaps my fellow Yids should consider how their practice can affect other flyers in the paranoid age we live in. I would encourage participants to inform the attendant in advance.