Why Are Jews Liberals? »

Norman Podhoretz, who was the editor in chief of Commentary for thirty-five years, is the author of numerous bestselling books, including Making It, Breaking Ranks, Ex-Friends, My Love Affair with America, The Prophets, and World War IV. He holds the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

From the bestselling author of World War IV, a brilliant investigation of a central question in American politics and culture.

During his career as a neoconservative thinker, Norman Podhoretz has been asked no question more often than “Why are so many Jews liberals?” In this provocative book he sets out to solve this puzzle. He first offers a fascinating account of anti-Semitism in the West to show the historical roots of Jewish mistrust of the right. But, Podhoretz argues, since the Six Day War of 1967 Jewish allegiance to the left no longer makes sense, and yet most Jews continue supporting the Democratic Party and the liberal agenda. Reviewing the history of Jewish political attitudes and examining the available evidence, Podhoretz argues against the conventional explanations for Jewish liberalism—finally proposing his own.

Publishers Weekly

Eminent neoconservative Podhoretz (World War IV) surveys the centuries of atrocities that, he says, have pushed most Jews to the Left, notably the persecutions by medieval Christendom, from blood libels to expulsion to ghettoization, and in modern times the Dreyfus affair and Nazism. Immigrant American Jews were attracted to the Democratic Party, says Podhoretz, because it was the closest counterpart to the European leftists who had favored Jewish emancipation. Phenomena like conservative opposition to fighting Hitler and Truman's recognition of Israel in 1948 kept Jews faithful to "the 'Torah' of liberalism." But Podhoretz calls on Jews to shift their allegiance, maintaining that Democratic attitudes toward Israel range from unsympathetic to passionately hostile while the Republicans, with some exceptions, have been solidly to fervently supportive since the end of the 1967 Six-Day War. Podhoretz writes scathingly about what he views as the Nation magazine's naked anti-Semitism, taking particular aim at a 1986 piece by Gore Vidal, but, refreshingly, also excoriates conservatives like Pat Buchanan and right-wing publications like Chronicles magazine for their anti-Semitism. Although preaching to the converted and at times rambling, Podhoretz is an astute and joyously provocative and partisan observer of the political landscape. (Sept. 8)

Introduction 1

Pt. 1 How the Jews Became Liberals

1 The "Witness" Doctrine 9

2 Ghettos 18

3 Poets and Exegetes 25

4 Emancipation: Phase One 30

5 The Enlightenment Puzzle 38

6 Haskalah 45

7 Emancipation: Phase Two 51

8 The Second Great Puzzle 60

9 The Golden Land 71

10 Jews from Germany 81

11 Anti-Semitism, Patrician Style 87

12 Jews Without Money 94

13 Emancipation: The Backlash 104

14 "Defilers" of the Culture 113

15 Enter FDR 118

16 In Roosevelt's Wake: Truman 127

17 From 1952 to 1968 135

Pt. 2 Why the Jews are Still Liberals

18 The Golden Age of Jewish Security 147

19 Something New Under the Jewish Sun 159

20 Nixon and Israel 167

21 Carter: "Joining the Jackals" 175

22 The 1980 Election 181

23 Reagan and Israel 191

24 Anti-"Zionism" 198

25 The Case of The Nation 204

26 The Case of National Review 211

27 George H. W. Bush and Israel 216

28 The Case of Pat Buchanan 224

29 Clinton, the Religious Right, and the Jews 233

30 George W. Bush and Israel 243

31 2008 252

32 As Liberal as Ever? 258

33 The Wrong Answers 269

34 The "Torah" of Liberalism 280

Conclusion 291

Notes 297

Bibliographical Note 319

Index 321