Jews Swinging to the Right

Jews Swinging to the Right - Ha'aretz reports that American Jews are moving to the right.

Bush's middle east policy is key to this growth - the perception of anti-semitism on the left is pushing some of the drift - but it's far from the whole story, according to Harvard's Steven Cohen.

Here was the part that fascinated me; education has an effect. But not the effect I'd expected; as they proceed from high school through grad school, Jewish women become more liberal - but Jewish men less so:

Curiously, the gap seems to be magnified by an unexpected and paradoxical education gap. Higher education exerts a clearly liberalizing influence on women, but has a slightly conservatizing influence on men. Among both men and women, those with a bachelor's degree are more liberal than those with just a high-school education. But men with a graduate degree are more conservative by most measures than men with just a bachelor's degree, while women become decidedly more liberal with a graduate degree - possibly a factor of gender differences in choosing fields of study.

The gender gap is not limited to the most educated. At every level of education, Jewish women are more liberal and less conservative than their male counterparts. The gap is greatest, however, among the best educated. Among those with just a high-school education, the liberal gender gap amounts to just 5 percentage points, growing to 15 points among the college-educated. It leaps to a full 24 points among those with a graduate degree, where just 39 percent of the men call themselves liberal as opposed to 63 percent of the women.

Many other factors - including the notion of a potential Joe Lieberman candidacy theoretically reversing this drift. Give it a read - it's a fascinating article.

Here's the interesting part - Moslems are supposed to outnumber Jews in America soon, if not already. They are a rapidly growing voting bloc. They tended slightly to the right before 9/11 - but it'd be interesting to see where American Moslems would vote today...

(Via Smart Genes)

Posted by Mitch at January 19, 2003 11:00 AM