More Jews, less funny

Rico says that The New York Times has several articles about Jewish voters and the upcoming election.
First, Laurie Goodstein has an article about Jews in Philadelphia:

American Jews have long proved a solid voting bloc for the Democratic Party, with about four out of five voting for President Obama in 2008, according to exit polls. Jewish voters are driven by a broad range of concerns, but for some the security of Israel is dominant. Now, with the peace process in the Middle East at a stalemate, and Palestinians taking their case for statehood directly to the United Nations, Republicans are stepping up their efforts to peel off Jewish voters.
While this constituency is clearly in play, a new Gallup poll shows that Jews are no more disillusioned than other Americans are with Obama. According to the poll, his Jewish support has declined since the election in 2008, but at a rate no different from that of Americans as a whole. Even with that drop-off, 54 percent of Jewish voters said in August and September that they approved of the job the president was doing (compared with 41 percent of American voters over all). In fact, Jews continue to be far more enthusiastic about Obama than other Americans, a thirteen-point difference that has remained sizable throughout the president’s term.
The fresh focus on Jewish voters was prompted in part by the victory of a Republican, Bob Turner, in a special election last week in New York City’s Ninth Congressional District. With a heavy concentration of Orthodox Jews, the district is not representative of Jewish voters nationwide; the Orthodox lean far more Republican than the vast majority of American Jewry.
Nevertheless, the election generated excitement among Republicans that the Jewish vote could be up for grabs. Reporters visited three communities with heavy concentrations of Jewish voters for impressions of any shift in their allegiances.

Second, Lizette Alvarez has an article about Jewish politics:

Munching on a buttered bagel at a bookstore, Helen Wagner (at left in photo) and her partner, Clifford Turkel (at right in photo), said they knew exactly why President Obama looked to be stumbling and sliding his way toward the election. But they also know there are no easy answers. It’s true, they said: Obama needs to be more astute on Israel, and Jews in general are wary of his stance. Israel is his friend, and in a region soaked with enemies, friends should not be squandered, and yet a truce also is necessary. And, yes, the economy is reeling, people are livid, progress seems ephemeral, and Obama began his term with an outsize load of turmoil.
So will Wagner, a dynamic 86-year-old, and Turkel, a 77-year-old born in the Bronx, both Reform Jews, vote for the president again? “Of course, of course,” Wagner said. “Absolutely,” chimed in Turkel. Then he offered a dollop of advice: “He should be more aggressive on his handling of the Republicans,” he said. “He should give them a little hell, the way Truman did.”
Outside supermarkets and restaurants and inside bookstores and candy shops, Jewish voters in this affluent yet diverse Jewish community in north Miami said they planned to, mostly, stay the course. If they did vote for Obama in 2008, many of them, Reform and Conservative alike, said they planned to do so again, although not quite as enthusiastically.
Those who did not vote for the president the last time— mostly Orthodox, with a smattering of Conservatives like Jay Weinberg— were more convinced than ever that they had made the right choice. “He has thrown Israel under the bus,” said Weinberg, 64, a former educator. “What is he going to give them next, the Golan Heights, too?”
Renata Bloom, 73, a Conservative and a real estate agent who plans to vote for Obama, like last time, said the Arab Spring had frightened Jews and turned some against Obama. “People are questioning him now,” she said.
Not Holly Royce Ginsberg, 69, who described her support for the president as “unshakable.” A former teacher, dental hygienist, Playboy bunny, and “super liberal,” Ginsberg said Obama had been “handed a rotten bunch of fruit”. She said that, on the question of Israel, people just had a “knee-jerk reaction”.
But Ruth Fertig, 81, standing near a kosher candy shop, said that, while Israel was key, her criticism of Obama went beyond that: it’s the economy, his lack of leadership, and the people who surround him in Washington. A retired New York City teacher, Fertig said that she had voted for him once, and that once was enough. She will probably stay home on Election Day. Could she change her mind? “I don’t believe in miracles,” she said.

Third, Erik Eckholm has an article about Jewish liberalism:

Judy Rothman (photo) is a lifelong Democrat who says: “I’m not one hundred percent sure yet that I won’t vote for Obama.” She finds herself leaning that way, though, solely because of “a vague sense of unease” about the depth of President Obama’s support for Israel.
Rothman, 47, and her family moved from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to the Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion five years ago, buying a house near the Lower Merion Synagogue, a Modern Orthodox congregation. A physical therapist who works with infants, she knocked on doors for Obama in 2008. Back then, at dinner parties with the more hawkish couples who dominate their new synagogue, her husband kicked her under the table when her defenses of Obama got too passionate.
But those conversations were “eye-opening”, and now she feels torn between her liberal ideals and her fear for Israel. Her concern is visceral because her brother and sister live there, she said, and anti-Israel passions unleashed by the Arab Spring have deepened it. She feels that Obama asks Israel to make too many unilateral concessions. “I just want a stronger show of support,” she said.
Local Jewish leaders say most of the more than two hundred thousand Jews who live in greater Philadelphia, many of them scattered through the western suburbs known as the Main Line, remain Democrats and are almost sure to support Obama in 2012. But they also say many Jews struggle with the agonizing counter-pulls expressed by Rothman: devotion to liberal social policies, but a primal, if to some irrational, sense that Republican hawks might be better for Israel.
Rabbis compare notes on how to handle Israel-related issues in their congregations because they are so contentious, said Rabbi Adam Zeff of the Germantown Jewish Center in Philadelphia. He said that his congregation, which includes many urban professionals, tends to be liberal and more focused on domestic issues, and that most members were comfortable with Obama’s Israel stance. Yet he struggles to know what to say about Israel without setting off acrimony.
Murray Lefkowitz, 85, a retired furniture repairer, said that if he had a complaint about Obama, it was that the president had not fought hard enough against the Republicans. “I do worry that the Republicans might offer stronger support of Israel,” Lefkowitz said after exercising at the Kaiserman Jewish Community Center in the Main Line suburb of Wynnewood, “but I’m a professional worrier.” He cannot understand why Jews would forsake their history of liberal social thought to become Republicans.
Bill Rubin, 53, a test tutor taking a basketball break at the center, was more pointed. “I think the mainstream Jewish community is too reflexively supportive of anything done by Israel,” he said. “I do care about Israel, and I don’t mistrust Obama on Israel.”
Lori Lowenthal Marcus, 53, is one of those dinner-party guests who urged Rothman to be more hawkish. She voted against Obama in 2008 and expects to support the Republicans in 2012.
A lawyer who fought for abortion rights, she said her thoughts on Israeli security had hardened since 9/11. Now, she runs a Zionist campaign from home that supports Israeli settlements and strong defense policies.

Rico says he lives on the Main Line among this very population, and it's all true... (But a 69-year-old Jewish woman who'd been a Playboy bunny? There's a Jewish joke in the making.)