Toward a Theory of Disproportionate American Jewish Liberalism

In Studies in Contemporary Jewry 11, 64-85. This article seeks to advance a new approach to explaining the disproportionate liberalism of American Jews. It rejects the standard assumption that American Jews are predisposed by their experience among non-Jews to be especially politically liberal. The pronounced liberalism of American Jews is best understood in terms of dynamics and tensions in their relation to the Jewish community as a religious body politic rather than in their relations with non-Jews or with non-Jewish society.