exactly why they remain polarized.
According to a new report released by Nishma Research, a sociology research firm focusing on the Jewish community, there’s a reason why: a vast difference in priorities between Democratic and Republican Jews. Nishma surveyed 449 members of the Orthodox community and asked Trump voters and Biden voters how important 35 issues were in their decision. Participants ranked issues as “not so important,” “somewhat important,” “quite important” and “my most critical factors.”
When it came to issues voters saw as “most critical” in their choice of candidate, Trump supporters appeared to prioritize foreign policy: 80% of Trump voters cited Israel as “most critical,” whereas only 29% of Biden voters did; similarly, 57% of Trump voters cited Iran as a “most critical factor,” but only 8% of Biden voters did so.
Times of Israel blogger and Black History Month panelist Ed Gaskin. (courtesy)
Gaskin earned an M. Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and graduated as a Martin Trust fellow from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He has published several books on a range of topics with social justice themes, was a co-organizer of the first faith-based initiative on reducing gang violence at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and has taught a seminary class on the topic of Christianity and the problem of racism for over 25 years.
Ginna Green is a political strategist, writer, movement-builder, and consultant, and partner and chief strategy officer at Uprise. A Schusterman senior fellow and a Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance notable woman, Green is also a fellow at the Kogod Research Center of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America and sits on the boards of Women’s March, Political Research Associates, the Jews of Color Initiative, Bend the Arc, and the Jewish Soc
Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik attends an event in Jerusalem on August 10, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
JTA Three times on Sunday, January 31, Orthodox men carried the body of a beloved Torah scholar wrapped in a black and white prayer shawl through the streets of Jerusalem to a freshly dug grave.
First there was Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik, the 99-year-old heir to a vaunted tradition of Talmud study. A few hours later it was Rabbi Yitzchok Sheiner, the 98-year-old leader of a prominent yeshiva. And in the evening they took Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, a psychiatrist and scion of multiple Hasidic dynasties, to his final resting place near Beit Shemesh.