How Long Did It Take For The German Jews Who Voted For Hitler To Realize They'd Made A Big Mistake?

Gut Shabbos

I grew up in the same mostly Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood as Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Bernie. Ostensibly it was one of the most liberal districts in the country. But lurking beneath the surface… well, today it’s a MAGA hellhole. A disgrace to its roots. On Tuesday Louis Keene offered Forward readers an opportunity to learn how a Jewish neighborhood in L.A. turned into the same kind of political garbage dump. Keene painted a picture of a community— Pico-Robertson— in the throes of political realignment— from Democrat to conservative Republican.

Rabbi Mordechai Teller, age 43, told Keene his parents would have been more comfortable if he told them he was gay than that he voted for Trump. The neighborhood, filled with Orthodox Jews— as many as 25-30,000— went 75% for Hillary and 66% for Biden. But “in 2024, for the first time, parts of Pico-Robertson turned red. Its two largest precincts swung for Trump, who received about 51% of the votes compared to 44% for Harris; on the LA Times’ electoral map of the city, those precincts connect with Beverly Hills— which has picked Trump since 2016— to form an island the color of salmon in a blue urban sea… Orthodox Pico-Robertson’s numbers are growing, and by all accounts, the community is increasingly voting as a conservative bloc. Rabbi Elazar Muskin, who leads Young Israel of Century City, one of the oldest and largest synagogues in the neighborhood, estimated that up to 90% of his congregation voted for Trump, largely because of Israel.’ They really felt Biden and Harris just not supporting Israel in its time of need as it needed to be supported,’ Muskin told me. The sentiment is also visible on the street, outside Jewish homes with Trump yard signs or Trump flags hanging in the window.”

The precinct maps tell a story of a political change seen all over the country in 2024, as voters with concerns about inflation, crime and immigration— and in the Orthodox Jewish world, a frustration with mixed messaging from Democrats after Oct. 7— looked to Trump for change. But the maps also reflect a demographic change in the neighborhood. In other words, it is not only that longtime Democrats like Teller changed their vote. It is also that the voters themselves have changed. As yeshivish and Mizrahi Jews— those of Middle Eastern or North African heritage— have established a greater presence in Pico-Robertson, the neighborhood has attracted and become increasingly defined by a conservative culture and electorate.

Though still tentpoled by large Ashkenazi Modern Orthodox institutions like Muskin’s, Pico-Robertson’s Orthodox community is today more decentralized, ethnically diverse and deeply observant, with a booming Persian population, as well as emergent Chabad, Hasidic and yeshiva-educated crowds. There are new shuls for all of them.

These ascendant sub-communities lean heavily conservative. A poll of Orthodox voters by Nishma Research in September found 93% of Haredi voters supporting Trump; while data on the Persian Jewish community’s politics is harder to come by, community leaders say the numbers are similarly stark.

…This was the first U.S. presidential election in which Lebhar, a Toronto native who first moved to Los Angeles to study at LINK, voted as a U.S. citizen. He was not a Trump acolyte, he said, but he was not electing a role model. “If you want to go hire a lawyer, so you’ll hire the best lawyer that’ll win you the case, whether he’s a mushchas or not,” Lebhar told me, using a Yiddish word that roughly translates to dirtbag. “According to what logic dictates will be better for Torah values, right now it’s the Republican party.”

…While Pew’s 2020 survey of American Jews reported that 75% of American Orthodox Jews leaned Republican, it did not produce a Sephardic sample large enough to provide statistics on that community, the report’s lead author told me. It said 3% of American Jews identified as Sephardic, and 1% as Mizrahi. It did not offer statistics on Persian Jews at all.

But Zargari didn’t need a Pew survey to know how they would vote. “Persian Jews,” he said, “are all Republican. Republicans are much closer to us. Because Republicans have traditional values about family. And also Persian Jews are all ultra-Zionists, and they see how Obama and Biden mistreated Netanyahu. Trump is the one that brought the embassy to Jerusalem.”

“We try to push them to vote,” Zargari added. “I said, you have to vote. And they said, ‘OK, California, it’s all blue anyway’— no. Baruch Hashem, he got the popular vote this year also. Our votes helped that.”

Israel was always the first political issue people in Pico-Robertson brought up when I showed them the election maps. Antisemitism was usually the second. But the litany of Orthodox Jewish grievances about Democratic leadership rarely ended there: crime, inflation and the culture wars all contributed to discontent.

“They’re very into the American issues,” Lebhar, the LINK rabbi, said of his community. “The economy. The woke stuff— people are sick of it.” He added: “A lot of the Jewish community, especially the frum Jewish community, that usually didn’t vote in the past, came out and voted. They were very passionate about what was going on.”

Popular vote notwithstanding, it’s hard to see an Orthodox community that makes up about a tenth of the American Jewish population— which is itself less than 3% of the national population— swinging a presidential election. But community organizers see the 2024 election as a proof of concept for local races, too.

In the months leading up to the election, Miriam Mark reached out to thousands of Jewish voters as a grassroots organizer for the Teach Coalition, an advocacy group founded by the Orthodox Union. While the group describes itself as an education lobby, in Los Angeles it focused on crime, and in particular the district attorney race, where George Gascon, an embattled left-wing incumbent, was up against a Jewish former prosecutor who vowed a tougher approach on crime.

Teach volunteers hit 40 synagogues and schools in LA, many in the Pico-Robertson area, and a community-wide “We Vote Shabbat” the weekend before the election encouraged early voting. Gascon’s opponent, Nathan Hochman, won easily.

The long-term goal of the organization is to secure government funding for Jewish day schools and yeshivas, Mark told me. But she is also envisioning a more broadly powerful endgame: an activated Jewish electorate whose unity— undergirded by a demographic and cultural shift— must be reckoned with in every election, whether it’s for Congress or city council.

“The future of our community rests on the fact that you have to get out and vote, and whoever you believe in voting for that’s OK,” Mark said she told voters. “Because if we don’t create a Jewish voting bloc, no one will listen to us.”

“A common rallying cry of the right in America,” wrote Mia Brett, “to justify regressive morality laws, is often to say that ‘America was founded as a Christian country’ with ‘Judeo-Christian values.’ First of all, ‘Judeo-Christian values’ is a dog whistle that erases Jewish values by subsuming Judaism into Christianity. It also excludes other religions, particularly Islam. When politicians claim ‘Judeo-Christian values’ they're almost always describing Christian values but want to pretend they are being inclusive of Jews.”

She noted that “Initially, in the 19th century the phrase referred to Jewish people who converted to Christianity. It wasn't intended to be inclusive of Jews at all. The current meaning of the term was an invention of American politics in the 1930s, as a phrase to show opposition to Hitler and communism. ‘Judeo-Christian values’ is often used by politicians to proclaim common opposition to atheism, abortion and LGBT issues. Basically, there's no such thing as a ‘Judeo-Christian values.’ Except Judaism and Christianity don't have a common value system on those issues. While it is hard to declare a universal Jewish value— there are many sects of Judaism and one of our core tenets is argument— most Jewish rabbis acknowledge that abortion should be allowed at least in certain circumstances. Jewish law dictates that life begins at first breath, not conception. Additionally, many Jews consider themselves atheists and consider Jewish practice to be through behavior and attitude, not belief. Unfortunately the acceptance of LGBT people in Judaism is more complicated, depending on the sect, but Reform and Conservative Judaism are publicly accepting of LGBT people. Basically, there's no such thing as a ‘Judeo-Christian values.’”

And the ones for whom this exists are the ones who tend to support for Trump… like the ones in my childhood neighborhood in Brooklyn and the ones across town in Pico-Robertson.

That all said, let me point out that the Jewish people have had a profound relationship with the Enlightenment, the movement characterized by an emphasis on reason, individual rights and secular governance. Inspired by the broader European Enlightenment, a Jewish version, the Haskalah, emerged in the late 18th century, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, led by figures such as Moses Mendelssohn, who sought to modernize Jewish education and culture, integrating secular studies and Enlightenment values while maintaining Jewish traditions. The Haskalah advocated for the study of languages, sciences and literature alongside traditional Jewish texts and encouraged Jewish integration into wider society, including adopting local languages and engaging in civic life while promoting a more rational and less mystical interpretation of Judaism.

The Enlightenment's principles of equality and individual rights were instrumental in the emancipation of Jews in various European countries. It challenged centuries of legal restrictions and social discrimination. It was an historical turning point for European Jews. Exposure to secular ideas fostered new Jewish contributions to philosophy, literature, and science. Prominent Jewish thinkers such as Spinoza (a precursor to Enlightenment thought), Mendelssohn, and later, figures like Henri Bergson, reflected this engagement and it’s the one that secular Jews grew up with in America… although that is changing now in some reactionary Jewish communities where there is fear that acculturation leads to the erosion of Jewish traditions and the very idea of meritocracy— which allowed Jews to rise in professions previously closed to them— is rejected. Reform Judaism— let alone secular Jewish culture— isn’t even recognized as Judaism in these communities, where the embracing of a secular identity and participation in broader intellectual and artistic movements by millions of Jews is seen in a very negative light. What’s going on in Pico-Robertson and other communities embracing the MAGA perspective is indicative of old tensions between tradition and modernity, faith and reason.