In light of Franken’s victory over Coleman, Dan Gilgoff wonders about the coinciding trends of increased Christian Zionist influence in the Republican party and the decrease (near disappearance) of actual Jewish republican members of Congress.
The sole Jewish Republican in Congress is now House Minority Whip Eric Cantor.
With Franken’s arrival and Specter’s switch, the Democrats now have 13 Jewish senators and 31 Jewish House members.
What’s so remarkable about the falloff of Republican Jews in Congress is that it coincides with the decade-long trend of Republicans making support for Israel a central issue for their party. That’s been fueled largely by the growing numbers of conservative evangelicals who are identifying as Christian Zionists.
Could it be that Christian Zionism, seen largely as a Christian-right phenomenon, is scaring off more Jews—who tend to be very wary of religious conservatives—than it’s drawing in? Or are these overlapping trends a mere coincidence?
(Lieberman seems to get along great with the Christian Zionists, but perhaps he’s strange in that way….of course it’s not as if the Democratic party allows let alone encourages anti-Zionism…I think largely it’s a matter of Jews being disproportionately liberal in domestic politics but perhaps it is true that many Jews, especialy politically minded ones, are more comfortable with secular Zionism than religious Zionism).
