Why Jews voted for Kerry

GW (you can check out her blog here), after reading my post about my fearlessness when faced with American Fundamentalist Christians (see here), asked why I think Jews voted in droves for Kerry. I thought that was an interesting enough question that it deserved its own post. As you can see, this is a very personal post, based on words from people I know, and having nothing to do with any deep research. I think Jews they voted for Kerry because Jews have become nonreflective Democrats. An American-born Jewish friend, who is the only member of his family who did not make the switch after 9/11 states (a) that Republicans are evil and (b) that his father would roll over in his grave if he knew his son was voting Republican. An elderly European Jewish woman I know cannot get over her reflexive fear of Christians. A 40-something Jewish friend reads only the New York Times and the S.F. Chronicle, and is convinced that Paul Krugman is God. As you can see, all these people are unwilling to accept new information, and are deeply rooted in old habits. A friend of mine, who is (unusually) a long-time conservative Jew, believes that this is just a lost generation of American Jews. As far as he is concerned, they have to die out, just as the Exodus Jews had to die out during the 40 years in the Wilderness, before a new, pure Jewish generation can appear. I hope he's not right, but he may well be. It is consistently amazing to me that Jews can ally themselves with a political ethos (the Left) that has become more and more aggressively anti-Semitic, either in the guise of anti-Israel policies, pro-Palestinian policies or, as in the recent British Labour advertisements, just plain old-fashioned anti-Semitism. The older European woman I mentioned likes to point to the fact that some conservative Christians support Jews/Israel only because they believe that the Jews being in Israel is a necessary prerequisite to the Second Coming. Amusingly, she implies that, once that happens (that is, once Christ returns), then the Christians will turn against the Jews. I've told her I'm willing to deal with that new problem for the Jews once it happens.