NYC Jewish Women Openly Question Their Traditional Monolithic Voting Patterns - City Does Not Descend Into Fascism

According to this article in the NY Times, traditional Democratic backers are bucking their party affiliations to support Bloomberg. What is not explicitly mentioned, but is obvious by the names, is that most of them are Jews. This has been occurring for a while. What is interesting is that there are more and more women who are in this camp.

There is a gender divide among Jews in this town, if not nationally. New York City Jewish men, to a large degree, have abandoned a strict Democratic party affiliation, at least in local elections, as evidenced by their denying Hillary Clinton the benchmark 60% Jewish vote, even though her challenger, Lazio, was weak. Very weak.

Now, unlike the Orthodox, secular Jewish men have not become Republicans. They just tend to be more politically independent minded than their female counterparts (perhaps on other issues as well), and less comfortable pretending they have the exact same concerns, always belong under the same tent, and face the same struggles as say, a welfare recipient in public housing, something Jewish women are better at convincing themselves of.

Or were.

What started with Giuliani appears to be a trend, but what has changed is the pride and readiness to publicly back a candidate from a different party, without feeling guilty for not endorsing chaos and fiscal irresponsibility in the name of compassion and solidarity.

There is no need to become a card carrying Republican, and I certainly wouldn’t place Bloomberg on the list of great mayors of this city, but it is nice to see Jewish women willing to think about a specific candidate and the issues at stake, and not just pull the same lever out of some brand loyalty and party platitudes without at least pausing to consider if this is who they really want in power.

It has taken less than one hundred years to get to this point.

They might not be quick learners, but they do learn.