jillian
Princess
I want to peruse replies but here's a personal take. Full disclosure, our children are Jewish by tradition, but were raised Catholic as those times were tough on people of Jewish descent and my wife's family (grandparents) decided the change.
Jewish people, like Catholics, are educated and I think genuinely educated people see the complexity that life is and thus tend to be tolerant and more left leaning than right. A Rabbi writing about the Holocaust influenced the way I see the world when I was young, and until recently I did not know conservative Jews even existed. My first experience with more conservative Jews were Russian immigrants, they tend to see the world in black and white. They remind me of fundamentalist Christians, even when their religion is not strong.
Jews were left out of American business for fear they would take control, you should know that myth by now. Yes, that conspiratorial nonsense still exists today. It is a strain that runs through the thoughts of those who require simple solutions. Even Obama suffers it for being Black. Paradoxical though it may seem people always see conspiracy or unfair advantage except where it really is. One of the Jewish managers I worked with years ago told me he was only Jew in the corporation. An exaggeration but oddly like Blacks, it contained a morsel of truth. But dislike of people who were different in any way was a powerful motivator in those days. Darn gotta drop.
Anyone ever see or read "Focus?"
Just to add to your comments, my dad was the first jew in management in a particular major corporation. he tells a story about how he was one of the employees honored at a dinner. The entertainment was a comic named Jack Carter. The employees had name tags, and when Jack Carter (from the stage) noticed my dad's tag with it's obviously jewish last name, he said "[insert jewish last name], what the hell are *you* doing here"?
You're right about Russian immigrants, though. I think they come from a culture where they only respect heavy-handed power plays. it's why they love Putin.
ultimately, any view of the world that is simplistic is incorrect. there is very little that is purely black and white.
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