Most Jews, statistically speaking, are liberal. My grandmother grew up Jewish, and although she spent most of her life working hard to assimilate, she was, in the end, quintessentially a New York Jewish liberal. My father, who did not grow up Jewish (although his brother adopted the identity), was still classified as a Jew when he was admitted to Harvard under the quota system that existed at the time. And while not even culturally Jewish, he retained the liberal Jewish impulses he was raised in.
Dad and I joke about how Bernie Sanders is similarly a quintessential liberal Jew–he grew up around lots of Bernies, and I recognize them from the summer I spent with my grandparents in the ’70s. Some of my grandmother’s friends were communists–Leftists–and what distinguished them from my grandmother was a willingness almost to embrace the oppression of Jews in the service of…
