Despite an uproar in the Jewish community, former president George W. Bush is still slated to deliver the keynote address to a fundraiser for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute in Irving, Texas, tonight. The MJBI trains people to persuade Jews to recognize Jesus as their messiah. Followers of the group believe that if enough Jews are converted, Christ will return to Earth.
After Mother Jonesbroke the news about Bush’s appearance last week, “a small shitstorm…kicked up over the President’s decision,”writes Rob Eshman, editor of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.
“I have yet to meet a Jewish person who hasn’t heard about this,” Tevi Troy, Bush’s White House liaison to the Jewish community from 2003 to 2004, told CNN Wednesday. Troy had high praise for Bush’s support of Israel and the Jewish community, but, he added, “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.” A spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition did not respond to a request for comment.
This is, of course, bupkis compared to invading Iraq and expecting to be greeted with wreaths and a laurel and hardy handshake but it’s typical. It’s a reminder to American Jews that some wingers only love them because of their fixation on the rapture and all that nonsense.
It all goes to show that Bush is still schmucky after all these years.
The GOP’s share of the Jewish-American vote in presidential elections has been below 40% since Eisenhower’s re-election in 1956, and in only 4 of 14 elections since then has it been above 30% (1972, 1984, 1988, and 1992). The only time it’s been within 15% of the GOP’s popular vote percentage since 1916 was in 1980. Only 10% of Jewish-Americans voted for Goldwater in 1960, and he had a Jewish heritage. W only got 19% of the Jewish vote in 2000.
Any likely “political shift” there isn’t going to be favorable to Democrats.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewvote.html
As Jewish Americans has been a constant supporter of the repubs and the repubs consistently insist that THEY are the only ones who care about Israel,
any chance that there might be a political shift toward the demns because of this?