My Review of Batya Ungar-Sargon's "The Jews and the Left"

 Jews and Democrats: Time for a Divorce?

Last November I wrote that Jews were between a rock and a hard place in that both Democrats and Republicans have become more hostile to Jews. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2025/11/american-jews-between-rock-and-hard.html ) Here polemicist Batya Ungar-Sargon argues that it is time for the Jews to divorce from the Democratic Party. Simply put the Left in America has become increasingly hostile to Jews; witness the Michigan senate primary win of Abdul El-Sayed, the near gubernatorial primary win of Francesca Hong in Wisconsin, and Peggy Flanagan’s win the Minnesota Senate primary. However, Ungar-Sargon does not suggest that Jews marry the Republican Party, but rather to vote strategically. As my late father of blessed memory constantly reminded me the criterion for a vote is whether or not a candidate would be good for the Jews.

 

Ungar-Sargon presents a brief history of the relationship of Jews and politics in America starting in colonial times. She notes that with George Washington’s letter to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island in 1790 that Jews in America would be free to practice their religion. Aside from Grant’s Civil War order which was cancelled by President Lincoln there hasn’t been official discrimination against the Jews. Thus, in her mind Jews should not consider themselves a persecuted minority. This is especially true because Jews as a group have achieved huge success in “The Golden Land.”

 

A problem with the book is that she ignores the entire 19^th Century history and the whole history of private discrimination against Jews (restictions on club membership and property covenants) that existed from the beginning. She also ignores the rabid antisemitism of the Klan in the 1920’s and Father Coughlin in the 1930’s. She also ignores that in Europe and especially in Russia it was the Left that led the charge against the antisemitism of the Right.

 

To her the source of the bond between the Jews and the Democratic Party is a result of the labor movement in the early 20^th Century where Jewish immigrants were in the vanguard of the growing movement, especially after the Triangle Fire in 1911. (See: https://shulmaven.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-amazon-review-of-terry-golways-frank.html )  The deal was closed with the very pro-Labor Roosevelt Administration and Roosevelt’s opposition to Hitler.

 

It was an easy step from labor activism to civil rights activism in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Here Jews were in lockstep with the northern Democratic Party. However, once the civil rights movement moved away from equal opportunity to equal results and later to the DEI mentality of oppressor versus the oppressed Jews began to have second thoughts about the Democrats. This is especially because DEI treats Jews as oppressors, not the persecuted minority of old. In a nutshell, the Democratic Party abandoned the working class in favor of identity politics.

 

All of this has come to a boil with the virulent anti-Zionism of the Left after October 7^th. Here the Left is calling for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and thus condemning half the Jews in the world who happen to live in Israel to death. That is exactly what “from the river to the sea” means.

 

Although I have outlined several issues with Ungar-Sargon’s book, she makes a convincing case that the Democratic Party as it exists today is far from the best political home for Jews today. That said, Trump and the Republican Party do not make for a comfortable home. However, given current trends, in a post-Trump world the Republicans could very well offer a better option than Democrats. In the meantime, a trial separation from the Democrats is in order.

 

My Amazon Review of Terry Golway's "Frank and Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance that Created the Modern Democratic Party"

Politics Makes for Strange Bedfellows

                      

Politico editor Terry Golway tells us of how and why Al Smith, an uneducated kid from the lower eastside of New York and the to the manner born Franklin Roosevelt forged the modern Democratic Party through the crucible of New York state politics. Golway tells a great yarn as to how Al Smith, a creature of Tammany Hall, became a great social reformer as a state assemblyman after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911 by leading the way in establishing workplace standards. He worked with state senator Robert Wagner who later would become as a U.S. senator and one of the leading architects of the New Deal.

We meet Franklin Roosevelt as an effete reformer in the state senate with a great animus to Tammany Hall. Roosevelt soon leaves Albany to become the Assistant Secretary of the Navy and becomes the Democratic Party’s nominee for vice president in 1920. However, the very canny Roosevelt maintains his political contacts with New York even while recovering from polio, so much so that he nominates Smith for president at both the 1924 and 1928 Democratic conventions.

As governor of New York throughout the roaring 20’s, Smith expands worker protections, establishes a safety net, encourages park development all the while streamlining government and cutting taxes. He was ably assisted by his aide Belle Moskowitz, probably one of the most under-rated political geniuses of the 20^th century, labor reformer Francis Perkins and by young up and comer Robert Moses. Smith’s record is so strong that he overcomes the bias against his Catholic faith and his “wet” position on prohibition to become the Democratic nominee in 1928. He gets slaughtered by the Coolidge boom and vitriol of anti-Catholic bias. However, underneath the 1928 election returns Smith actually received a majority of the vote in most of America’s largest cities. In essence Smith represents the new urban-ethnic America that would come to dominate American politics for the next 40 years. He is in fact the percusser to John Kennedy’s win in 1960.

However, it is Roosevelt who adds the Democratic south along with western farmers to the coalition that makes it a winning one. Roosevelt was enabled by being Smith’s hand-picked choice to be the Democratic nominee for Governor of New York in 1928. He barely wins in a very Republican year. Just to show the power of the emerging coalition the Democratic lieutenant governor nominee was the Jewish Herbert Lehman and the Republicans nominate Albert Ottinger, who is also Jewish. Two years later as the depression takes hold. Roosevelt wins in a landslide setting him up for a presidential run.

Smith and Roosevelt break in 1932 when both run for president. Smith becomes embittered and attacks the New Deal with its “alphabet of agencies” and later joins the very rightwing Liberty Lobby. It is not pretty.

Despite his apostasy Smith was early (1933) in speaking out against Hitler and was fully supportive of Roosevelt’s prewar defense and foreign policy. Although he endorses the Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940, Smith and Roosevelt reconcile with his strong support of Roosevelt’s foreign policy.

Golway tells a great story and he puts you inside many a smoke and drink filled room. Because Golway has previously written on Tammany Hall I wish he would have gone into the compromises Smith had to make with Boss Murphy in order to do the great things he did. That aside Golway has written a wonderful book on how political change came to America from 1910-1940.

for the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R32OUML0S5T64P/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv