The Structure of Political Divisions Among American Jews

Abstract

This paper examines the current structural basis of political divisions among American Jews. Theoretically, the paper is situated in the well-established scholarly tradition of understanding political behavior as rooted in social structural location, with accompanying variations in political cohesion and political division across social groups. Empirically, the paper utilizes data from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 Survey of US Jews to measure and analyze how social divisions based on religion, immigrant status, age, education, income, gender, marital status, region and race are translated into political divisions with respect to both US and Israeli politics. The findings show that religious divisions among American Jews yield the most significant and consistent political divisions across the US and Israeli political measures. Other social cleavages among American Jews also produce political divisions, but to a smaller and less consistent extent than religion.