U.S. Jews Influenced by Jewish Interests in Their Voting. Study Says

Jews, as other ethnic and religious groups in the United States, are influenced in their voting by special group interests, according to a study published today by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, formerly the Fund for the Republic.

The study, by Dr. Moses Rischin. a member of the research staff of the American Jewish Committee, found that the Jews in the 1956 election were influenced in their voting by policies on Israel. The study also concluded that by and large the Jews inclined to the Democratic Party as the liberal party of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The report, based on a study of the 1956 election, supported its contention that Israel was a major factor with Jewish voters by analyzing the Jewish vote in the Javits-Wagner senatorial contest in New York. Although Jacob K. Javits is Jewish, the study noted, “the Jewish vote’ stuck to (Mayor Robert F.) Wagner, as expected though a number of Jewish Democrats and a handful of Liberals crossed party lines to vote for Javits. ” In New York, the study found, “Jewish voters opposed the presence of (Secretary of State John Foster) Dulles and (Vice President Richard) Nixon on the Eisenhower team.”

In summarising the position of the Jewish voter in the 1956 election, Dr. Rischin declared: “Jews felt strongly about a Middle East crisis which, more than the Iron Curtain problem, might have been managed better by those Americans who were responsible for foreign policy. In essence theirs was a protest vote. Yet perhaps, more fundamentally, Jewish voting was rooted in a strong emotional attachment to FDR. the liberal, the enemy and nemesis of Hitler.

For the second time most Jews voted for Stevenson, the man they saw as wearing Roosevelt’s mantle. As the Javits-Wagner contest showed. Jews did not care much whether or not a candidate was Jewish–especially in New York State, where they had occupied important offices for over a generation,” the study pointed out.