The Politics of American Jews: Cohesion, Division, and Representation at the Institutional Level

This article examines political cohesion and division in the American Jewish community's central network of political and fundraising institutions. Employing data from the 1997 National Jewish Community Public Affairs Survey, the authors show that political activists in the community's Jewish Community Relations Councils are routinely more liberal in their political preferences than Federation donors, including the synagogue members among them. However, the authors argue, the political division between the activists and their main constituents is usually modest and does not warrant concerns about a lack of effective political representation in the organized Federation-JCRC system.