Book Review: ‘The Jews and the Left’ by Batya Ungar-Sargon
The story of the Jewish romance with the Left begins with the labor movement of the early 20th century—and it is one Ungar-Sargon recounts in vivid detail.
The Jews and the Left is a crowded field for a writer to enter. However, Batya Ungar-Sargon’s recent book under that title makes a timely contribution to it. Ungar-Sargon is a former editor of The Foreword and host of the Batya! podcast. She came out of the Left and while her politics might have changed due to antisemitism, her concerns and values held.
The Jews And The Left is a refreshingly patriotic book and—in these pressing times—an optimistic book. Ungar-Sargon shows how, throughout the history of our nation, Jews were treated differently. Here, antisemitism was always a side story. And sure, when the first Jews arrived to New Amsterdam in 1654, the colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant wanted to expel the party, but the regular settlers, Ungar-Sargon counters, were sympathetic. And of course there is the terrifying lynching of Leo Franc—the most notorious act of Jew-hate on American soil—but the author argues, this was a significant exception. When the KKK started firebombing synagogues to avenge efforts at desegregation, the public rallied around Southern Jews.
The American founding, Ungar-Sargon explains, was dedicated to religious tolerance and our Founders were determined to show this tolerance by giving the Hebrew race equal treatment. It was the test that, she tells us, early Americans “passed with flying colors. Antisemitism was not an issue until social mobility in the Gilded Age threatened the entrenched elites.
Yet it was clear from the start that the Jewish story in America would be different. During the Revolutionary War, Jews were celebrated as financiers of the American experiment. In Europe, the author reminds us, Jews were despised and frequently prosecuted for their connection to money, real or imagined. Not so in the United States where no popular negative sentiment was attached to either Jews or capitalism. Antisemitism and anti-Americanism typically go hand in hand. In fact, when homegrown radical Malcolm X attacked Jews, he did so on anti-capitalist and anti-American grounds.
American Jews, Ungar-Sargon argues, have a tendency to misread the cues and to identify with the downtrodden, like the blacks under the Jim Crow regime, even if they themselves are not victims of repression. This is not, however, how Jews came to identify with the Left.
The story of the Jewish romance with the Left begins with the labor movement of the early 20th century—and it is one Ungar-Sargon recounts in vivid detail. The movement, a necessary correlative to the excesses of capitalism, forged the Jewish political consciousness in the U.S. The union of the minority group and what is commonly identified as “liberal causes” was solidified in the following decades when Franklin Delano Rosevelt lead the nation in the fight against Nazism and Jews embraced the cause of desegregation.
The Jews And The Left tells the story of betrayal. Ungar-Sargon believes that the working class kept American liberalism honest—and that the working class, the ordinary American men and women—continue to be sympathetic to Jews. But, as our manufacturing base evaporated, the working class has been decimated and the Left embraced identity politics. The internal logic of identity politics lead to the virtual expulsion of Jews from the movement they helped to create.
Whereas the contemporary atrophied Left makes virtue out of weakness, Ungar-Sargon shows that Jews had it relatively easy in the U.S. and—in a refreshingly Zionist cultural mode—argues that our politics should be the politics not of emotional manipulation but of honor.
She proposes a 21st-century alliance of the alienated:
After October 7, Jews were exposed to what White Americans, conservative Americans, and working-class Americans have been subjected to for decades: the contempt the elites have had for people they view as on the side of power, ironically from their own heights of institutional power and immense wealth and privilege. The antipathy that was exposed for Jews was, at the end of the day, an extension of antipathy the Left has developed for America.
She is correct in linking the fate of American Jews with the fate of the country and I like the vibe she champions, but here is where I diverge from her analysis: Jews indisputably fared well here historically while the postmodern Left fetishizes weakness. The latter is a superficial phenomenon that should be viewed in the context of the postmodern Left’s obsessed with power. To power they submit. If anti-Zionists made inroads in the woke movement, it’s because they project what to the Left looks like inevitability.
This has nothing to do with any kind of internal dynamics of American intellectual life, which Ungar-Sargon perfectly captures, but external influences such as money and social media platform manipulation from abroad and, above all, immigration. The Gramscian Left looks at the migrant crisis and the growth of the foreign-born communities—and sees untapped potential. As the number of Muslims in America grows—and many, if not most, are unreformed anti-Zionists—American Jewish fortunes sink. We are being replaced.
It’s not only the Muslims, of course. The percentage of foreign-born living on our shores has never been as high as it is now. According to Pew Research, about 1/3 of young people coming of age in America are either immigrants or children of immigrants. Some of them, like the heavily promoted streamer from Turkey Hassan Piker have been raised abroad. Others went to schools stateside—but were taught to retain their ethnic peculiarities. Instead of assimilating into the American exceptionalism, including philosemitism, they are bathed in third world slop.
Take the recent New York mayoral elections as a test of the emerging third world voting block. The antisemitic Zohran Mamdani lost the native Americans but captured the foreign-born vote by a landslide.
The turn to Jew-hate is by no means unique to the leftist circles. Far more creepy conspiratorial moods rule the Libertarian circles—and the party was founded on the ideas of Jewish economists. Groypers have been aiming for a hostile takeover of the GOP and American Christianity since 2015. Admitting that we have a problem—or that the problem is systemic—is not a sign of weakness. It’s the first step to addressing it.
That said, Ungar-Sargon makes a valid point when she argues that New York City’s antisemitic Democratic Socialist strongholds are concentrated not in working class neighborhoods, but in affluent, champagne-liberal enclaves. The coalition she proposes makes sense. The American working class is interested in preservation of the West—anti-Zionism is not their cause.
An alliance with the Jewish people is in every American’s interest, not only because we share common adversaries in third-worldism, communism, and jihadism. As Ungar-Sargon demonstrates, Jews have long been an integral part of American society—not only because of our contributions, but because of the way our nation has historically understood and defined itself. Her book is ultimately a call to preserve and defend that heritage.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Jews, like other religious groups came here to find liberty and freedom to practice their religion. However, they chose to cling to the Democrats when Democrats were and are hurting our country. I have voted for R,D, and Ind. in my lifetime based on their message not their party but Jews don’t seem to have that attitude. To me the Jewish population appears to be more intelligent than many of my country men but that intelligence evaporates come election time. Why? Don’t they read or hear what their choices are saying and writing? How could any person with an IQ over 80 vote for Harris? I understand the masses and certain groups voting for her but not Jews. What party is now openly anti-Semitic? What party has nominated Muslims and Marxist for the next election? Maybe it i s genetic but for their own survival they had better start paying attention to the platform of their choice.
Jews are, by and large, intelligent. Many are not smart.
Having liberal Jewish friends who vote Democrat no matter what, I can only attribute their political behavior to a sense of guilt and self loathing.
Not quite. The largest wave of Jewish immigration came in the early part of the 20th century and most of those Jews didn’t come for religious freedom, they came for economic opportunity.
There is a reason why that group assimilated so easily, became rapidly irreligious had gentile grandchildren and were deafeningly silent during the Shoah.
They were the least religious Jews in Eastern Europe and came to the states against the advice of the rabbaim ,
Compare that with the refugees and survivors who came 50 years later. The rapidly growing orthodox population are largely the children and grandchildren of the survivors who show little assimilation and vote Trump.
The large number who came in the early 20 th century are the reverse of Spain following the Alhambra decree where the best Jews left and the Slotkin types took communion.
Despite the primary speaker at the Republican Nomination being Holocaust denier/neo-nazi Tucker Carlson (who had already come out as a full scale anti-Semite although the Israel obsession would come a little bit later he had made his stance clear) the rise rise and further rise of Candace Owens (she was not yet the number 1 podcaster but had very clearly exceeded actual conservatives like Ben Shapiro or Ally Beth Stuckey by the 2024 election, and her audience was on the right) and the comedy of unforced errors (i.e. having no idea who Nick Fuentes was and ending up yelling at Kanye West for tricking him) the Jews of PA voted for Trump, as did the Jews of New York.
The 37% poll would if accurate mean districts Trump won at over 90% actually went to him at 70%, the on the ground state data shows the despite major reasons for doubts Jews did by a very large margin start moving over to become Republican voters. Actual election results speak louder than polls.
There are a lot of Jews who absolutely will vote for Rubio but won’t vote for Vance. The reason is of course the flirtation with the groypers Vance can’t stop himself from doing. The fact many of those Groypers are socialists makes the Vance situation worst, add in that it took Vivek Ramaswamy and Ben Shapiro beating him to defending his wife from Nick Fuentes and it makes Vance look atrocious. Normal men will defend their wives immediately not flirt with men who call them racial slurs until it is clear it isn’t happening (Fuentes was the one who rejected Tucker and Vance first which is a disgrace, normal men defend their wives IMMEDIATELY).
The Republican Party is not Donald Trump followed by Donald Trump followed by Donald Trump. Whatever the midterm results Donald Trump is a lame duck president Constitution says and will be politically and in light of his age perhaps even culturally irrelevant in 2029.
Trump has fought anti-Semitism with all his might but there is a lot on the right that rightly scares Jews away. It would be different if a third term was possible and Trump was preparing his re-election campaign but it isn’t.
Tucker Carlson is a socialist who thinks the U.S. Federal Government has been running cover for aliens, and that the saving of tens of millions of Japanese lives by dropping the atomic bomb was an unforgiveable stain on America who is not supporting Republican candidates and is making adopting nazism the terms for him coming back.
If he isn’t expunged the Jews not voting Republican will be the absolute least of the Republican Parties issues.
Clavicular attacking J.D. Vance’ appearance should not have been the straw that broke the camels back for the groyper flirtation because the flirtation never should have happened in the first place.
Glory to Israel and its chosen people.
A pox on their enemies.
I read this twice.
I didn’t see the elephant. It’s a hard elephant to write out of the story.
Jews are a central voting demographic for their own destruction by the left.
It’s hard for me to shammy a CC of pity over any antisemitism rising in the US when one of the biggest voting demographics for the party of antisemites is Jews.
If antisemitism is ascribed as terrible, what label should I apply to Jews voting for it?
They vote like their lives didn’t depend on it. That cushioned blindness has begun to reap antisemitism from those that they saw as oppressed.. it’s so engrained, so “cultural”, that I doubt many will ever see their downfall as self-inflicted.
I wrote the review on the assumption that the reader knows that Jews vote democratic—like I said, Jews and the left is a crowded field—and packed it with details from Unngar-Sargon’s book. I hope it helps the reader to decide to pick up the book.
I voted Dem until a liberal judge took 1500 bucks from me over lies in a divorce.
He didn’t threaten my existence.
He didn’t deny a holocaust.
He didn’t praise a death cult trying to murder me.
He just ordered me to pay 1500 bucks in support that I shouldn’t have had to pay.
Just like that I not only became a Republican, I started getting politically active. When ones own existence and heritage is at stake, I have trouble not kicking dirt in the face of people who vote for their executioner. FFS after centuries of pograms and other atrocities, how a demographic can vote the way they do (aka the Jew flu)- it’s beyond me. As a non-Jew I draw the line on people who won’t own their own well being.
In 2014, I worked with a woman who was from Israel. She served in the military. Her family was having bombs raining down on them. Her position was as it should be. So it’s not like ALL Jews are like this. I just don’t know how after WWII and all that has been happening since, that Darwin can still be thinning the herd.
I think Jews on the left are like the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. They are assimilated and don’t believe anything bad will happen to them. They are wrong.
This explains the present times. It doesn’t explain why the Jews adhered to the left for so many years. I think its because many Jews live in monoculture bubbles. The bubble might be the entertainment, technology, or finance industries, government, or universities. Regardless they only associate with people like themselves who think like themselves. What’s worse these are monocultures of the elite who are really above most day to day concerned of the lower and lower middle class and can afford to virtue signal to make themselves feel better.
A lot of Jews still believe that Hitler was of the “Right” and therefore owe their present existence to the “Left” (Roosevelt and Stalin). These are Jews of the lower class and lower IQs. They have been told by the media, entertainers, and educators that The Donald is a NAZI and being essentially lazy, have not done any research to prove/disprove the disinformation.
Most are sheep: they didn’t move en masse out of eastern Europe during the pogroms; they didn’t leave Europe before Hitler’s thugs, as well as their close friends, the townspeople with whom they did business every day, began rounding them up.
You could say they were just too lazy to read the signs or they just refused to develop a strong sense of self-preservation despite the long written and oral history of anti-Semitism.
You were all talking about reform Jews
Of the three types of Jews in America( reformed, conservative, and orthodox,) it is only the reform who vote democratic and hate guns.
The rest of us are more religious and trend Republican.