Walzer, Kristol discuss Jewish political trends
In a lecture titled ?Should Jews Be Democrats or Republicans?? both participants declined to answer the question.But the two speakers ? William Kristol, the founder of the political magazine The Weekly Standard and a columnist for The New York Times, and Michael Walzer, a political philosopher and a professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study ? did share their views on Jewish political thought, with Walzer approaching the subject from a historical perspective and Kristol tackling Jewish Americans? foreign policy concerns.?The near left is where Jews should put themselves, [it] is where they belong,? Walzer said, noting that Jews have historically aligned with the political left as a result of having experienced hostility and persecution.?Self-knowledge as well as self-interest led us to defend ? civil rights and religious toleration,? Walzer said, adding that the Jews are ?probably the strongest supporters of a liberal, open society.?He noted that 78 percent of the Jewish community voted for President-elect Barack Obama.Walzer cited the history of Jewish immigration to America to explain Jewish support for the welfare state in spite of their material interests.In 1652, Jews migrated from Brazil to New Amsterdam ? as New York was known before British rule ? where they promised the colonial governor that they would care for their own poor, he said.