The Democratic party has been plunged into turmoil over an email focusing on, of all things, whether or not Bernie Sanders believes in God. It’s a remarkable turn of events, considering that Sanders has tried so hard to avoid talking about that very subject.
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz has been forced to resign and Sanders supporters are threatening to disrupt this week’s Democratic convention, following the release of embarrassing internal party emails by the Wikileaks hackers.
The most widely-cited of the emails, authored by the Democratic National Committee’s chief financial office, Brad Marshall, argued that it would help Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign if questions were raised concerning Sanders’ religious views. The Marshall email has been widely denounced as offensive, inappropriate, and even antisemitic. Marshall himself has apologized. But was the core of his argument really incorrect?
Writing to the party’s communications director shortly before the West Virginia and Kentucky presidential primaries, Marshall suggested: “It might ma[ke] no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”
The fact that there would be such interest in Sanders’ religious views is ironic, since Sanders himself has always downplayed his Jewish identity. When asked about his Jewish background and his religious beliefs, Sanders has given evasive answers, although he never declared himself an atheist (and in response to the current controversy, he has specifically denied that he is an atheist).
For example, in an interview with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel last October, Sanders was asked, “Do you believe in God?” and replied: “Well, you know, I am who I am. And what I believe in and what my spirituality is about is that we’re all in this together. That I think it is not a good thing to believe that, as human beings, we can turn our backs on the suffering of other people.” Similarly, in a Washington Post profile in January, Sanders was quoted as saying, “I think everyone believes in God in their own ways. To me, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together.”
What Brad Marshall evidently meant was that evangelical voters would not be troubled by the fact that Sanders is Jewish, but might turn against him if they believed he is an atheist. Available polling data seems to support that assessment.
The Pew Research Center’s most recent comprehensive survey of American religious groups’ attitudes toward other religions (undertaken in 2014) found that white Protestant evangelicals feel more positively toward Jews than toward members of any other religious group. Pew ranked attitudes on a “feelings thermometer” of zero to 100, with zero being the most negative. Evangelicals gave Jews the highest score, 69, and atheists the lowest, 25—even lower than Muslims, who received a 30.
Those sentiments are not reciprocated, however. In the same Pew study, Jews gave their lowest score, 34, to evangelicals. In an earlier poll, taken in 2012 by the Public Religion Research Institute, Jews likewise gave the “Christian Right” their lowest rating, 20.9 out of 100.
Which religious groups received the highest scores among American Jews? Buddhists, at 61 out of 100, with Hindus (58) and atheists (55) not far behind.
Why do Jews and evangelicals view each other so differently? One clue may be found in the lead editorial of last week’s issue of the Forward, a left-leaning U.S. Jewish weekly. Editor-in-chief Jane Eisner argued that “the real explanation for white evangelical support for Donald Trump” may be that “the guy who’s been in the White House for the past seven years is the wrong color.” It is not clear what evidence exists to support Eisner’s assumption, but there is no doubt some American Jews do continue to perceive evangelicals as bigoted and backward.
The late Arthur Hertzberg—historian, Conservative rabbi, and World Jewish Congress official—regarded such assumptions among Jews as the key to understanding why most Jews vote Democrat in presidential elections. Writing on the op-ed page of the New York Times in 1984, Hertzberg argued that for many American Jews, politics ultimately “is about how to avoid expulsions and pogroms.” From “Tevye, the water carrier, [to] Rothschild, the banker,” Jews believe that for the Jewish people, politics is “about life and death.” Most Jews perceive the Democrats as the party of tolerance, whereas they tend to see evangelicals (and Republicans in general) as advocates of a ‘Christianized’ America—and maybe worse.
Hertzberg’s “voting against pogroms” hypothesis helps explain why Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists fare so well in the minds of American Jews: those groups don’t seem very threatening. By contrast, many Jews perceive evangelicals as a pretty scary bunch. Whether those assumptions are based on empirical evidence, or simply on outmoded stereotypes, merits further consideration.
Rafael Medoff, Ph.D., is the author of 16 books about Jewish history.
