MARGINALITY AND LIBERALISM AMONG JEWISH ELITES

Abstract

Although much has been written about the Jewish proclivity toward liberalism, little has been written about elites who are Jewish. This article extensively compares American elites, both Jewish and non-Jewish, on a wide variety of social, economic, and political attitudes. Jewish elites are found to be consistently more liberal than their non-Jewish counterparts on four different measures of liberalism. We find small differences between religiously liberal and religiously conservative Jews. The differences between Jewish and non-Jewish elites persisted after controlling for a number of background variables including current occupation. These results are explained as a result of Jewish socialization into a tradition of marginality which has persisted despite changing conditions. This conclusion is supported by showing that parental ideology can partially predict respondents' ideological views.