Progressives allied with Jews and gave them their first entry into the upper echelons of American political power. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican progressive, appointed Oscar Straus as his Secretary of Commerce and Labor. In the next decade Democrat progressive Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis Brandeis as the first Jewish Supreme Court justice and gave support when Brandeis emerged as a Zionist leader.

Wilson also appointed Henry Morgenthau as ambassador to Turkey, where he reported on the genocide of the Armenians; and he appointed Bernard Baruch as the head of the War Industries Board to mobilize American industry for victory in World War I.

FDR appointed several Jewish justices to SCOTUS and installed Morgenthau’s son, Henry, Jr., as his Secretary of the Treasury. More recently, the Dems selected Joe Lieberman as the first Jew on a major party ticket, and Chuck Schumer (D- NY) became the first Jewish Senate Majority Leader.

The large majority of American Jews have stayed with the progressive Democrats through the years. It is a tradition, and in a time when older tradition fades, this one has been long resistant to fading. Even FDR’s utterly inadequate response to the Holocaust didn’t seem to diminish the adulation they offered FDR uncritically. (READ MORE: Don’t Let Evil Don the Cloak of Religion)

But the tendency of calculating (rather than principled) politicians is to treat such loyalty with contempt. They turn to woo other groups, feeling the loyal group is in their pocket and will stay with her man despite abuse. The Jews are only one such group. Just ask some other erstwhile favorites who were pushed away by the newest group, the massive wave of illegal immigrants, from services and cash that had been devoted formerly to their needs.

The love might have gone on forever. Even Barak Obama’s public humiliation of Netanyahu, his sidelining of Israel, and his all-out wooing of Iran: as much as it enraged former supporter Alan Dershowitz, didn’t seem to dent Jewish loyalties to the Dems. More seemed to temporize or compromise or apologize about Democrats’ now less-fashionable commitment to Israel than to stray off Maggie’s farm.

But the stunning bestiality of Hamas’ October 7 rampage of extermination, torture, rape, and abduction coupled with the massive, violent demonstrations in favor of the practitioners of atrocity broke through the status quo for a significant number.

The questions started to form in formerly unquestioning minds: Isn’t Hamas on record saying they will do this again and again? Weren’t the Hamas demonstrators taking over the Ivy League campuses screaming for a ceasefire weeks before Israel had begun any operation in Gaza? Aren’t Jews being chased around and hounded on college campuses with no pushback by campus administrations and not even a threat of government action under the civil rights violations that were taking place serially? 

One question leads to another. Now, people are watching each step, are aware that the Democrats have a Hamas Caucus that gives voice to full-throated antisemitism and that is taken very seriously indeed by the party leadership.

The Last Straw for Jews?

In the choice of Tim Walz for VP may be final confirmation of what has happened to the party that once welcomed Jews in and empowered them. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has commanded national attention. Immensely popular in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, he is intelligent, reasonable, and well-spoken. He is young and full of drive. With Pennsylvania a must-win swing state, and with the need to camouflage the shallowness of Kamala, her addiction to cliches and tautology, choosing Shapiro would have made eminent sense.

But sense is not what today’s Dem leadership specializes in. It is identity group politics, and in their calculus, a Jew, especially a Jew who has a deep Jewish education and a deep and public commitment to Israel, could not be allowed on their ticket. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Has Harris Undergone Real Change or Just Rebranding?)

Shapiro failed the religious test, forbidden by the Constitution, but just fine this year with Kamala and the Dem bosses who appointed her and at whose pleasure she will serve.

Just as Tim Walz hoped by temporizing and dilly-dallying, the riots in Minnesota would just go away, so too the Dem bosses hope that by applying the Hamas veto to Shapiro’s candidacy, they will escape the violence of the Hamas mobs at the convention.

Even more than the 2020 Antifa and BLM™ rioters, the Hamas wing knows when there is blood in the water. Violence and chaos have got them where they are today, and they are going to stay with the one that brought them to the party.

But for many (formerly blue Jews), this may be the last walz.