InDepth

Before concluding our series on Jewish voting habits in next week's Monitor, we devote this week's installment to some of the more colorful responses we've received from die-hard Democrats. Wear your helmets.

The idea that history could repeat itself, which underlies many experts warnings about complacency in the face of the probability of new terrorist attacks, was strongly stressed by Prof. Rubin in his remarks.

Having been elected three times as mayor of the City of New York, I have been the beneficiary of this country's generosity and freedom from bigotry, and I will be eternally grateful.

It is impossible to understand politics in the world today without grasping the fundamental fact that there exist two different Lefts. I propose that the two be referred to by everyone as the Stupid Left and the Satanic Left.

Al Gore's surprise choice in August 2000 of Joseph Lieberman as his running mate electrified American Jews, and seemed to foreclose any possibility that George W. Bush would even approach the poor numbers put up among Jewish voters by his father in 1992 (15 percent) and Bob Dole in 1996 (16 percent).

I'm sure G-d appreciates being used as a political football.

The simple son at least makes an attempt to understand what is going on by asking for an explanation from the people in the know.

Refining Ran Cohen's recent lament that the settlers are despicable and responsible for the Hebron Massacre Haifa Mayor and Labor party leader Amram Mitzna has unequivocally declared that the solution is finally at hand.

But no one's running away. The Likud party primary didn't get canceled or delayed.

There is every reason to believe that had Bill Clinton been on the ballot in the 2000 presidential election, American Jews would have voted in overwhelming numbers to return him to office for a third term.

How can we expect the world's outrage against Israeli terrorism when Israel's own officials place the blame on the victims?

The tension was unbearable because it was already Shabbat in Israel which prevented me from communicating with our people there.

The responses brought into focus the changes that have taken place among liberal intellectuals over the past three decades.

What better examples could there be for a community?

Jewish voters gave Bill Clinton 78 percent of their votes in 1992 and again in 1996 - at the time the best showing by a presidential candidate among Jews since Hubert Humphrey won 81 percent of the Jewish vote in 1968 - and their love for Clinton never dimmed during the course of his tumultuous presidency.

Irv's voice was only on a few of the tapes and, according to his lawyers, he said nothing that could be construed as conspiring to perform a criminal act.

Hypothetically, if Canada sent suicide bombers into America to wantonly kill people, would the brains of Jewish university professors calcify enough to justify it? We doubt it.

I'll admit that Israel hasn't been too smart in dealing with Arafat.

Fu Manchu did the unexpected and populated his environment with more creatures of death than Indiana Jones had to face in their natural environment.

Most American Jews are orthodox. No, that's not a misprint, nor is it a sign that I've taken leave of my senses. In fact, the bulk of American Jewry is very orthodox. The problem is, they're very orthodox in their liberalism, not their Judaism -- and therein lies the answer to all the costly studies, surveys and polls commissioned by Jewish organizations in their never-ending quest to understand why Jews are assimilating themselves out of existence.

The 1988 presidential election - unlike those of, say, 1972 and 1980 - was notable for its lack of sharp differentiation between the Republican and Democratic nominees on the issue of Israel and the Middle East.

They kissed their grandparents goodbye and then turned to me and, one by one by one, fell upon my shoulder crying out and thanking me for being there.

Why did the Orthodox rav agree to violate the decree of all the great roshei yeshiva and enter into this dialogue, giving Reform a platform to spew its blasphemy and disdain for Torah observant Jews?

The great 19th century thinker Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch sees this Torah mandate as reaching beyond the letter of the law to underscore a fundamental axiom in religious life.

A majority of American Jewish voters had deserted Jimmy Carter in 1980, leading to speculation that the Jewish community perhaps was moving away from its longtime loyalty to the Democratic party and rendering obsolete Milton Himmelfarb's famous observation that "Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans."

Then they sue for peace, issue poor-me hand-wringing pleas for international help, and use the lull in the battle to regroup, re-arm and plot their next assault.

The fact that these groups are unwilling to reconsider this strategy despite all the contrary evidence only shows that peace never was their prime goal in the first place.

I wish it were just apocryphal that families, rabbis, doctors, and friends are asked the most intrusive, inappropriate, and invasive questions by shadchanim or other agents about the young man or woman.

The 1980 presidential election, like the Nixon-McGovern matchup eight years earlier, offered a clear choice between a Republican candidate who was unambiguous in his support of Israel and a Democrat whose record was something less than sterling. Only this time, the pro-Israel candidate was the challenger, former California governor Ronald Reagan, while the more problematic candidate was the incumbent, James Earl Carter.

Is this the level of opposition that was mandated by our Gedolim of yesteryear?