exactly why they remain polarized.
According to a new report released by Nishma Research, a sociology research firm focusing on the Jewish community, there’s a reason why: a vast difference in priorities between Democratic and Republican Jews. Nishma surveyed 449 members of the Orthodox community and asked Trump voters and Biden voters how important 35 issues were in their decision. Participants ranked issues as “not so important,” “somewhat important,” “quite important” and “my most critical factors.”
When it came to issues voters saw as “most critical” in their choice of candidate, Trump supporters appeared to prioritize foreign policy: 80% of Trump voters cited Israel as “most critical,” whereas only 29% of Biden voters did; similarly, 57% of Trump voters cited Iran as a “most critical factor,” but only 8% of Biden voters did so.
Who did I depend on when telling the story of Israel
the place and the people in this extraordinary year? Who stood invisibly behind me, whispering a fresh insight, an incisive analysis, an unforgettable story, while I taught on distance learning platforms? Each of the gifted men and women listed below, who were invaluable in my work of bringing Israel and the global Jewish people to the scores of classrooms we reached virtually in 2020.
But there is another audience they impacted, an audience of one. Me.
In a year when travel to Israel was all but impossible, their work sustained me on the days I needed it the most.
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Rabbanit Jenna Englender dances with the Torah during her graduation ceremony from Yeshivat Maharat in New York, June 17, 2019. (Shulamit Seidler-Feller/Maharat/via JTA)
JTA When Danielle Kranjec committed to using only Jewish texts written by women and queer people in the classes she taught for Hillel International’s Springboard Fellowship, a program that places recent college graduates in positions at college campus Hillels across the country, she knew she was taking on a challenging task.
After all, for most of Jewish history, women weren’t encouraged to take on religious leadership roles or write commentaries on the Torah or Talmud.
The Last Taboo: On Male Vulnerability and Women Reading Talmud tikkun.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tikkun.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
When Danielle Kranjec committed to using only Jewish texts written by women and queer people in the classes she taught for Hillel International’s Springboard Fellowship, a program that places recent college graduates in positions at college campus Hillels across the country, she knew she was taking on a challenging task.
After all, for most of Jewish history, women weren’t encouraged to take on religious leadership roles or write commentaries on the Torah or Talmud.
But Kranjec knew that elevating the work of women would be worth the effort, both because doing so would communicate the value of women’s insights to her students and she believes the mismatch between the diversity of the people teaching Torah today and the sources they teach had grown too great. Also, as a Jewish educator and trained historian, she knew there were a plethora of texts that might not be considered “Torah” in the traditional sense but could serve as rich source material.