Tel-Chai Nation

Before the presidential election took place this year, there was some pretty eyebrow-raising news about what Orthodox Jewish communities Hillary Clinton could definitely rely upon, and it's ultra-Orthodox clans like the Skver, and Satmar:

Back in 2000, when she was running to represent New York in the Senate, Hillary Clinton benefited from the almost unanimous vote of one small Jewish hassidic village in Rockland County called New Square.

This week, running for president, Clinton is once again expected to be the favorite of New Square – a town comprised mostly of Skver Hassidim – whose loyalty runs counter to the prevailing trend of the American Jewish community. While overall support among American Jews traditionally leans Democratic in presidential elections, polls have shown that when it comes to Orthodox voters, the tendency is reversed.

According to the famous 2013 Pew Research Center study on American Jewry, 57% of Orthodox Jewish voters are Republican or lean Republican, and only 36% are Democrats or lean Democratic.

More recently, an American Jewish Committee survey published in September showed 50% of Orthodox respondents prefer Donald Trump, and only 21% side with Clinton.

CEO of the public affairs consulting firm The Friedlander Group, Ezra Friedlander, an Orthodox Jew himself who has accompanied many presidential candidates in visits to the community this year, is familiar with the community in New Square.

A day before the election, Friedlander told The Jerusalem Post that he believes the local Skver hassidic community, like the Satmar Hassidim who have already endorsed her, will cast its vote for Clinton because of their long-time ties.

“The hassidic community has a relationship with Hillary Clinton,” he said.

Indeed they do. And it's because she saw to it they'd get all the socialist welfare support they wanted, rather than work for self-support. Something which The Forward had more about:

[...] In recent days, leaders of the Satmar Hasidim in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the Skver Hasidim in Rockland County, New York, have endorsed Clinton.

The Satmar and the Skver are among the most socially conservative and religiously observant Jewish groups in the United States. So why are they backing Hillary Clinton?

“It’s relationships,” said David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, and perhaps the Jewish establishment’s leading expert on the byzantine politics of New York City’s ultra-Orthodox communities.

Those relationships run deep. The Satmar community in Williamsburg has been exceptionally successful over decades building ties to elected officials at all levels of government.

Their top criteria for which candidate to back? “They’re going to vote for the winner,” Pollock said.

Except that, as seen this past week, they didn't. But, here's the answer why they'd support Clinton coming up:

That’s because the Williamsburg Jewish community, in particular, needs friends in government. The neighborhood is poor, and relies on government programs for housing and healthcare. So they tend to back Democrats, both because Democrats usually win in New York, and because Democrats support the social programs that they need. Since Jewish institutions play an outsized role in the lives of Hasidic Jews, endorsements from communal leaders carry an unusual amount of weight. For politicians, these bloc votes are attractive. “Williamsburg is one of the few places in American where politicians can attract votes wholesale, not retail,” Pollock said.

Sometimes these relationships are nakedly transactional. The Skver, for example, voted almost unanimously for Hillary Clinton during first race for Senate in New York in 2000. Weeks later, Bill Clinton shortened the sentences four Skver men convicted of defrauding the federal government. A federal investigation of the Skver commutations ended without any charges filed in 2002.

See that? To date, they've relied 99 percent upon the Democrats for welfare-type programs to subsist upon, and wouldn't get jobs that could help them pay their bills by themselves. I hope Trump doesn't cozy up to these phonies and their MO. The Satmar and Skver's socialist lifestyle has only made things worse for several areas where they live, since the tax dollars of the neighborhoods they're living around have only ended up going to waste. There's no need to win favor from the two clans, because their whole structure runs counter to what the USA was built upon.

And there you have examples of the "Orthodox" sects Democrats like the Clintons could rely upon, till now.

Labels: haredi corruption, Moonbattery, New York, political corruption, United States, US Congress