Why one-issue voting is a sin - The Jewish Standard

Apparently, I did it again. In my October 29 pre-election column, I upset some of my persistent critics on the Jewish right by putting my “leftist liberal” opinions ahead of Jewish communal interests. Apparently, I also completely distorted Jewish law.

My critics agreed that we Jews do have a religious requirement to vote, and that our votes had to be “informed” ones, but not for the “leftist liberal” reason I cited, which was that halachah imposes on us “a religious and ethical responsibility…to pursue justice, protect human dignity, and to seek the welfare of the larger society.”

The “only” reason we are religiously required to vote, I was told, was to protect Jewish interests here and, even more important, in the State of Israel. Let the non-Jews out there worry about “the welfare of the larger society.”

In last week’s election, one critic said, we Jews “should have voted for Republicans down the line.” (The Jewish vote was 68 percent Democratic.) I hear such things every election year from the Jewish right because of the belief that Republicans are the only true friends of Israel, even though the record says otherwise. The three most telling examples are these:

• During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir had to practically beg Henry Kissinger to get Richard Nixon to lift his embargo of military supplies to Israel, which it desperately needed to win that war.

• While Ronald Reagan did much to advance the U.S.-Israel relationship, in 1981 he condemned Israel’s airstrike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor, and its annexation of the Golan Heights. (He punished Israel for that by putting on hold all strategic cooperation with Israel, and the delivery of F-16 fighter jets.) He also proposed an $8.5 billion arms package to sell five AWACS surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia over Israel’s strong objections. In 1982, he condemned Israel’s bombing of Beirut during its invasion of Lebanon, which was meant to oust the PLO and end its frequent murderous incursions into Northern Israel. In 1988, he gave the PLO the legitimacy it craved when he opened an official U.S. dialogue with the PLO.

• On September 11, 1991, George H.W. Bush asked Congress to hold up $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees Israel needed to help absorb the massive influx of Jewish immigrants coming from the collapsing Soviet Union. It was his way of trying to force Israel into ending building settlements in disputed territory. On September 12, during a televised press conference, he accused Jews — although he avoided using that word — of sending “something like a thousand lobbyists” up to Capitol Hil to defeat the “one lonely little guy down here,” meaning himself.

This year, the “vote Republican” crowd doubled down on its message because, if given the chance, “the anti-Israel Democratic left” would cut U.S. aid to Israel and would end the special relationship between the two countries.

These people should be careful what they wish for. On Election Day morning, it was President Trump who announced an end to the annual $3.8 billion in foreign aid that the U.S. sends to Israel. And on the next day, it was Vice President JD Vance who posted on X that the GOP’s “relationship to Israel” had to change because that relationship was a big factor in the Republicans’ devastating defeat. (Trump said as much during his “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday.)

The timing of Trump’s aid-ending announcement is significant. He was trying to win back many of the 30 percent of GOP voters who had been swayed by the Democratic left’s arguments opposing U.S. aid to Israel. He made his announcement shortly after 8 a.m. EST-5 a.m. PST, during a 45-minute interview on “Fox & Friends,” in order to reach as many of those Republican voters as he could before they headed to the polls.

Trump told his Fox audience that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the aid cut-off, but it took Bibi three days to confirm that. Bibi’s timing, too, is significant. It came just one day after opposition parties had officially secured enough support in the next Knesset to try to oust him as prime minister. He obviously did not want Trump’s announcement to interfere with his efforts to prevent them from doing so.

In a social media post, Bibi actually wrote that he agreed with Trump that Israel no longer needed that $3.8 billion. Really? That’s certainly not the opinion we’re hearing from security experts in Israel.

For example, retired Maj.-Gen. Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, said Trump’s announcement was “an unexpected blow” that will cause “a great deal of damage.” Among other things, he said, Israel would have to take that $3.8 billion out of its budget to pay for already signed defense contracts and vital defense-related research programs. That money can come only from funds needed for education, health care, food-insecurity issues, and from both infrastructure and security needs.

That is one reason why Trump’s statement was described as “a five-alarm fire” by Dr. Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv University-affiliated Institute for National Security Studies. It is also why Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he was “very worried about” Trump’s announcement, which he said hit him “like a bolt from the blue.”

My critics either are unaware of all this or are unconcerned by it. One critic said shame on me for dissuading Jews from voting for the GOP by suggesting that we had a broader halachic mandate. (I did not know I had such power.)

My response: “Shame on you for believing that we are ‘one-issue voters,’” a charge we often hear from the Jew-hating far right. “And shame on you for being the one who completely distorts Jewish law.”

Jewish law’s concern for issues involving the welfare of society at large began with Moses. He insisted that only the governed had the right to choose who should govern them, and that their choices had to be based on the principle of “tzedek, tzedek tirdof,” “justice, justice shall you pursue.” (See Deuteronomy 16:1-20.) By doubling the word tzedek, Moses was telling us that choosing our leaders was not enough. We also had to approve the actions they would take, and that those actions had to be based on every sense of the word tzedek, meaning justice that is fair, righteous, charitable, equal, equitable, honest, and moral.

The example cited in the Babylonian Talmud tractate B’rachot 55a supports this understanding. It had nothing to do with choosing a leader. It was about approving the leader’s appointment of someone to oversee the construction of the Mishkan, the portable Tabernacle — the “leader” in this case being God.

As the prophet Jeremiah made clear, Moses’ command extends to all Jews everywhere, including to us today. He quoted God as commanding all of us who live in exile not only to pray on behalf of the places in which we live, but also to “seek the welfare” of those places, because our welfare is inextricably linked to everyone else’s welfare. Jeremiah did not say, however, that we Jews had to concern ourselves only with issues affecting our own communal interests. (See Jeremiah 29:7ff.)

The exiles in Jeremiah’s day could not help choosing the people who would lead them or what their policies should be, but neither could their non-Jewish neighbors make those choices.

We live in a modern democratic society. We and every other qualified citizen have the right to help choose our leaders. Moses’ principles, therefore, require that along with the right to vote comes the obligation to vote, and to do so based on the broad criteria invoked by the word tzedek.

As our modern halachic authorities have noted — often quite bluntly — voting is the most direct means through which we can fulfill God’s command to “seek the city’s welfare.”

Beginning with the “Torah of Moses,” “Torat Moshe,” halachah rejects “one-issue” voting in every sense but one: when an issue on the ballot is purposely aimed directly at us, or when a proven antisemite is running for office. Torah law is not a suicide pact.

We are as much a part of the world at large as we are a part of our narrower Jewish world. The social and economic issues that concern our neighbors concern us, as well. We are forbidden — forbidden — to ignore issues involving poverty, hunger, health care, education, taxation, the justice system, the equality of men and women in the workplace and everywhere else, and so much more.

The Torah laid the groundwork for this mandate when it commanded us in Leviticus 19:16 to “not stand idly by the blood of your fellow.” Our Sages of Blessed Memory explained that this commandment had to be viewed in the broadest sense possible. This includes, but is not limited to, assisting all people who are poor, visiting all people who are ill, and assisting in burying anyone who has died. (See, for example, BT Gittin 61a and BT Sanhedrin 73a.)

The halachic decisors who came after our Sages also have ruled that way.

We do not always have to agree on how to vote, but we must respect the informed decisions each of us makes, and our votes must be based on fulfilling the requirements of “do not stand idly by” and “tzedek, tzedek tirdof.”

That is not “leftist liberal,” It is black-letter Jewish law.

Shammai Engelmayer is a rabbi-emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades and an adult education teacher in Bergen County. He is the author of eight books and the winner of 10 awards for his commentaries. His website is www.shammai.org

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