The GOP's long, fruitless courtship of Jewish voters

And lo, on the third day of December, did the gentiles walk the great desert to seek the favor of the Jews. But it was not to be.

Actually, they didn't have to walk through the desert, though the object of their genuflection — casino magnate and Republican super-donor Sheldon Adelson, who contributed as much as $150 million to their cause in the 2012 election — hails from Las Vegas. But when the Republican Jewish Coalition, the group Adelson controls, held its candidate forum this week, a bunch of them hightailed it to his temporary court set up in Washington to proclaim their love of Israel and all things hebraic.

We didn't quite see Marco Rubio waxing poetic about his bubbe's matzo ball soup — but it wasn't far off. John Kasich told the crowd how as a boy his mother once told him, "If you want a really good friend, find somebody who is Jewish." Ben Carson repeatedly referred to Hamas as "hummus" in his speech. There were multiple pledges to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which must be one of the most frequently unfulfilled promises in American politics. Ted Cruz said he'd cut off funds for any university that supported the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement, which protests Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Displaying his boundless charm and instinct for reading a room, Donald Trump told the audience that he's "a negotiator like you folks."

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Awkward as much of it may have been, I have no doubt that before long a major publication or two will publish think pieces on whether 2016 is the year Jews will abandon Democrats and take their money and votes over to the Republican side. How do I know this? Because it happens every four years.

This is a story of unrequited love, because though Jews don't much care for Republicans, Republicans love Jews, and Israel. In fact, in American politics today there is no more fervent supporter of Israel than a highly conservative, evangelical Republican along the lines of Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann. While there are still some fringe pockets of anti-Semitism among American Christians, as a whole they've swung toward an enthusiastic philo-Semitism. It's no accident that this trend accelerated once conservatives became focused on a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam.

While there are some Jews who find all the love they get from conservative Christians heartwarming, plenty of others find it somewhere between odd and creepy, particularly given the evangelical belief that when Jesus returns, Jews will either have to convert to Christianity or burn for all eternity in the lake of fire. When your average Jew sees Mike Huckabee tweet a photo of himself and the dude from Duck Dynasty hanging out in Israel, they shake their heads and say, "There's just something about that that makes me uncomfortable."

For years, Republicans have hoped that their ever-increasing hawkishness on Israel would win over more Jews, but the trouble was that most Jews have feelings about Israel that are more complex than whether you're "pro-Israel" or not. The Republican brand of "support" for Israel is essentially the adoption of a right-wing, Likudnik position on any question related to the country, and most American Jews have a different perspective on those questions than Republicans do, whether Republicans are dancing the hora and singing "Hatikvah" or not.

Why is that? Because most American Jews are liberals, and that isn't going to change. People have written entire books on why that is, but the result is that for Jews to move significantly into the Republican column, they'd have to overlook the GOP's positions on social issues, economic issues, environmental issues, and most every other kind of issue. And all because the GOP candidates are eager to tell them about "my good friend Bibi Netanyahu"? Not gonna happen.

And it isn't just issues. Most American Jews are exactly the kind of cosmopolitan coastal dwellers on whom conservatives have spent so much time in recent years pouring their contempt. It isn't lost on Jews when Republicans extol the residents of small towns in the heartland as the "real" Americans, the ones brimming with genuine virtues, whose hearts beat to the rhythm of country music and who couldn't care a lick for what a bunch of overeducated urban elitists think. Like every minority group, Jews know exactly what it's like to be judged not quite as American as the members of the majority, and even if they experience only a fraction of the discrimination they once did, they empathize with those the GOP turns its gaze of suspicion on today, whether it's Hispanics or Muslims or anyone else.

For a couple of decades now, the Republican Jewish Coalition has been predicting that American Jews are just about to swing to the right and rush to the outstretched arms of the Republican Party. They're going to have to keep waiting.

Editor's note: A previous version of this article misstated the location of the meeting. It has since been corrected. We regret the error.