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August 13, 1999/1 Elul 5759, Vol. 51, No.45
Stop the presses
Hillary has Jews in her family. Does it matter?
MATTHEW DORF
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
OY VEY!" the New York Post blared across its front page in three-inch letters last week. "Hillary's ALMOST Jewish."
An accompanying column carried the headline, "The First Shiksa wants to be a yenta? Oy!"
New York's supercharged Senate campaign took a distinctly Jewish turn last week when the Forward, a weekly Jewish newspaper, reported that Clinton has some Jews on her family tree. Her step-grandfather was Jewish and her mother's half-sister later converted. The Forward called Clinton's grandmother, Della Rosenberg, "the feisty wife of a Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant" and predicted that the revelation would boost her Senate chances.
But even if Clinton were Jewish, her background would not influence Jewish voters, according to pollsters, analysts and politicians.
"Ethnicity has very little to do with how Jews vote," said John Zogby, president of Zogby International, a New York-based polling firm that has conducted many surveys of Jewish voters.
"Basically those who really viscerally dislike Hillary will add another notch in the column and ask, 'What's she trying to do?' " Zogby said. While those who support her will ignore the issue, he said.
To be sure, Clinton has made courting Jewish voters a central focus of her campaign. One out of every eight voters in New York is Jewish.
According to the Forward, Clinton's maternal grandmother, Della Murray, divorced her husband in 1927 and remarried Max Rosenberg in 1933. Together they had a daughter, Adeline.
But it "means nothing" that Clinton has Jewish relatives, said former New York Mayor Ed Koch. "Jews don't vote, normally, on the basis of ethnicity," he said.
Still, pollsters are watching the Jewish vote carefully. Zogby predicts that the winner of the Jewish vote will win the election.
A compilation of Zogby polls over the last eight months released this week shows New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani leading Clinton, 43.9 percent to 41.8 percent, among Jewish voters. The sample of 678 Jewish voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent, has 14.3 percent undecided.
Among all voters, Giuliani leads Clinton by 46.9 to 41.7 percent, Zogby said.
In 1996, Republican Party leaders supported the candidacy of Dick Zimmer, a New Jersey Republican, in part because he is Jewish. But when the votes were counted, his opponent, Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), received almost 80 percent of the Jewish vote, according to exit polls conducted by Zogby.
New Jersey's other senator, Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat who is Jewish, received less Jewish support than Torricelli did in his last election, polls showed.
With this in mind, Jewish Democrats and Republicans predicted that the revelation that Clinton has Jewish family members will have no impact on Jewish voters.
"People do not vote, by and large, on the basis of whether someone has a Jewish grandparent or not," said Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.
Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, agreed.
"Because someone married someone Jewish three decades ago is not particularly relevant," Brooks said. "You have to earn votes on (the) issues."
Matthew Dorf writes for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from Washington.
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