Two of five American Jews were touched by Madoff scandal

J Street has a new poll out on American Jewish attitudes that has some fascinating wrinkles re Middle East policy. Including the fact that 60 percent of American Jews oppose the settlements in the West Bank. And that 32 percent say that their "personal connection" to Israel would be "weakened" if Avigdor Lieberman assumes Cabinet position. "I was surprised by this result," says Jim Gerstein, who did the poll, saying that it shows the remarkable effect that a single individual could have on Jewish opinion. And the number goes to 40 percent for Jews under 30!

But here's the headline. The poll shows that 39 percent of American Jews had some degree of Madoff connection. 2 percent say they were personally affected. 17 percent know someone who was affected. 28 percent say: an organization I support has been affected. I'm in that group; some leftleaning orgs were affected. (Why do the numbers add up to 47? Because there's overlap of the three groups.)
I'll have more on the Middle East data later...

Posted by Philip Weiss at 02:29 PM in Financial meltdown, Religion, Settlers/Colonists, U.S. Policy in the Mideast | Permalink ShareThis