When I was a PhD student, many moons ago, I shared an office space at the university with other doctoral students. Most of them came from fields far from my own. My nearest neighbour was a doctoral student in political science. Her desk was full of books on this subject. As far as I know, she was never interested in my books (and I do not blame her), but I had keen interest in hers. They were magical. I read them in secret, when she was not in. One day, after she left, I opened one of them and read a sentence of arresting elegance: “The heart of politics is the struggle for survival”. Amazing-I thought. That is how something incomprehensibly complex is made simple and within anyone’s grasp. Back to the basic properties….
The text went on to develop the argument that politics is human activity essentially dedicated to dividing up the scarce resources. Which resources specifically? Depends on what is scarce in any given time and place…Could be anything: food, water, tools. And when one type of scarcity is resolved, another type of scarcity may arise. Eventually, as the humanity becomes prosperous and safe, its politics moves away from the material matters and so it becomes easy to overlook what it is about in essence.
Why this introduction? To explain the kind of research that will eventually appear in this section. Two domains of Jewish politics (as in: Jewish struggle for survival) will be covered. First, how Jews are seen by non-Jews surrounding them – in negative, positive or neutral terms? (This is often cast as ‘research on antisemitism’). And second, how Jews see their own good? (In translation: ‘How do Jews vote?’ and ‘Who do they align themselves with?’). Understanding of both domains has been revolutionized by the arrival of computers and the internet, making surveys easy to conduct and data of all types easy to collect, store and analyze. I’ve clocked over a decade working on these topics. Some of it, not a lot, is shared on this site. Come and check on this section from time to time, I plan to expand it significantly.