Jewish voters torn in New York

NEW YORK — The notion that New York's Jewish electorate can be easily characterized has long been debated. But Tuesday's looming primary election is raising new speculation about how strongly Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama will appeal to Jewish Democrats.

"I don't speak for the Jewish community," said former Mayor Edward Koch, "and nobody speaks for the Jewish community. The Jews, individually, speak for themselves."

And though these days he himself is speaking up for Clinton, Koch acknowledges that "lots of people — Jews and others — will be voting for Barack."

The situation is "almost an embarrassment of riches for the Jewish voter," said Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

"Perhaps there is a certain amount of distress that they have to choose between the two," Hirsch said, "because they are both enormously appealing to the Jewish community."

Sid Davidoff, a lobbyist who has been involved in New York government and politics since the 1960s, said: "I think there is going to be a split between established older voters in the Jewish community, with whom Hillary will do well, and younger and more liberal Jews who see Obama as an agent of change."

Although it might be expected that Clinton will win the support of more voters, including Jewish voters, in the state she represents, even the slightest shift in Jewish support is a subject of interest.

For example, some local blogs claimed recently that City Councilman Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, an Orthodox Jew, had switched his support from Clinton to Obama, of Illinois. According to Eric Kuo, a spokesman for the councilman, Felder has not campaigned for either candidate but said, during a radio program Tuesday night, that he would be voting for Obama.

An important reason for such intense scrutiny is that "the Jewish community tends to vote, and make contributions, far in excess of its proportion of the population," said Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of Jewish Week, the nation's largest Jewish weekly.

Exit polls from the 2006 New York governor's race showed 87 percent of the Jewish population voting Democratic and 12 percent voting Republican; in the 2004 election, exit polls indicated 8 percent of the New York state vote was Jewish.

Fully 83 percent of voting-age Jews were registered to vote in New York City and suburban Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester Counties, according to a report done in 2002 by the UJA-Federation of New York, a Jewish charity.

"Generally speaking, I am suspicious of all politicians on the Jewish issue," said Marvin Kitman, a media critic for the Web site The Huffington Post. "The basic question we of the Hebrew persuasion tend to ask on all issues, whether it is the Giants in the Super Bowl, or Amy Winehouse, or global warming, is: Is it good or bad for the Jews?"