Every Friday, Bronx Science students meet the familiar faces of the Orthodox Jewish community that populate the cross street with tents, pamphlets, and occasionally baked goods for an upcoming Jewish holiday. Most interactions begin and end with a familiar inquiry on the status of a student’s Jewish faith; the question is posed and evidently met with silence, ending the conversation as quickly as it began. But for those brave enough to answer, a dense bundle of engagement unfolds, sometimes resulting in the student officially being marked as an adult entering into the Jewish world, supercharging the typical mitzvah and replacing it with a quicker process that maintains some of the easier religious rites of passage.

Promptly after World War II, Hasidic communities all across Europe began a mass exodus to the United States. Left vulnerable by nearly a decade under threat of the Nazi Regime and their axis allies, Jewish localities uprooted themselves and moved en masse, arriving in areas such as the young nation state, Israel, or often, the New York metropolitan area. A former leader in the community, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, emigrated from Eastern Europe, settling safely in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Religious leaders argued that the new domain could become a “kingdom of grace,” said David N. Myers, a history professor at UCLA. 

That “Kingdom of Grace” for a vast majority of the migrating Jewish population was Brooklyn; Jewish schools or Yeshivas, Synagogues, and markets all dotted the streets of Crown Heights and Borough Park, filling up to 25% of the neighborhood’s population. As Jewish communities began filling in the empty spaces, political organization quickly followed. Jewish Leaders sought benefits — housing and other subsidies — and quickly realized that they needed to understand how to navigate the political system, concluding that “that this was the American way and they needed to do so in order to preserve their communities,” Myers said.

The learning curve proved ineffective in stopping political mobilization as Jewish leaders began clamoring for benefits. Notably, close relationships with New York City mayors and other leaders helped spur action. It began with Robert F. Wagner and his respective three terms as mayor of New York City. Wagner, a liberal stalwart in his 11 years in office, established the right to collective bargaining for city employees, beginning the City-University system, eliminating the right to discriminate based on race and gender in housing, and bringing the Mets to New York after the Giants and Dodgers left the state. Importantly, he also began a tradition of political ascension for Jewish leaders and their voices in the city.

Breaking with other vocal liberal perspectives, Wagner refused to throw a ticker tape parade for King Saud, the Saudi Arabian Prime Minister at the time, when President Eisenhower invited him to New York City to resolve the Suez Crisis. Wagner argued that Saud had shown himself to be both anti-semitic and an autocrat; on those grounds, Wagner refused to even formally greet him. The bonds Hasidic communities had cultivated in just ten years of being in New York Cityhad begun to pay off, and with the sliver of opportunity given to them, they built off the shaky foundations.

In 1991, the city came face to face with the Crown Heights Riots. Caused, in part, by an accident response gone wrong, the riots brought unseen violence to Brooklyn. When ambulances arrived to a skidding station wagon driven by a Yosef Litsh, they were met by two children pinned by the car. While accounts of the scene differ in timelines, the prevailing claim is that police called a private ambulance service to escort Litsh off the scene while the two children struggled under the weight of the car. Ultimately the seemingly disparate treatment resulted in one of the children, Gavin Cato, succumbing to his wounds at Kings County Hospital. That same night riots broke out, beginning with the arbitrary murder of Yankel Rosembaum. For the next three days, protestors rioted against their Jewish neighbors, arguing that the local police force and government of the borough had allowed this to happen. As the riots raged on, Hasidic leaders in the borough worked with the same local government to ensure protection and safety. 

The violence left scars that ultimately resulted in the Hasidic communities of Brooklyn and the larger New York City area backing a young Rudy Giulliani for mayor, delivering him a narrow victory against David Dinkins in 1993. Dinkins came to be marked as a pro-Black nationalist with the rioters as Giulliani dubbed himself as protector of law and order. Mainstream development solidified Orthodox Jewish Americans as a definitively substantial voting bloc not readily forgotten. 75% of that bloc remains aligned with the Republican Party, a percentile in sharp contrast with the 70% of net Jewish Americans who identify closely with the Democratic Party. The contradictory nature of their voting patterns coincides with key voting issues for the Orthodox group. Israel creates thousands of one issue voters while pandemic restrictions on religious gathering and education, pushed largely by Democrats in the house, forced out more voters on top of the already fleeing assembly.

Notably, Trump was able to carry 24 and 30% of the total Jewish vote in 2016 and 2020 respectively, the highest numbers Republicans have hit since the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, where he was able to muster 39%, and the 1988 election of George Bush, where he received 35% of the Jewish vote. That same rising tide proved instrumental in the 2022 midterm elections. Closely monitored gubernatorial elections like those in New York between Lee Zeldin and Kathy Hochul were as close as they were in large part because of the shifting Jewish vote. Lee Zeldin, a Republican, picked up 85% of the vote in important Brooklyn districts because he was able to dominate Hochul in the Jewish vote. The victory came largely from Zeldin’s status as a Jewish individual and his hardline stance on protecting independently Jewish schools.

But, Democrats made their own large investments in many of the same communities, along with more reliable segments of the party’s base that worked to offset Mr. Zeldin’s gains. Ms. Hochul’s campaign said it spent six figures on ads aimed at Jewish voters and another $1 million on Spanish-language ads. Many touted her work on gun control and mental health while hammering Mr. Zeldin for opposing abortion rights and supporting Mr. Trump, who remains broadly unpopular in New York City. Along with Hochul’s last minute push in the back-half of the race, Zeldin generally failed to expand his deep base of support into a wider coalition of Jewish voters. Hochul ran through tours, discussions, and meetings with local Jewish officials to shore up the Democrat’s relations with the communities that make up New York City’s Jewish population. The efforts proved largely successful when Hochul won not only the election but importantly, the overall Jewish vote.

Outside of New York, some midterm election results showcased a similar trend. Doug Mastriano, a publicized anti-semite and Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, lost his race to Josh Shapiro decisively. Comprehensively, the data paints a worrying picture for Democrats, however. Exit poll data shows a growing Jewish conservative bloc more willing to turn out for single issues like Israel, schooling, and in more recent elections: vaccines. While Democrats still have a strong handle, their grip is seemingly beginning to tighten. Outside of partisan divide, the Jewish vote in coming elections promises to be an incredibly important one as voters build off the foundation built post-World War II and make their vote heard at the ballot box.

The violence left scars that ultimately resulted in the Hasidic communities of Brooklyn and the larger New York City area backing a young Rudy Giulliani for mayor, delivering him a narrow victory against David Dinkins in 1993. Dinkins came to be marked as a pro-Black nationalist with the rioters as Giulliani dubbed himself as protector of law and order. Mainstream development solidified Orthodox Jewish Americans as a definitively substantial voting bloc not readily forgotten. 75% of that bloc remains aligned with the Republican Party, a percentile in sharp contrast with the 70% of net Jewish Americans who identify closely with the Democratic Party.