Antisemitism has permeated the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Most troubling, Matthew Ynglesias, Ezra Klein, and Jonathan Chait have all suggested that non-leftist Democrats should recommend ending military aid to Israel. They contend that Israel-related policies should not estrange centrists like themselves from the leftwing of the party. They also are willing to keep Hassan Piker in the big tent; someone who favors Hamas over Israel.
Whenever the progressives are criticized, they contend that only the Democratic Party pursue social justice initiatives. However, their favored social-justice policies, as NYC Mayor Mamdani has illustrated, often weaken meritocratic decision-making and the profitability of capitalist enterprises. They also in important ways, alter the social-justice framework of Jewish thought.
The Old Testament prophets play a central role in Jewish thought. At Passover, a plate is set for the prophet Elisha to signal universal concern for the poor. While leftwing Jews were disproportionately active in civil rights and union organizing, a substantial number of wealthy Jews funded the NAACP, the Urban League, and medical and law schools at Black Colleges. The head of Sears, Roebuck, Julius Rosenwald funded 500 Black schools in the Jim Crow South that produced one-third of southern Black high-school graduates during the Depression.
Aiding the poor, however, is not simply giving money. Judaism often emphasizes personal conduct. This is most illustrated in I.L. Peretz Yiddish tale of a small-town rabbi who would disappear on Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holiday; when each Jews must critically evaluate his personal conduct during the previous year.
His congregants thought the rabbi went to heaven to lobby G-d for them. One man decided to follow him. He saw the rabbi approach a house where a sick woman lived alone. The rabbi proceeded to cut wood to make a fire and to cook her a warm meal. The man became a new disciple of the rabbi. When the rabbi returned, the people claimed he had again ascended to heaven. The new disciple added quietly, "If not still higher."
It is not only the better-off who must meet standards of conduct but also the poor. A staple of many Jewish tales is the schnorrer: a Yiddish pejorative term for a beggar who feels entitled for the alms received. He takes advantage of religious obligations of the better-off to provide food for them at Shabbos dinners and celebratory events. In “Revolt of the Schnorrers,” S.A. Agnon describes how this sense of entitlement leads the town’s poor to demand extras when coming for Shabbos dinner. In “A Meal for the Poor,” Mordecai Spector describes a similar dynamics when the poor are invited to attend a wedding; they demand financial payments. Sigmund Freud wrote:
The Schnorrer begged the Baron for some money for a journey to Ostend; his doctor had recommended sea-bathing for his troubles. The Baron thought Ostend was a particularly expensive resort; a cheaper one would do equally well. The Schnorrer, however, rejected the proposal: “Herr Baron, I consider nothing too expensive for my health.”
Rosenwald rejected the view that his contributions should be viewed as entitlements. He required every Black community, even the poorest, to make a meaningful contribution to the school-building projects: either financially, or more often with their labor efforts. Unfortunately, in the progressive world, transfers to the poor are entitlements for which no responsibilities are required. For example, they promote “housing first:” the belief that the homeless should not be required to enter drug rehabilitation or counseling programs to obtain housing.
The schnorrer tales imply that once charitable policies are presented as entitlements, they can be easily abused. Many see this today with the food-stamp program. Beginning in 2008, President Obama expanded eligibility to many able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWD). Soon their numbers reached the same as the number of single-parents with dependent children. There were requirements that this group had to be working or enrolled in either an educational or training program for at least 80 hours monthly. However, these requirements were optional and no blue state enforced them.
When red states began to enforce them, the number of ABAWD was halved with only a modest increase in paid employment. This is the expected impact of the somewhat expanded work requirements that were mandated in the Republican Big Beautiful Bill. This anticipated enrollment decline is not surprising since many ABAWD are distant from a recent paid employment experience: 30 percent do not work even an hour a week.
Some are working cash jobs that will conflict with the 80-hour monthly requirement; and others are just too lazy to do what’s necessary to comply. There is, however, a third group who no longer has the behavioral traits necessary to sustain paid employment or training programs: showing up punctually every day and communicating respectfully to superiors, even when disagreeing with their directives.
I have written extensively how this third group is substantially the result of progressive educational and law enforcement policies that generate too many men who end up living on the streets. The solution is not to abandon behavioral requirements as progressives demand but to find effective requirements to enable at least some in this group to gain more productive lives. More generally, we must maintain the Jewish social justice viewpoint to personally engage in activities to aid the needy, and policies should encourage them to act responsibly.
Robert Cherry is an American Enterprise Institute affiliate and author of Arab Citizens of Israel: How Far Have They Come? (Wicked Son Press, 2026).
