ABSTRACT
"Ethnic politics" has been one of the most appealing subjects within the general domain of American ethnic group analysis. Analyses of the politics of American Jews have been especially popular, partly because, whatever the other manifestations, it is uniquely categorizable by one encompassing designation, "liberalism." The major influence for most Jews has been in the direction of ready acceptance, and even forceful proclamation, of the idea of a welfare state, the belief in a "positive" government role vis-a-vis the economy, especially when such a perspective was a viable part of the national political agenda, as in the 1930s. Through a combination of historical coincidences, readily explainable, these three dimensions became intimately associated in political policy, rhetoric, personages, and organizations. Their relative "outsider" positions and the Jewish experience in modern Europe made most American Jews, initially, adherents of civil liberties and civil rights, in whatever form these appeared on the agenda in those days.
