Shas is a Haredi religious political party in Israel. Founded in 1984 under the leadership of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Israeli Sephardi chief rabbi, who remained its spiritual leader until his death in October 2013, it primarily represents the interests of Sephardic and Mizrahi Haredi Jews.
The Law of Return is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews, people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship. Section 1 of the Law of Return declares that "every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [immigrant]". In the Law of Return, the State of Israel gave effect to the Zionist movement's "credo" which called for the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state. In 1970, the right of entry and settlement was extended to people with at least one Jewish grandparent and a person who is married to a Jew, whether or not they are considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law.
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% identify as Sephardic, and 1% identify as Mizrahi. An additional 6% identify as some combination of the three categories.
An ethnic party is a political party that overtly presents itself as the champion of one ethnic group or sets of ethnic groups. Ethnic parties make such representation central to their voter mobilization strategy. An alternate designation is 'Political parties of minorities', but they should not be mistaken with regionalist or separatist parties, whose purpose is territorial autonomy.
Elections for the 17th Knesset were held in Israel on 28 March 2006. The voting resulted in a plurality of seats for the then-new Kadima party, followed by the Labor Party, and a major loss for the Likud party.
Moldova's constitution provides for freedom of religion and complete separation of church and state, though the constitution cites the "exceptional importance" of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Discrimination on the basis of religious affiliation is illegal, and incitement to religious and ethnic hatred was made illegal in May 2022. Religion in Moldova is dominated by the Eastern Orthodox branch of Christianity. According to the 2014 Moldovan census, 90 per cent of the country reported to be of the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith. Of this number, around eighty to 90 per cent of Orthodox Moldovans belong to the Moldovan Orthodox Church which is subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church, and has played a powerful role in deepening Russia's influence in Moldova. The remaining 10–20 per cent of Orthodox Moldovans belong to the Metropolis of Bessarabia, which is subordinate to the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Off the derech is a Yeshiva-English expression used to describe the state of a Jew who has left an Orthodox way of life or community, and whose new lifestyle is secular, non-Jewish, or of a non-Orthodox form of Judaism. In its broadest sense it can also include those changing to a milder form of Orthodoxy. Despite the term's pejorative and controversially dichotomic and definitive nature, it has become popular in use among Orthodox people, is found in mainstream literature, and has also been reclaimed by some OTD individuals.
From the founding of political Zionism in the 1890s, Haredi Jewish leaders voiced objections to its secular orientation, and before the establishment of the State of Israel, the vast majority of Haredi Jews were opposed to Zionism, like early Reform Judaism, but with distinct reasoning. This was chiefly due to the concern that secular nationalism would redefine the Jewish nation from a religious community based in their alliance to God for whom adherence to religious laws were "the essence of the nation's task, purpose, and right to exists," to an ethnic group like any other as well as the view that it was forbidden for the Jews to re-constitute Jewish rule in the Land of Israel before the arrival of the Messiah. Those rabbis who did support Jewish resettlement in Palestine in the late 19th century had no intention to conquer Palestine and declare its independence from the rule of the Ottoman Turks, and some preferred that only observant Jews be allowed to settle there.
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) was a political lobbying organization that advocated within the Democratic Party for viewpoints aligned with the American Jewish community and in support of the state of Israel, and within the political process generally, between 1990 and about 2016.
Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs(JAC) is a national political action committee that contributes to candidates for the United States Congress who support strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship and combatting antisemitism, as well as prioritize liberal domestic policies such as protecting reproductive rights, promoting gun reform, and upholding the separation of church and state.
Religion in the United States is remarkable in its high adherence level compared to other developed countries. The First Amendment to the country's Constitution prevents the government from having any authority in religion, and guarantees the free exercise of religion. Many faiths have flourished in the United States, including imports spanning the country's multicultural heritage as well as those founded within the country, and have led the United States to become the most religiously diverse country in the world.
In United States politics, Jews have changed political positions multiple times. Many early American German-Jewish immigrants to the United States tended to be politically conservative, but the wave of Eastern European Jews, starting in the early 1880s, were generally more liberal or left-wing, and eventually became the political majority. Many of the latter moved to America having had experience in the socialist, anarchist, and communist movements as well as the Labor Bund emanating from Eastern Europe. Many Jews rose to leadership positions in the early 20th century American labor movement, and founded unions that played a major role in left-wing politics and, after 1936, inside the Democratic Party politics. For most of the 20th century since 1936, the vast majority of Jews in the United States have been aligned with the Democratic Party. During the 20th and 21st centuries, the Republican Party has launched initiatives to persuade American Jews to support their political policies, with relatively little success.
The relationship between Judaism and politics is a historically complex subject, and has evolved over time concurrently with both changes within Jewish society and religious practice, and changes in the general society of places where Jewish people live. In particular, Jewish political thought can be split into four major eras: Biblical, Rabbinic, Medieval, and Modern.
The Latino vote or refers to the voting trends during elections in the United States by eligible voters of Latino background. This phrase is usually mentioned by the media as a way to label voters of this ethnicity, and to opine that this demographic group could potentially tilt the outcome of an election, and how candidates have developed messaging strategies to this ethnic group.
The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, however. Jews have been major forces in the history of the labor movement, the settlement house movement, the women's rights movement, anti-racist and anti-colonialist work, and anti-fascist and anti-capitalist organizations of many forms in Europe, the United States, Australia, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, South Africa, and modern-day Israel. Jews have a history of involvement in anarchism, socialism, Marxism, and Western liberalism. Although the expression "on the left" covers a range of politics, many well-known figures "on the left" have been of Jews who were born into Jewish families and have various degrees of connection to Jewish communities, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, or the Jewish religion in its many variants.
Ethnocultural politics in the United States refers to the pattern of certain cultural or religious groups to vote heavily for one party. Groups can be based on ethnicity, race or religion or on overlapping categories. In the Southern United States, race was the determining factor. Each of the two major parties was a coalition of ethnoreligious groups in the Second Party System as well as the Third Party System.
Feminism in Israel is a complex issue in contemporary Israeli society due to the varied demographic makeup of the country and the country's particular balance of religion and state issues. For secular Israeli women, the successive campaigns for women's rights and equality reflect a similar timeline and progression as Western democracies. For Israeli Arabs, however, the issue of feminism is strongly linked to Palestinian causes. And for Orthodox Jews, selected women's rights and women's representation in the Israeli Parliament are recently debated issues.
Beirut I is an electoral district in Lebanon. The district elects eight members of the Lebanese National Assembly – three Armenian Orthodox, one Armenian Catholic, one Greek Catholic, one Greek Orthodox, one Maronite and one Minorities.
The Democratic Party of the United States is composed of various demographic groups.
Orthodox Jewish bloc voting is a political strategy used by Orthodox Jewish communities in the United States, predominately in New York and New Jersey, to vote as a bloc as directed by local leadership. While Orthodox Jews typically vote for Republican candidates on the national level, community leaders will often endorse local Democratic candidates if they are viewed as likely to win, or if they could effectively represent the Orthodox community's interests in a majority Democratic caucus.
