Features
Winnipeg’s own Jonas Chernick discusses how he made his latest movie, “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF”
By BERNIE BELLAN
Elsewhere on this website we have an article about a new movie, titled “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF”, which was slated to receive its Winnipeg premiere April 3.
As events have overtaken the original plan, filmmaker Jonas Chernick, who wrote, produced, and starred in the movie explained that the Canadian distributors of the film have changed how the movie will now roll out.
Instead of being shown in theatres, the movie will now go straight to video on April 3, including digital release on iTunes and Video on Demand through such providers as Shaw, Bell MTS, and Rogers.
We had a chance to talk with Chernick while he was cooped up in his Toronto home – along with his wife, two kids, a dog and a cat.
For those of our readers who are not already familiar with Chernick’s background, here’s a brief summary: He’s a graduate of Grant Park High School and the University of Manitoba. He is also an alumnus of Camp Massad, where he was both a camper and a counselor. He served on the staff of the Rady Jewish Community Centre and has appeared in four different productions of the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre over the years.
“JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF” marks the third film that Chernick has written and produced and in which he has starred. The previous two were “My Awkward Sexual Adventure” (released in 2012) and “Borealis” (released in 2016).
As someone who has always maintained a strong connection to the Winnipeg Jewish community, we have been chronicling Chernick’s career in these pages for years. Making films is not an easy route to follow, but Chernick has shown that it is possible to forge a successful career path despite the many challenges that await any aspiring filmmaker.
But now, with the latest hurdle to overcome in the form of a pandemic virus that has thrown all the previous plans for unveiling the film across Canada out the window, Chernick is still looking forward to seeing the film find success in a different way than he might have otherwise anticipated – by going straight to video, something that usually doesn’t occur until at least six months after a movie has been shown in theatres.
We began our interview by asking about how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered plans for not just “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF”, but so many other movies that were slated to be released soon?
Chernick said: “They actually have announced that several major releases are going to come straight to our living rooms. ‘Trolls’ – which was expected to be a huge blockbuster, is going to be released straight to digital.”
I wondered whether Chernick himself was going to take a financial hit over the change in plans for how the movie is going to be released.
Chernick explained that “the way it works with my film and the way I think most films – certainly Canadian films, is we’ve already sold the Canadian rights to the movie to a Canadian distribution company; in our case, they’re called Northern Banner Releasing. I’ve done a number of films with them; they’re wonderful partners – and they’ve had the Canadian rights to this movie for years.
“The way it works is they help us make the film by prebuying the Canadian rights, so the revenue from Canada goes through them and, if the movie does very well – sure, we’ll get something called ‘overages’, which means some of the profits will flow through to the producers, including me. But, that’s not really a concern for my team. We just want the movie to be seen by as many people as we can. Nobody gets into the independent film business to make millions of dollars.
“Luckily for me, as an actor, writer, producer, story editor, consultant – I do fine with multiple projects, but nobody is in this to become a millionaire. We’re artists, we made a movie – and we’re very proud of it. We made one that we think people will really like – it’s an audience friendly movie.”
I said to Chernick that I always enjoy helping to promote one of his new movies, saying to him “It’s like having a baby again: You go through the same steps. This time around though, the baby’s in the hospital and you’re not sure when it’s going to come out.”
It had been four years since I last spoke with Chernick – just after “Borealis” was released, and I noted that he had mentioned that back in 2016, while he ”had several irons in the fire”, there was one movie in particular that he thought had the best chance of being made.
Chernick agreed, saying: “This was the one that people were most excited about when I pitched it, so I felt like we had a good chance at getting this one made.”
I noted that this was now the third film that Chernick had written and produced, and in which he had starred – and about which I had now written, so some day I will be able to write about “the pantheon of Jonas Chernick movies” because I’ve never used the word “pantheon” in a sentence before.
It was following release of “My Awkward Sexual Adventure” in 2012 that Chernick met the guy who eventually became the director of “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF”, Jeremy LaLonde. They were both at a California film festival and someone introduced them to each other as the two Canadians who had just made “sex comedies”. In time, Chernick would end up starring in a LaLonde film called “How to Plan an Orgy in a Small Town” (which can be purchased on iTunes, Chernick said).
As people who are involved in the film industry are prone to do, Chernick and LaLonde traded ideas – and scripts, back and forth, bouncing ideas off one another, until the idea for “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF” began to take hold – in 2016.
According to Chernick though, before they began to focus on “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF”, LaLonde had asked him whether Chernick had “any ideas in the science fiction world” and Chernick said “I have one idea that’s not much of an idea and I kind of pitched it to him in probably two sentences – and he loved it and said ‘let’s develop that, let’s flesh that out’, and very quickly we turned that into what became “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF”.
We discussed how the drastic change in how the movie is going to be released might affect the kind of “buzz” that a movie needs to develop in order to be successful.
Chernick explained: “Normally a movie that gets released on digital or VOD (Video on Demand) doesn’t receive a lot of media attention because there are so many titles, but in this case we already have a lot of attention. We’ve won a bunch of awards and we’ve played at a bunch of prestigious festivals, and the media in Canada have been very supportive – so, thanks to people like you and other outlets, it’s going to make a splash and people are going to know about it.
“Everybody’s at home! What else are they going to do? You can have a laugh, feel charmed – and enjoy yourself for an hour and a half.”
I said to Chernick that I was amazed how many reviews of “JAMES VS. HIS FUTURE SELF” I had actually been able to find online. “It’s amazing,’ I said. “Your film has only been on the festival circuit, yet it already has so many reviews.”
“You’re right,” Chernick answered. “It’s only been on the festival circuit, but I will say that I am a tireless soldier when it comes to promoting my movies.”
“And almost all the reviews are favourable,” I noted – except for one, “from a guy who complained that the movie was a ‘rom com’ – early 2000s vintage. “
“But, when I read that,” I said to Chernick , “I thought to myself: ‘I love rom coms. I wish they would make more of them.”
“Absolutely,” Chernick said. “All of my movies are romantic comedies. I think most comedies are rom coms. We call this a ‘sci fi rom com’, but it’s less sci fi than it is rom com. It’s truly a romantic comedy hiding inside a time travel movie – with very little time travel…just enough to satisfy the science fiction geeks, as we learned when we were programmed by one of the top science fiction film festivals in the world – the Toronto After Dark Festival.
“We were worried that the audience was going to turn on us at that festival, but we ended up winning four awards at that festival.”
I noted that I wasn’t familiar with that particular festival. I said that I assumed it “was a festival for people who didn’t like to go out in the day time” (which got a laugh from Chernick).
Chernick went on to say that “the real surprise for us was getting nominated for Canadian Screen Awards because this is not the kind of film that typically gets acknowledged by the Academy (of Canadian Cinema and Television). This is a fun comedy with some raunchy humour.”
At that point in the interview I said to Chernick that I wanted to switch gears and, rather than talk more about how the film was made and how it’s going to be distributed, I wanted to talk about Daniel Stern, who really steals the movie when he appears in it.
I said that I purposely hadn’t read much about the movie before I watched it, but when I saw Daniel Stern appear for the first time, I said to myself: “I know that guy. He was in ‘Home Alone’. “ (Later, Chernick pointed out that Stern was also made famous for having been in the “City Slicker” movies.)
(Note: Stern plays an older version of Chernick, who comes back in time to try and persuade the character played by Chernick to abandon his dreams of time travel.)
“Where has Daniel Stern been all these years?” I asked Chernick.
“He kind of stepped away from the limelight after the ‘Home Alone’ and ‘City Slicker’ movies were such blockbuster,” Chernick explained. ”He wrote and directed some films and some TV and then, because he didn’t have to work, he kind of walked away a little bit and he became a reclusive artist.
“He lives on a property in California – away from all the action, and he makes gigantic bronze sculptures in his art studio – and sells them all over the world. He’s an amazing artist, but he hasn’t really done a lot of movies in the last several years because he doesn’t really like leaving home.
“But we went after him pretty aggressively because we just felt that he was the perfect guy for this part. We had a really short list that he was at the top of – for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because we have this nostalgic relationship with Daniel Stern based on his movies from the 80s and 90s – and our movie is about nostalgia; it’s about looking back.
“Also, he’s similar enough to me in his personality and his persona – his lovable loser, Jewish, nebbishy vibe – from his earlier years, but he’s become something else at the same time. He’s now a big guy (physically – as viewers might be surprised to see. Man, has Stern ever put on a lot of weight!) and somewhat intimidating, so we really liked the idea that he was once like me but that he’s evolved into something other than that – and we found that really interesting for his part.”
“And you provide a credible explanation as to why there’s no real physical similarity – except for one part of your anatomy (cue the penis jokes),” I suggested. “Now, that’s one that I found a bit of a stretch – no pun intended.”
I also asked Chernick about another actor who appears in the movie who, I admit, I had never heard of – until Chernick filled me in as to who she is and where I might have seen her. The character, Dr. Crowley, is head of a world class lab in which Chernick’s character is also a scientific researcher.
“Her name is Frances Conroy,” Chernick said. “She’s in many ways an acting icon. She was the matriarch on one of the most ground-breaking shows of all time: HBO’s ‘Six Feet Under’.”
“Oh,” I said, “but you know I never watched that.” (which shouldn’t excuse my ignorance because I usually am quite au courant with useless trivia).
“That show was nominated for five or six Emmys every year,” Chernick added. “She’s also a Broadway star. She’s also been one of the leads on a very popular show called “American Horror Story” (which I always assumed was a story about my own family) and most recently she played the mother of the Joker in the “Joker” movie.”
“Oh, that’s her,” I exclaimed, showing once again my ignorance of an all-important fact.
“Her character has this turn of phrase,” I noted, “when she reacts to someone swearing. What does she call it?” I asked.
“Swear scream…. She says it as if it’s a common phrase,” Chernick explained – as in, “If you’re going to ‘swear scream’ someone’s name, at least have something compelling to say when you finally have their attention.’ “
I said that she’s so ‘self contained’ when she appears in the movie – constantly showing incredible restraint when she’s subjected to a barrage of profanity from one or another of the characters in the movie, especially the character played by Daniel Stern. Also, I wondered, considering how she’s so terrific in her relatively small part, couldn’t Chernick have written a larger role for her?
“I think one of the appealing things for her,” Chernick explained, “is that this was an extended cameo for her. This is something that she would be able to come in and do relatively quickly. Now, it should be noted that, being the pro she is, she didn’t treat it that way at all. She had read so many books on particle physics (Conroy plays the part of a particle physicist, as does Chernick), she was so prepared – she was over prepared – she blew our minds how great she was.”
I said to Chernick that he must be so disappointed he won’t be able to premiere his movie in person in front of a Winnipeg audience.
“I was really excited to be there in front of my home town audience,” Chernick admitted, “with friends and family, but we’re going to try to do some sort of question and answer session online via Reddit or one of these online chat systems.”
I asked whether there’s anything else Chernick might like to add.
He said that “people are running out of things to watch right now. Why not watch a funny, entertaining movie by a Winnipeg Jew?”
Then, I thought to add the most important question that I had forgotten to ask:
“When is the movie going to open in Lithuania?” (in reference to the fact that the Lithuanian remake of “My Awkward Sexual Adventure”, titled “Nepatyres” (or “Unexperienced” in English) had the third best box office opening for any movie ever shown in that country).
Chernick laughed and said, “it’s opening (or slated to open) in the United States on May 1st and in the U.K. on April 27th, but I’m not sure about Lithuania.”
“The Baltic states will be key to your success,” I suggested.
Features
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Features
Susan Roadburg: The Road Less Travelled
By GERRY POSNER Robert Frost was not likely thinking of Susan Roadburg when he penned his famous line in the poem “The Road Less Travelled.” Yet, the line which says “Two roads diverged in the wood, and I took the road less travelled and that has made all the difference” certainly is a line which applies to the life and career of Sue Roadburg, once Susan Rumberg, daughter of the late Betty and Joe Rumberg. It was not a straight road for Sue, but it was a path with twists and turns.
A former resident of Montrose and later Oak Streets in the south end of Winnipeg, Sue finished her high school education at Grant Park High School. The plan was to get a BA and then enter either Nursing or Social Work. What stepped in her way was her first stop on the road – Eaton’s. Back then -the 1960s, Eaton’s had what was known as a junior council – one for males and one for females. Well, after a selection process, Sue was chosen by Eaton’s to be Grant Park’s junior councillor. She received a uniform and performed simple duties, including weekly meetings with senior Eaton’s executives, getting volunteers for the annual Eaton’s Santa Claus parades (Who could forget them?), ushering at Eaton’s sponsored rock concerts and sundry other tasks. From that time to many years forward, Sue and Eaton’s were a team. She even worked for them during her university years.
Clearly, the affection Sue had for her work at Eaton’s was reciprocated as, upon the resignation of the then youth fashion director, Sue was offered that job. Her plans for nursing or social work were derailed. Sue represented Eaton’s by making presentations at high schools; running “HI Set Clubs” for teens; coordinating shows for the University of Manitoba’s “ Freshie Week;” teaching the Seventeen Beauty Workshop; writing a monthly teen newsletter and monthly column for “Youth Beat” – which went to all Winnipeg high schools and selecting fashions for the weekly TV show, Teen Dance Party. You could say that Susan Rumberg was well into the teen world at that time. It was at this time when Susan became Sue as Eaton’s wanted her first and last names to have an unequal number of syllables. Maybe that is why Eaton’s closed up. But you can still call her Susan as many friends still do.
Then, an unusual turn of events led to Sue becoming what might be called the Miss Manners of Manitoba. Susan became connected by good fortune with a woman who ran courses on party manners throughout the US and indeed, for the president’s children. Through that relationship, Eaton’s in Winnipeg ran a course on the topic led by the then Susan Rumberg as she was the teacher of the course to hundreds of Winnipeg girls, ages 5-12. But soon Susan came to realize that she was ready to move on and settled in Montreal where she immediately learned French. The Bay became interested in her and she even upgraded her limited French speaking skills. Soon she had her doing staff training at the downtown store and she did it in both French and English. Not long after, she received an offer to become a buyer for the Bay – with crazy hours and lots of travel time. This was at a time when there were major issues in Quebec about separation, so the buying office moved to Toronto with the young Susan Rumberg – along with the whole department. Toronto brought marriage and three kids.
By this time, Sue was quite well known in the fashion world. She was approached by a student at Seneca College who was required to interview a buyer. At that time, Sue was the jeans buyer. This meeting led to another meeting and before Sue knew it, Seneca got wind of her very helpful role with their students and it was not long before Susan Roadburg was ensconced at Seneca teaching full time, eventually leading to teaching becoming the longest part of her career.
Sue’s teaching led to yet another twist in the road. As part of the course work a program was created for her to develop what was called a boutique “lab.” She taught and also was able to get her students involved in the translation of books into action. She would attend vendor appointments on Fridays with the merchandise managers and buyers. She also helped the advertising manager put on a huge fashion show at the big hall at Seneca Collage. The accounts payable manager paid all the invoices and presented financial statements, relating to what had been learned in Retail Math. (She also taught that subject.) A new class took over each semester. Sue developed an infrastructure for the class much like those of the large companies that her students aspired to work for upon graduation. In short, textbook theories were brought to life through this boutique experience, a kind of ‘hands-on” approach.
Sue just finished her teaching career a few years ago. She is still connected to the industry through FGI (Fashion Group International), an organization for executives in the fashion industry. She is even the nominating chair for the board of the only Canadian chapter located in Toronto. And Sue was recently recognized by FGI with what is known as The Visionary Award by FGI. This is what might be called reaching the top of the mountain in her field.
Sue’s road is less travelled to Winnipeg these days, but she still has some ties there. Her brother Ross Rumberg is buried there. There are still friends from her past. Her memories are strongly connected to her Winnipeg days. What Sue might also say is that Rumberg to Roadburg was the first of the many roads she travelled, but she is still charting out new paths.
Features
Donald Trump and the 2024 Jewish Vote
By HENRY SREBRNIK How did American Jews vote in the November 5, 2024 presidential election? There’s no simple answer. American Jews are a hard-to-define religious and ethnic group spread across multiple American Census categories, possessing last names from at least a dozen different languages and clustered in places that are often overwhelmingly non-Jewish. It takes a team of demographers and sociologists to determine a plausible American Jewish population figure.
So deciding who qualifies as a Jewish voter is not that easy. Must they feel a sense of belonging to the Jewish people, however defined? Or can they be “simply” Jewish, perhaps with a non-Jewish partner and children not being brought up as Jews? (After all, we have Jews by birth who are “anti-Zionists” and supporters of Palestinian efforts to destroy Israel.) That’s why figures vary widely.
American Jews number less than 2.5 per cent of the total U.S. population. To be sure, Jews vote in much greater percentages (approximately 80 per cent) than the rest of the American public (about 66 per cent). But the Jewish role in American politics goes well beyond the ballot box. In 2016, the Jerusalem Post reported on a study showing that Jews donate 50 per cent of all funding to the Democratic Party and 25 percent of all funding to the Republican Party. For the 2024 election, Forbes revealed that the top 15 donors to the Kamala Harris campaign were all people who identified as Jewish.
For about a century, American Jews, however defined, have been a reliable piece of the Democratic Party base, usually delivering two-thirds or more of their votes to the party’s presidential nominee. Over the last half century, going back to the 1968 election, Jews have favored the Democratic candidate by about 71 to 29 per cent. But in 2024, change was in the air, despite the absurd claims by some people that Donald Trump was an “antisemite.”
It turns out this proved largely baseless, according to the “2024 Jewish Vote Analysis,” a report released on November 20, 2024 by WPA Intelligence, a conservative political consultancy and analytics firm. In examining available exit polling, city and county data, and precinct data, it suggested that Trump’s strongest gains were among “those who live the most Jewish lives and reside in the most Jewish communities.”
Looking at Jewish neighbourhoods and towns, “the trends are stark and unmistakable,” WPA Intelligence stated. “Because Judaism is in some ways a communal religion and observant Judaism requires localized infrastructure, Jews who live in Jewish areas tend to be more religious and engaged. And in these neighborhoods, we see large shifts towards Trump.” Some of the most dramatic swings in the Jewish vote happened in New York. It also identified shifts in heavily Jewish areas of California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey,and Pennsylvania. (California, New Jersey, and New York are where more than 45 per cent of American Jews live.)
“The trend is apparent from Trump’s near-unanimous support among Chassidic and Yeshivish Jews; to his rapid consolidation of the Modern Orthodox vote; to incremental gains even in more liberal Jewish areas such as Oak Park and Upper Manhattan,” the report added. “So, too, is it diverse ethnically and geographically, occurring coast to coast and overrepresenting Persian and ex-Soviet Jewish communities.”
Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in New York City precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25 per cent. His 2024 performance in New York marked a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections.
Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily Jewish enclaves of deep-blue Democratic cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
These gains have been confirmed by the Jewish website Tablet. “Who Won the Jewish Vote?” by Armin Rosen, published on November 14, 2024, includes very detailed comparisons of precinct-level numbers from the 2020 and 2024 elections. It indicated that Trump did improve his performance in a range of Jewish neighborhoods across America. “From the yeshivas of Lakewood, New Jersey, to the bagel shops of New York’s Upper West Side; from Persian Los Angeles to Venezuelan Miami; from the Detroit suburbs to the Chabadnik shchuna in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, Jewish areas voted in higher percentages for the Republican candidate than they did in 2020.”
Nearly every neighborhood in New York with a notable density of Jewish-specific businesses and institutions, be they Hasidic, Litvish, Syrian, Russian, Bukharan, Conservative, Reform or modern Orthodox, voted heavily Republican or saw a rise in Trump’s performance.
In Brooklyn, the Midwood precincts containing Yeshiva of Flatbush voted 62 per cent for Trump. In Brighton Beach, Brooklyn’s main post-Soviet Jewish enclave, Trump’s support was consistently in the 75-90 per cent range. In Crown Heights, headquarters of the Chabad Hasidic movement, Trump got 62 per cent of the vote this time around, likely on the strength of higher turnout among Chabadniks. Back in 2016, when Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, he won 69 per cent of the vote in all of Assembly District 48, which encompasses Borough Park and Midwood (both largely Jewish communities). This year, he won 85 per cent of the vote in the district.
In the Bronx, Trump received 30 per cent of the vote in the precinct containing the Riverdale Jewish Center, and 38 per cent in the precinct with the neighborhood’s Chabad house. In Manhattan, a few of the borough’s lightest-blue Democratic precincts have the Yeshiva University campus at their center, and Trump managed to receive 37 per cent of the vote there. The Upper West Side, a traditional liberal Jewish political and cultural bastion, remained dark blue. But even there it was possible to see a shift.
Ranging a bit further afield, at least one plausible study, a poll taken by the Teach Coalition, an advocacy group founded by the Jewish Orthodox Union, found overall Jewish support for Trump in the New York suburbs at 40 per cent. Nassau County, where Jews make up close to 20 per cent of the population, saw Trump win it by five per cent, while Joe Biden took it by 10 in 2020.
The returns from other major American Jewish population centers tell a similar story, according to Tablet. Over 600,000 Jews live in New Jersey. The modern Orthodox stronghold of Teaneck gave Trump 35 per cent. In fact, he won 70 per cent of the vote in districts where most of the town’s synagogues are located. In Lakewood, where nearly every strain of Orthodox Judaism is represented, “Some of the precinct results are eye-watering,” reports Tablet. There, Kamala Harris got just 11.2 per cent. In one Lakewood precinct, District 27, Trump won all the votes, 366–0, and in another, District 36, he won 560 votes, losing only a single vote.
Trump carried Passaic County, home to a sizable Orthodox Jewish constituency. Jews make up about 25 percent of the county’s population and it has been a Democratic stronghold for decades. Biden took it with 57.5 per cent to Trump’s 41 per cent four years ago. In 2024, Trump won it with 50 per cent to Harris’s 46.5 percent. That’s a 16-point overall swing in Trump’s favor.
Voting data indicates that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in in the crucial state of Pennsylvania. It was one of the few states without a large Orthodox Jewish population where Trump did especially well with Jewish voters. Harris did win Pennsylvania Jewish voters by seven percentage points, 48-41, according to a survey conducted by the Honan Strategy Group for the Teach Coalition. However, 53 per cent of Jewish voters said they would have pulled the lever for her had Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro been her running mate, while support for Trump would have dropped to 38 per cent. Jewish community leaders claimed that Shapiro was subjected to an ugly, antisemitic campaign that led to him being passed over for the slot.
The Miami area is home to over 500,000 Jews. Aventura is one of the community’s bellwethers, and Trump gained 59.7 per cent this year. An almost identical shift happened in the Miami Beach community of Surfside, where Trump took 61 per cent. Bal Harbour, another Jewish enclave, saw Trump gain 72 per cent.
In Palm Beach County, there are about 175,000 Jews out of a population of 1.5 million, or about 12 per cent. Harris won this county by 0.74 per cent, while Biden won it by 13 per cent in 2020. Trump’s vote climbed nearly seven per cent while hers dropped an equal amount off Biden’s number. Almost exactly the same type of shift happened in Broward County, where Biden got 64 per cent in 2020; the vote shifted 14 per cent toward Trump this year. Jews make up about 10 per cent of the Broward population.
In Los Angeles, where 560,000 Jews live, an article by Louis Keene, “How a Jewish Neighbourhood in Liberal Los Angeles Became a Stronghold for Trump,” published December 10 in the Forward newspaper, provides a detailed picture of the Jewish electorate. The political shift in Pico-Robertson, an Orthodox neighborhood in LA’s Westside, reflects voters “with a change of heart and changing demographics.”
Formerly majority Democratic, in 2024 for the first time, parts of Pico-Robertson turned red. Its two largest precincts swung for Trump, who received about 51 per cent of the votes compared to 44 per cent for Harris. Rabbi Elazar Muskin, who leads Young Israel of Century City, one of the oldest and largest synagogues in the neighbourhood, estimated that up to 90 per cent of his congregation voted for Trump, largely because of Israel.
As Yeshivish and Mizrahi Jews — those of Middle Eastern or North African heritage — have established a greater presence in Pico-Robertson, the area has become increasingly defined by a conservative culture and electorate. There is also a booming Persian population, as well as emergent Chabad and other Hasidic Jews.
A poll of Orthodox voters by Nishma Research in September found 93 per cent of Haredi voters supporting Trump; while data on the Persian Jewish community’s politics is harder to come by, community leaders said the numbers are similar.
Elsewhere in LA, the presence of a Chabad house or a synagogue was a reliable predictor of Trump support. For instance, Trump got 40 per cent of the vote in the North Hollywood precinct where Adat Yeshurun Valley Sephardic and Em Habanim Sephardic are located.
Los Angeles in turn mirrors the general trend in the rest of the country. Michigan is home to 116,000 Jews. West Bloomfield, centre of the Detroit-area Jewish community, went 43.7 per cent for Trump. Illinois’ 319,000 Jews live mainly in Chicago. Trump picked up votes in the Far North Side wards where Orthodox Jewish voters live, especially in the 50th Ward, where his vote increased to 46.85 per cent from 33.77 per cent in 2020.
Of course the Republican vote did not just come from the very religious. Trump also clearly gained among those most committed to Jewish identity, regardless of affiliation or observance, who were driven by concerns over left-wing antisemitism after the October 7 massacre.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his first term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump reminded Jews about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume the efforts to strengthen them. Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and he also moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
We must lay to rest the nonsense about Trump being antisemitic, lest we are to believe that the more Jewish you are, the more likely it was that you voted for an enemy of the Jewish people. Americans, including Jews, returned the arguably most pro-Israel president since the founding of the modern Jewish state to the White House.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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