Growing up in this context, the sons and daughters of Jewish immigrants were raised on a diet of unionism, socialism and radicalism. As Irving Howe recalled, “the Jewish labor movement, ranging from the garment workers unions to the large fraternal societies and small political groups, had established a tradition of protest, controversy and freedom, so that even when [various communist factions] violated this tradition, it still exerted an enormous moral power in the Jewish community and provided cover for left-wing parties.”

In the absence of a strong socialist alternative, the bulk of first and second generation Jews began turning in the 1920s and 1930s to the Democratic Party, which, under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt, incorporated a range of liberal welfare measures into its political agenda. Because he ushered in the modern American welfare state, but also for his unshakable opposition to worldwide fascism, Jews living in the Depression era claimed Roosevelt as their political icon. As one New Yorker later recalled of his childhood years in Brooklyn, voting was “easy because everyone was for Roosevelt. The question is, were you a Communist or were you not, a socialist or not. … Everybody of that milieu, I’d say, certainly talked about it and flirted with it one way or another.”

By the early post-war era, many Reform and Conservative leaders began making a distinct argument that Judaism and contemporary liberalism were inseparable elements. Studies of synagogue sermons and pedagogical materials dating form the post-war years reveal that many second and third generation Jews believed that their fate was tied, and had always been tied, to the success of progressive political movements. They saw New and Fair Deal liberalism as a pragmatic adaptation of long-standing ethical traditions.  While this formulation was an unconscious exercise in historical revisionism, it resonated strongly.