Obama fans are from Mars, McCain’s are from Jupiter, FL

Dear Friend and Reader,

In a hilarious campaign that gets straight to the point, Sarah Silverman and JewsVote.org are working hard to increase the less-than-usual enthusiasm from Jews for the Democratic party and, specifically, Barack Obama. The slip in favor, from a demographic that usually votes Democrat, is largely due to the snow birds: the elderly Jewish folk who moved from New York to Florida for retirement.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

My grandparents are part of this demographic Silverman is joking about in her video, living just slightly north of West Palm Beach. My grandfather, who turned 90 this year, is voting for McCain, and my grandma usually votes how he votes. The biggest problem for them is that Obama is “a shvartze” (Yiddish for black). McCain is older, and white, and therefore trustworthy.

After watching the RNC a few weeks ago, my grandma commented how gorgeous Sarah Palin looked in her neutral-toned suit dress. “She won beauty pageants, you know,” grandma added.

I don’t mean to use this as a forum to make fun of my grandparents. Pop was in World War II, they both lost family in the Holocaust and they’re incredibly loving people. But they’re also racist (and homophobic, but that’s a topic for another article); and that’s a difficult thing to overcome, particularly in a family that tries not to “talk politics” at the table and where they start to shut down when my mother or I mention the election.

David Usborne of The Indepedent interviewed some Jewish elderly folk in and around Jupiter, Florida. He asked them what might be holding back support for Obama among their peers:

Synagogue sign from an email getting forwarded around the country. Shvartzeh is yiddish for black person.

‘Elderly people just do get very fixed in their ways and they are petrified of change,’ Mr Kaplan offers. Slowly, however, he edges into the difficult territory of Mr Obama and race. ‘We are a funny country and we have deep-seated ideas about some things, particularly when it comes to blacks,’ he suggests. Mr Kaplan is just getting into his stride when Mrs Kaplan pitches in. She is a bit more direct. ‘I think it’s because it’s very difficult for some people to picture a black person in the White House,’ she says. Then she goes further. ‘In fact, they imagine the White House filled with black people. And that’s a huge thing for them.’

I think the Kaplans have it right: I think it’s about fear. These are people who grew up before the civil rights movement, who lived through the de-Russian Jewification of the Bronx and were petrified of their new, non-white neighbors and, yes, an increase in crime (which has more to do with poverty than race, but it’s tough to explain this to people who are set in their ways).

They’re concerned about safety and protection in their twilight years, and a motto like Obama’s “change” has the opposite effect on the elderly than it does on American youth. My grandparents can’t even pick out a new dinette set, because my grandfather is used to the rectangular table and uncomfortable chairs they have now. If they can’t pick an oval table, how are they going to vote for Barack Obama?

I’ve been toying with saying something to them for a while now, mulling over whether I could say anything that would change their minds. I suppose there’s nothing to lose in trying; they’re already voting for McCain. As Silverman said, “if you knew that visiting your grandparents could save the world, would you do it? Of course you would, you’d have to be a douche-nozzle not to.”

Check out TheGreatSchlep.com for information on how to talk to your Jewish Floridian grandparents: and if you don’t have any, take a look anyway — there are some great tools to help you talk to anyone who’s afraid of change and/or voting for a black man with a “shitty name,” as Silverman put it. We’re getting down to the final days before the election — and if we want things to change for the better, it’s time to have the talk.

Yours & truly,