Nov. 5, 2004 US Jewish Left in mourning By URIEL HEILMAN NEW YORK For American Jewish groups that sought the defeat of President George W. Bush, Tuesday's election was an unmitigated disaster. With significant Republican gains in the House and Senate, and facing at least four more years of a Bush White House, left-leaning Jews and Jewish groups say they are discouraged but remain committed to pushing their progressive agendas-they'll just have a harder time doing it. "People are incredibly depressed," said Dara Silverman, director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a far-left Jewish group in New York. "People are saying to me that this is like Germany in 1933 and what we need to be doing is building the opposition." Most Jewish groups toed a softer line. Mainstream Jewish groups refrained from taking a partisan line, and left-wing groups talked about what they could do to prevent right-wing judges from being appointed to the nation's federal courts, advocate for immigrants' rights and get the Bush administration more involved in Middle East peacemaking. A few also talked about what they could do to make the Democratic Party a more attractive option for Christian conservative voters, whose support for the president Tuesday was key to the Republican victory. "We have to work harder-that's all it means," said Leonard Fein, a liberal activist and founder of Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger. "Of course I'm distressed, and I've got to figure out a new language with which to talk to the other side." Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, said this election actually was good for Jewish Democrats. "In terms of the Jewish vote, I'm not the one unhappy. The White House and the Republican Party have to be massively unhappy. The Jewish community stuck with the Democratic Party for all the good reasons." The GOP made only moderate inroads into the Jewish vote, winning only about 5% more of the Jewish vote for Bush than he won in 2000, despite the popularity among Jews of the president's Israel policies. But the president won 51% to 48% in the popular vote, and the GOP increased its lead in the Senate by four seats and in the House of Representatives by two. With the Democrats in the congressional minority for at least the next two years and out of the White House for the next four, Forman said Jewish Democrats need to focus on alternative ways to champion their agenda-foreign or domestic. "Politics in this country is not just about voting; it's about political activism, it's about giving money, its about speaking out," he said. "What do we do? We do what we've done before: work within the Democratic Party on behalf of Jewish communal interests." The president of the National Council of Jewish Women, Marsha Atkind, said the strong showing by conservative Christians this election was a worrisome development for those who believe in abortion rights and separation of church and state. Now, she said, the Jewish community will have to work harder to make sure the Senate does not confirm to the Supreme Court any right-wing ideologues. With Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist undergoing treatment for cancer and other justices expected to retire soon, Bush could have an opportunity to reshape the nine-member court for generations to come. "It's a big concern," Atkind said. "We hope [Bush] will take this opportunity to reach out to all elements in this country and unite this country-and one way he can do that is make his judicial nominees moderate conservatives, not right-wing ideologues." After White House Spokesman Scott McClellan on Thursday reiterated the president's support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jonathan Jacoby, founding director of the Israel Policy Forum, would offer only words of praise for the president re-elect. "We're pleased that the president has said that he's interested in resuming his efforts to advance the road map," Jacoby said, referring to the road map peace plan. "The White House's commitment to help implement the Sharon disengagement plan as a step toward realizing the president's two-state vision is something positive." Old-time Jewish left-wing activists, however, found little cause for joy. "I'm feeling impossibly dejected about what happened on Tuesday," said Gordon Fellman, a longtime left-wing social activist and professor at Brandeis University. "Everybody I knew was kind of in mourning on Wednesday. A former student of mine cried all day." "The Democrats," he said, "are in disarray."