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SACT5: “Since the survey doesn’t split out orthodox subgroups isn’t it also possible that rather than more non-haredim orthodox Jews moving right politically, that haredim in the last 7 years have become a larger proportion of the overall orthodox group accounting for some of the percentage shift to the political right?”

Your point is absolutely true. Orthodoxy is becoming more Chareidi, mainly as a result of the higher Chareidi fertility rate even compared to other Orthodox non-Chareidi demographics. In 2013 the Pew survey indicated that Chareidim were in the low 60-something percent of Orthodox Jews. (Up until about the 1980s Chareidim were a minority of the American Orthodox.) Now the percentage is even higher.

But even granting all that, when a full 75% of all Orthodox Jews in the United States identify as Republican (or Republican-leaning), it is clear that the solidly Republican nature of today’s American Orthodox Jews is much more pervasive among all the Orthodox, rather than just the Chareidim.

Menachem, Neville, AAQ, etc.: The poll very clearly notes that they accept self-identification regarding purposes of streams/affiliation (Orthodox, Conservative, etc.) If the respondent claims to be Orthodox but eats non-kosher when traveling out of town, that’s what the survey will reflect. Motcha’s point, I’m sure, plays a role in that 4-5% of self-identifying Orthodox who admit to practicing or believing in unorthodox ways.

Neville, the geographical information is pertaining to ALL self-identified American Jews, including the majority of non-Orthodox Jews.

Here’s some more figures from this Pew survey:

11% of American Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 are Chareidi/Ultra-Orthodox. An even larger percentage of those under age 18 are.

The earlier mentioned 17% figure is of American Jews between ages 18 and 29, are Orthodox. The Orthodox figure for all under 30 year olds (including under 18) is much higher. Reform are 29% and Conservative is 8% of American Jews between the ages of 18 and 29. Their numbers are even lower for those under 18. Within Judaism, denominational switching has led to the largest net losses for the Conservative movement, which, in the 1950s and 1960s, was the largest branch of American Jewry. For every person who has joined Conservative Judaism, nearly three people who were raised in the Conservative movement have left it.

Orthodox has the highest retention rate of all streams. The Orthodox retention rate had been much higher among people raised in Orthodox Judaism in recent decades than among those who came of age as Orthodox Jews in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. Conservative has the lowest retention rate, with only 41% of people brought up Conservative still remaining Conservative. (30% of those raised Conservative became Reform.) 85% of today’s Orthodox Jewish adults were raised Orthodox and 15% of today’s Orthodox Jews came from outside Orthodoxy, including 5% who were raised as Conservative and 2% who were raised as Reform.

The survey also indicates that fertility among Orthodox Jews is more than twice as high as among non-Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jewish adults report having an average of 3.3 children, while non-Orthodox Jews have an average of 1.4 children. Orthodox Jews also are five years younger, on average, when they give birth to their first child (23.6 vs. 28.6 among non-Orthodox Jews). This includes young adults in their prime childbearing years, who may give birth to additional children in the future that are not accounted for in these figures. Orthodox Jews tend to live in much larger households than Jews who identify with other branches or streams of American Judaism. The average Orthodox household in the survey contains 2.0 children, compared with 0.3 children per household among Conservative Jews and 0.5 children per household among Reform Jews. Orthodox Jews (median age of 35 among adults) are substantially younger than Conservative Jews (62) and Reform Jews (53).

75% of Orthodox Jews said they were Republicans or leaned Republican. Nearly eight-in-ten Orthodox Jews (77%) rated Donald Trump as friendly toward Jews in the U.S., while six-in-ten said the same about the Republican Party. Conversely, only 22% of Orthodox Jews rated the Democratic Party as friendly toward U.S. Jews. 86% of Orthodox Jews rated then-President Donald Trump’s handling of policy toward Israel as “excellent” or “good”. Orthodox Jews said the policies towards Israel by a) Donald Trump: 94% friendly, 4% neutral, <1% unfriendly; b) Republicans: 73% friendly, 22% neutral, 1% unfriendly; c) Democrats: 17% friendly, 25% unfriendly, 54% unfriendly. 68% of Orthodox Jews approved of Trump’s immigration policies.

Nearly all Orthodox Jews in the survey (95%) describe being Jewish as very important in their lives. Orthodox Jews are among the most highly religious groups in U.S. society in terms of the share who say religion is very important in their lives (86%) – along with Black Protestants (78%) and White evangelicals (76%). Jews who did not obtain college degrees are much more inclined to say that religion is very important in their lives. The observance of halacha is particularly important to Orthodox Jews, 83% of whom deem it essential. Fully three-quarters of the Orthodox say they find a great deal of meaning and fulfillment in their religion, exceeded only by the share who feel that way about spending time with their families (86%). And 93% of Orthodox Jews say they believe in G-d as described in the Torah, compared with a quarter of Jews overall (which means even less than a quarter of the non-Orthodox.) 95% of Orthodox Jews say they keep kosher, 24% of Conservative Jews say they keep kosher and 5% of Reform Jews say they keep kosher.

About half of Orthodox Jews in the U.S. say they have “not much” (23%) or “nothing at all” (26%) in common with Jews in the Reform movement. Reform Jews generally reciprocate those feelings: Six-in-ten say they have not much (39%) or nothing at all (21%) in common with the Orthodox.

Orthodox Jews are much more likely to experience or be victims of antisemitism than non-Orthodox Jews.

66% of American Jews identify as Ashkenazic, 3% identify as Sephardic and 1% identify as Mizrachi.

25% of Conservative Jews, 12% of Reform Jews and 8% of Jews who do not identify with any particular branch of Judaism say they at least sometimes participate in activities or services with Chabad. One-quarter of Chabad participants are Orthodox Jews (24%), and another quarter identify with Conservative Judaism (26%). About half of Chabad participants are from other streams or don’t affiliate with any particular branch of Judaism

One-in-four American Jews say they have family incomes of $200,000 or more (23%). By comparison, just 4% of U.S. adults report household incomes at that level. At the other end of the spectrum, one-in-ten U.S. Jews report annual household incomes of less than $30,000, versus 26% of Americans overall. Half of U.S. Jews described their financial situation as living “comfortably” (53%), compared with 29% of all U.S. adults. At the same time, 15% of Jewish adults said they had difficulty paying for medical care for themselves or their family in the past year, 11% said they had difficulty paying their rent or mortgage, 8% said they had a difficult time paying for food, and 19% had trouble paying other types of bills or debts.

About four-in-ten Jewish adults (38%) live in the Northeast – roughly double the share of U.S. adults overall who live in that census region (18%). A quarter of Jewish Americans reside in the West (25%), and a similar share live in the South (27%). Just one-in-ten Jewish adults live in the Midwest. Among the Orthodox, a much larger proportion live in the Northeast.

Baltimore: Class action suits where the lawyers walk away with $30 million while each of the people in the class who were harmed get $30 each? That $30 doesn’t correct their harm; it just lines the lawyers wallets — and raises prices for American consumers, who are later paying for the grossly disproportionate rewards every time they purchase a product or service.

And that’s even assuming there was some actual harm, rather than the company settling simply to avoid the costs and risks of litigation, where some otherwise uneducated or vagrant mathematically-challenged jurors trying to wrap up early to get home add some zeros to the end of the dollar figure of the award.

CTL: I don’t necessarily disagree with your realpolitik analysis. But, certainly, the reforms I describe are morally needed and the best and proper way for the law to prescribe. And one can certainly hope the political environment will change in the future to permit implementation of these tort reforms.