Why would I choose to write about American Jewish conservatism? Is there really much to say? As far back as most of us can remember, the vast majority of American Jews have been associated with liberalism, not conservatism. They have consistently supported public assistance for the poor and civil rights for the rejected. Second only to African-Americans, they have been the strongest supporters of the Democratic Party at all levels of government. From the 1930s until the start of the Cold War, a small but influential number joined the American Communist Party or were sympathetic to what they took to be its goals. For many, the far left was simply the farthest end of the liberal political spectrum.

But that was then. It is not Jewish liberals who have been making the news in recent years. It is Jewish conservatives with important positions in the administration of President George W. Bush. The Pentagon's Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith; the National Security Council's Elliott Abrams; and Richard Perle, formerly of the Defense Policy Board, can be distinguished from moderate WASP conservatives not only by their ethnicity, but also by their militancy. Rather than descending from many generations of conservatives, they are mostly relatively new to the movement – and they have transformed it. Unlike traditional conservatives, they have proudly come to be called neoconservatives (or neocons).