A new poll by a partisan Democratic group shows that Republican outreach to Jewish voters may not produce the dramatic gains for President Bush predicted by some analysts, with John Kerry favored by 75 to 22 percent among American Jews.

One reason may be a surprising figure buried in an avalanche of statistics.

Despite the preoccupation of major Jewish groups with the ongoing Middle East crisis, Jews in the sample rated Israel as a relatively low priority in making their presidential choice.

When asked which two of the following issue areas would be MOST important to you in deciding how to vote for a candidate for President, Israel was mentioned by 15 percent of the respondents – far behind terrorism and national security; and the economy and jobs at 42 percent; affordable health care and the situation in Iraq at 24 percent; and Social Security and Medicare at 19 percent.

The survey of 817 likely voters was conducted July 26-28 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC).

Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis historian, said the Israel number has huge political implications. “What it points to is that the Jewish community is bifurcating around the issue,” he said. “It’s increasingly split between those for whom Israel will be the decisive factor in their voting and those for whom it isn’t.”

While the poll suggested there is little hope of a GOP tidal wave among Jewish voters, it did confirm a core GOP strategy, Sarna said: focusing on Israel among the relatively small segment of Jewish voters whose vote is shaped almost exclusively by that issue.

The GOP hopes to win modest gains in a handful of swing states, such as Florida, where even minor shifts in Jewish voting could make a big difference.

”It’s a smart strategy,” Sarna said. “It could be a successful one for the Republicans.”

Sarna said the relatively low priority placed on Israel is the result of a number of factors, including “the growing emotional detachment of younger Jews from Israel” and the increasing discomfort many liberal Jews feel with Israel in the era of Michael Moore.

He said the gap also could reflect a growing gap between religiously active Jews, who tend to place a higher priority on Israel in their decision-making, and more secular Jews who rate it lower than other issues.

In the NJDC poll, 73 percent of the respondents said they attend synagogue “several times a year” or “hardly ever,” and 60 percent reported belonging to no Jewish organizations.

Jewish Democrats claimed the poll confirmed their argument that Republican Jewish outreach is not working.

”For all their efforts, the Republicans have gained almost nothing with American Jewish voters,” said NJDC director Ira Forman.

In the most striking finding, Kerry enjoys a 75- to 22 percent lead over Bush among Jewish voters. In 2000, Bush received about 19 percent of the vote; many observers have predicted his strong support for the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could boost that total to 30 percent or more in 2004.

Independent candidate Ralph Nader, whose comments about Israel have incensed Jewish leaders in recent weeks, was supported by about 3 percent of the Jewish respondents.

Only 20 percent of the Jews polled rated Bush favorably. Kerry received a 59 percent positive rating.

Anna Greenberg, the principal pollster, said Jewish voters give Bush “about the lowest job approval performance ratings I’ve seen outside of African-American voters.”

Vice President Dick Cheney, she said, “is even less popular than Bush” with a 79 percent unfavorable rating.

A little more encouraging for the Republicans: 18 percent of the Kerry supporters said there is at least some chance they might shift their vote to the president.

Eighty-five percent said Kerry would do a better job on abortion, and 78 percent preferred the Democrat on issues relating to “the role of religion in public life and politics.”

But Kerry’s numbers dropped to 66 percent on the issues of Israel and the war on terrorism. That suggests the Democrats are the most vulnerable on the question of Israel, especially among pro-Israel single-issue voters.

”The Republicans have defined the Achilles heel for the Democrats in the Jewish community, and they’re focusing on it,” said Kean University political scientist Gilbert Kahn.

Bush, he said, clearly has no chance to win over significant numbers of Jewish voters on a range of domestic issues. But there is a narrow window of opportunity to win over some single-issue pro-Israel voters, Kahn said.

Jewish Republicans blasted the poll as partisan in origin and biased because of its timing.

“I look at this as a poll taken by a partisan organization,” said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives. “From my talks with people around the country, it’s clear there has never been a time when the pro-Israel community has been as comfortable with who’s in the White House.”

Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, criticized the Democrats for conducting the poll during the Democratic National Convention, when national attention was riveted on their candidate “and during Tisha B’av, which could have affected responses from GOP-leaning Orthodox Jews.

“The fact is, the NJDC deliberately picked the dates to go into the field to manipulate the data and produce the results they wanted,” Brooks said.

But NJDC leaders said that because the poll was conducted on the Internet over three days, observant respondents had a chance to participate. They noted also that the Orthodox segment of the sample was 8 percent, within striking distance of the Orthodox proportion of the Jewish population.

The timing of the survey was a coincidence, according to the Democrats.

Greenberg said the figures are “in accord with most if not all of the recent studies and historical information we have about Jewish voters, including looking at the National Jewish Population Study, the recent Gallup studies, exit polls and the research I did a few years ago on Jewish voters. We feel extremely confident about these data.”

But Brooks countered that the poll is wildly inaccurate. “What will speak loudest,” he said, “is the data that will come out on Nov. 3, after the election.”