For decades, large majorities of voters in New York's suburban Great Neck have shown their uniqueness at the election polls. They have voted in far greater numbers, they have voted against their pocketbooks, they have voted liberal Democrat, and they have voted for, rather than against, candidates. One of these voting traditions, however, broke down for a significant number of them on Election Day 2000. On Nov. 7, 20 percent of this group left the Democratic column -- in the eyes of some a traitorous act -- to cast their ballots for a little known Republican senatorial candidate, just so they could vote against Hillary Clinton.

Two years ago, in the 1998 Senatorial campaign between incumbent Republican Al D'Amato and Brooklyn, Democratic Congressman Charles Schumer, conservative Republican Jews for D'Amato sponsored newspaper ads which proclaimed that "Chuck Schumer [was] good for Hillary and the P.L.O." This negative campaigning had no impact upon Jewish voters in Great Neck, because they were determined to cast their ballots, as usual, for the candidate they strongly supported intellectually, philosophically and politically. Some 80 percent of Great Neckers voted for Chuck Schumer, one of the largest numbers ever.

During the months which followed, and especially after Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy to succeed retiring Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, some of these Jews intensified their campaign against the first lady. This time they found increasing support among Jewish liberals as they showed Hillary kissing Arafat's wife and quoted her as having said, "Well, I think it will be in the long-term interest of the Middle East for Palestine to be a state."

The issue of Hillary became such an emotional subject that these wavering Jews overlooked the fact that a majority of Israelis accepted the reality of a developing Palestinian state on the West Bank. On this issue, many American Jews were accused of becoming more Israeli than the Israelis. And there were those Jewish women who criticized Hillary severely for remaining with the president after the Monica Lewinsky affair. By the summer of 2000, a poll among Jewish voters indicated that only 55 percent of them would support Hillary. This was at least 20 percent less than the normal Jewish vote for Democratic candidates throughout the country. Those numbers did not change in the months leading up to the elections.

On Nov. 7, the exit polls taken by the Voters News Service concluded that only 53 percent of New York's Jewish voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton. And yet, she did surprisingly well in the once vaunted Republican stronghold of Nassau County, where Great Neck is located. She managed to garner an unexpected 45 percent of the Nassau vote against Long Islander Rick Lazio's 55 percent. Hillary's surprise showing of strength here and upstate halted any possible GOP tide in the state.

On election day, Great Neck voters displayed their historic uniqueness in every instance, but one. Over 66 percent of the 24,000 registered voters streamed to the polls from early morning until late at night. For the first time ever, I experienced a long wait at the polls. Whereas New York State gave Gore 60 percent of the vote, in Great Neck he was accorded close to 80 percent. In 1992, Great Neck voters gave Bill Clinton 68.9 percent and then, four years later, 74.2 percent. Great Neckers cast their ballots for Gore in such large numbers because they believed in him, his program and that he would carry on the liberal, New Deal legacy. And they had history, philosophy and tradition behind them.

Despite the fact that the4 nation's citizenry has tended to lodge itself in a more selfish, conservative mood, despite the fact that most of the residents of Great Neck have continued to edge their way up the economic ladder, many of them significantly, and despite their higher educational levels, they have tended to defy characterizations by most political analysts and polls. Previous polls placed most of them in the Republican column. And yet, repudiating their pocket books, in particular, these Great Neck voters have persistently voted for liberal Democrats.

Once a Waspish community and retreat for Broadway actors a post War II in-migration of Jewish professionals, academicians and businessmen converted a staid, Republican community into an intellectually challenging, liberal Democratic stronghold. Thereafter, no matter the extent of Republican victories in the county, state or nation, Great Neckers voted for liberal Democrats. And they are disproportionately involved as community activists and civic and organizational leaders.

As one might ask during Passover seder services, why are these voters different from others. The answer is simple - because 65 percent of them are Jewish residents and most of them descendents of Eastern European immigrants. They vote for liberal Democrats because it is part of their rearing, background and traditions.

According to Rabbi David Saperstein of the Reform Synagogues' Religious action Center in Washington, "the Jewish tradition is a profoundly liberal one, and Jews are the most identifiably liberal group in the nation." Jewish traditions, he insists, "are based on responsibilities, not rights." Some of the greatest traditional Jewish contributions include "the value of fundamental dignity, and of the need to help the poor and the less fortunate." And Saperstein includes freedom of choice for women, "as one of the greatest of Jewish contributions."

Like Rabbi Saperstein and other Jewish liberals, most Jews in Great Neck view the public sector as the primary player in insuring social justice for all. They agree that the moral test for society is what it does for the poor, the children, the dispossessed, our environment and human rights. Most Great Neck Jewish voters, particularly the elderly, as well as others around the country, recall their New Deal, liberal Democratic heritage with fondness, if not reverence. They remain moored to the liberal legacies of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. And they voted for Al Gore because they felt that he would carry on this vital legacy.

At the same time, however, some 20 percent of these unique voters broke with tradition when they refused to pull down the lever for Hillary Clinton. And for the first time in recent memory, this significant number voted against a liberal Democratic candidate by casting their ballots for a Republican, Rick Lazio.

Two years before, senatorial candidate Chuck Schumer, like Gore this year, won every one of the 32 election districts in Great Neck, while receiving some 80 percent of all votes cast. This year, Hillary Clinton lost four of the election districts while capturing 59 percent of the total vote. That amount was 14 percent more than the votes accorded her in Nassau County and in other New York City suburbs, and 4 percent more than she received statewide.

In each election district, Hillary received far fewer votes than Gore. But the greatest drop-offs occurred wherever orthodox Jews are concentrated, such as Saddle Rock, Harbor Hill and in an adjoining election district in Great Neck Estates.

Because of a mistaken public perception, it is sometimes difficult for individuals to realize that there is a significant core of lower middle class, working men and women who live in small homes on very little property, or in garden apartments, in at least six of its non-Jewish election districts. They are not liberal strongholds, nor are many of its residents admirers of Hillary Clinton.

The virulent critics of Hillary Clinton, and the self-doubters among others, succeeded in momentarily altering the uniqueness of Great Neck's Jewish voters. At least 20 percent of those who had for decades, voted for, rather than against, a candidate have, in this instance, forsaken traditions which made them different on election day. But I highly suspect that most of them will return to the fold by the next election.