Mitt Romney delivers a Rosh Hashana message. Photo: Screenshot.

Polling by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) has shown that Russian Jews in major U.S. cities are overwhelmingly Republican and support Mitt Romney in November’s election.

According to research by Sam Kliger, AJC’s director of Russian Jewish Community Affairs, in the New York area 47 percent of Russian-speaking Jews who responded to his survey plan to vote for Romney, compared with 12 percent for Obama.

This trend seems to hold true primarily for older Russian Jews, with younger voters much more divided between the two candidates. “Older Russians—the ones who remember Soviet times — tend to be more conservative,” and terms like redistribution, slogans that are “the same as one used in the [former] Soviet Union,” State Sen. David Storobin, a New York Republican from Brooklyn, told the New York Jewish Week.

In terms of foreign policy, Russian Jews “perceive Republicans as tougher on terrorism and more supportive of Israel,” said Roman Shmulenson, executive director of the Council of Jewish Émigré Organizations.