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What to do with anti-Zionist Jews? Try talking to them, some Jewish researchers say
(JTA) — A survey showing that only around one-third of American Jews identify as Zionists set off shockwaves in the Jewish world last week, triggering speculation about what could have caused so many Jews to spurn a label once thought as nearly synonymous with Jewish identity.
From his home in Israel, Robbie Gringras had a different reaction.
“I wasn’t surprised,” he said about the survey, conducted by Jewish Federations of North America. “I have a feeling many more of these pieces are now going to come out.”
Together with Abi Dauber Sterne, Gringras runs For The Sake of Argument, an organization that consults on how to hold “healthy arguments” focusing on Judaism and Israel. A few months ago the two embarked on a project few other Jewish groups would attempt: interviewing dozens of Jewish American anti-Zionists directly about what turned them away from Israel.
Avowed anti-Zionists make up a relatively small portion of American Jews, according to the JFNA study: 7% overall, and 14% among Jews ages 18-35. But they shared a consistent story, according to Gringras and Sterne’s findings, which they are releasing on Thursday.
“Throughout all the answers to this question we heard an unmistakable theme: These people report that they reached their rejection of Israel in response to the behavior of Jewish Israelis and Jewish Americans,” Gringras and Sterne write.
Gringras said he understands that the takeaways might be disconcerting to Jewish leaders, who might be drawn to the theory that Jewish anti-Zionists have taken that stance as a result of ignorance, or because of the influence of non-Jewish progressives with no attachment to Israel. But he said he believes the findings can have a positive impact on those who encounter them.
“I have a lot of faith in people who confront things and think about them,” Gringras told JTA. “So the moment that the leadership is thinking about this, is confronting it, then good things will happen.”
Gringras and Sterne are not alone in trying to more deeply understand how contemporary Jews think about Zionism — which the JFNA survey shows does not have an agreed-upon definition — and what Jewish anti-Zionists more specifically are thinking.
Brandeis University researcher Matt Boxer said he felt “vindicated” by JFNA’s survey. He’s embarked on his own, very similar, multi-year survey project asking American Jews to define Zionism, supported in part by the Anti-Defamation League, where Boxer is a former fellow.
When Boxer first distributed his own survey in 2022 with open-ended responses, he received negative feedback from all corners, even death threats, in a sign of just how sensitive even raising the subject can be.
“I’ve had people tell me I’m an antisemite just by asking the questions, by having people tell me what these things mean,” he said. “And I’ve had people telling me I’m committing genocide against Palestinians.”
Even so, turnout was strong. More than 1,800 American Jews, from all over the world, submitted usable responses on whether they describe themselves as a Zionist or anti-Zionist, and what they thought the terms meant. Some synagogues and similar Jewish spaces circulated the survey within their communities. The results, which Boxer first presented in 2024, largely mirrored JFNA’s own findings this week (a study which Boxer had also consulted on, and which was led by one of his former graduate students).
“It’s so much deeper than we’ve left room for in our discourse,” Boxer said. He described what he called “the ‘Rashomon’ effect,” a reference to the classic 1950 Japanese film in which the same event is retold from drastically different points of view. The same thing has happened with Zionism, he said: Every Jew has their own definition.
“We’ve made this out to be a binary: If you’re Zionist you’re good, if you’re anti-Zionist you’re bad,” he said. “But it’s so much more complicated than that.”
Boxer is currently polishing off a new paper based on the data, exploring the Jews — including many self-declared Zionists — who described Israel as an apartheid state.
In 2024 Boxer’s senior colleague, the social researcher Janet Aronson, surveyed 800 Jewish anti-Zionists. “It’s not a group that we just want to dismiss out of hand,” said Aronson, who heads Brandeis’ Jewish Studies center and has conducted population studies for local Jewish federations for years.
Referring to the combined number of declared anti- and non-Zionists found in the JFNA survey, she added, “I think 15% is a lot of people.”
The push for more and higher-quality dialogue with Jewish anti-Zionists comes as the larger Jewish world is grappling with the seeming collapse of the Zionist consensus, expressed in everything from reactions to Oct. 7 to the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City. Some Jewish leaders are calling to extend olive branches to Jewish anti-Zionists, while others want to close the big tent to them.
Those who do engage with Jewish anti-Zionists, these researchers say, will likely encounter a group of people who are very knowledgeable about Judaism and often grew up in Zionist spaces. That stands in contrast to what they say is a common misconception of the population: that Jewish anti-Zionists don’t know or don’t care about Judaism and other Jews.
For example, the Movement Against Antizionism, a new advocacy group founded by the McGill University doctoral student Adam Louis Klein, defines Jewish anti-Zionists as “those who seek safety or acceptance by echoing the accusations leveled against their own people.” The group draws a historic line connecting the Hellenistic Jews of the Maccabee era, through Jewish Soviet Bundists, to the modern-day anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace — all Jews that it says identify not with their own people but with antisemites in their broader society.
The researchers studying Jewish anti-Zionism don’t see things quite the same way. While none of the studies claims to be representative of the Jewish anti-Zionist population, 40% of Aronson’s respondents either worked, or had previously worked, in Jewish organizations — echoing the profile of the day school and camp alums who founded the activist group IfNotNow a decade ago. Many of them became involved in anti-Zionist minyans or similar upstart Jewish spaces that reject Zionism — a growing rallying cry among left-wing Jews.
“Those are people who we would expect to be current and incoming leaders of the Jewish community,” Aronson said. “What does it mean for the Jewish community when they say, ‘We’re not going to be part of these Jewish institutions, we need to start our own’? What a loss to the Jewish community, this pipeline of leadership and energy.”
Most of Gringras and Stern’s interviewees, likewise, “talked of a childhood and Jewish education that embraced the centrality of Israel,” the report states. “Their Israel journeys did not begin with an ideological rejection of Zionism. Yet nearly all of them underwent a paradigm shift, and now see Israel through primarily anti-Zionist eyes.”
First-person accounts from the report describe painful breaks with the Jewish community. They shared stories of being cut off by family members for asking their opinions about Israel’s human rights record, or of being rebuked by rabbis for suggesting that post-Oct. 7 donations should be directed to Israeli healthcare services rather than the military.
“It is far, far easier to come out as gay than to come out as anti-Zionist,” one subject said.
Another interviewee, who grew up in a religious Zionist family that lived for a time in a settlement in the West Bank, stated, “I know that my parents are terribly sad that I am no longer a Zionist. I think they don’t realize how sad I am, too, that I am no longer a Zionist.”
“We weren’t meeting people who didn’t care,” Gringras summarized, describing their subjects as “sad, if not brokenhearted, about the way in which they not only find no expression for their Judaism, but also find the Judaism that they’re meeting very challenging.”
Gringras and Sterne are far from anti-Zionists themselves. Both are Jewish emigres to Israel; Sterne has held senior roles with the Jewish Agency and Hillel International, while Gringras is a former leader of the Jewish Agency’s Israel Education Laboratory. They founded For the Sake of Argument in 2022, with support from funders such as the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Natan Fund — realizing, in Gringras’s estimation, that “the way to learn about Israel, to be engaged in Israel, is to be engaged in its arguments.”
Talking to anti-Zionists wasn’t the project’s initial plan. At first, For The Sake of Argument sought out to explore what they’d theorized was a purely generational divide in Jewish views on Israel. But, the report’s authors say, they soon realized that age wasn’t the appropriate framing for the divide. Some younger subjects “expressed deep support for Israel,” the found, and some older ones “were deeply critical.”
The real divide, they determined, “is over Israel itself, between Zionists and anti-Zionists.” So they pivoted to interviewing anti-Zionists directly — with connections made via intermediaries, mostly on the East Coast, and the wording of questions carefully constructed in advance with “the assumption that no one is born Zionist or anti-Zionist.”
In fact some interview subjects said that, far from being born anti-Zionist, they only made the leap in the aftermath of Oct. 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza, out of distress over Israel’s behavior during the war. Some made asks of their Jewish leaders, such as to remove the Israeli flag from the bimah, that they had not previously considered.
All of it, the paper said, came from a place of deep identification with and concern for the Jewish community amid the anti-Zionists’ beliefs that it was aligning itself with an immoral cause.
The researchers all say Jewish leaders should conduct similar interviews within their own communities, to understand the real contours of sentiment about Israel.
For the Sake of Argument plans to offer programming to help facilitate such dialogue. Aronson emphasized that those conversations would ideally come from a place of mutual respect and vulnerability.
“I don’t think it will be effective if it comes from this position of, ‘We are mainstream Judaism, we are willing to have a conversation with you,’” she said. “It can only be done if it’s really from a willingness that all sides need to be open and listening to each other.”
Aronson noted that Zionist Jewish leaders, following one of JFNA’s own conclusions from its report, may see it as their job to try to convince their counterparts why Zionism matters. That approach could easily backfire, she said.
“For these highly engaged anti-Zionists who have gone through serious Jewish education and involvement, they actually have already heard all of the arguments that mainstream Judaism has to present,” she said. “I think that’s one of the reasons why they say, ‘We don’t need to hear your side.’ Because they’ll say, ‘We have learned it. You’ve taught it to us and we reject it.’”
Boxer noted that, in many of the Jewish population surveys he’s worked on, “community after community” has told him they struggle to broach conversations about Zionism. That makes them all the more essential, he said.
“I think it’s going to be painful, but we have to have these conversations,” Boxer said.
All the researchers agreed on something else: The divide between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews is deep, and concerning.
“We don’t know what to do,” Gringras and Sterne admit in the report. Aronson concurred.
“I don’t know how we put the community back together. I don’t know that this is a bridgeable line, to be honest,” she said. “This is certainly not the first time in Jewish history when people have left and made their own tents.”
The post What to do with anti-Zionist Jews? Try talking to them, some Jewish researchers say appeared first on The Forward.
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Rubio Says ‘Historic’ Israel-Lebanon Talks Should Outline Framework for Peace
Smoke rises after an Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in southern Lebanon, March 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted a rare meeting between Israeli and Lebanese envoys in Washington on Tuesday, saying he hoped the two countries would agree to a framework for a peace process, even as Israel pressed its war on Hezbollah.
The two countries went into their first direct negotiations since 1983 with conflicting agendas, with Israel ruling out discussion of a ceasefire and demanding Beirut disarm Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group based in Lebanon that seeks Israel’s destruction.
But the presence of Rubio, President Donald Trump’s top diplomat and national security adviser, signaled Washington’s desire to see progress.
CRITICAL JUNCTURE IN MIDDLE EAST CRISIS
The meeting comes at a critical juncture in the conflict in the Middle East, a week into a fragile ceasefire between the United States, Israel, and Iran.
Iran says Israel‘s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any agreement to end the wider war, complicating talks mediated by Pakistan aimed at averting further economic fallout.
The conflict that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28 has led to a major oil supply disruption, piling pressure on Trump to find an off-ramp.
Rubio opened the meeting between Israel‘s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, and his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, saying he hoped the talks could begin a process to permanently end the conflict in Lebanon and prevent Hezbollah, which he called a “terrorist proxy of Iran,” from threatening Israel.
The meeting marked a rare encounter between representatives of governments that have remained technically in a state of war since the modern state of Israel was established in 1948.
“This is a process, not an event. This is more than just one day. This will take time, but we believe it is worth this endeavor, and it’s a historic gathering that we hope to build on. And the hope today is that we can outline the framework upon which a permanent, lasting peace can be developed,” Rubio said.
Rubio was hosting Tuesday’s talks amid questions over his lack of in-person participation in talks with Iran, with the Republican president sending Vice President JD Vance to Islamabad over the weekend to lead the US negotiations.
Rubio was with Trump in Florida watching a mixed martial arts event as Vance announced in Pakistan that talks with the Iranians had concluded with no breakthrough.
State Department Counselor Michael Needham, US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, and US ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, a personal friend of Trump, were also participating in the talks on Tuesday.
LEBANON SEEKS CEASEFIRE
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement on X as the meeting started that he hoped it would “mark the beginning of ending the suffering of the Lebanese people in general, and the southerners in particular.”
The Lebanese government led by Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has called for negotiations with Israel despite objections from Hezbollah, reflecting worsening tensions between the Shi’ite Muslim group and its opponents.
Hezbollah opened fire in support of Tehran on March 2, sparking an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.2 million from their homes, according to Lebanese authorities. Most of those killed have been Hezbollah terrorists, according to Israeli tallies.
Lebanese officials have said Moawad only has authority to discuss a ceasefire in Tuesday’s meeting.
But Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said Israel would not discuss a ceasefire.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters in Jerusalem ahead of the meeting that talks would focus on the disarmament of Hezbollah, which he said must take place before Israel and Lebanon could sign any peace agreement and normalise relations.
He said Hezbollah was a problem for Israel‘s security and Lebanon‘s sovereignty that needed to be addressed to move relations to a different phase. “We want to reach peace and normalization with the state of Lebanon,” he said.
The Lebanese state has been seeking to disarm Hezbollah peacefully since a war between the terrorist group and Israel in 2024. Efforts by Lebanon to disarm it by force risk igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990. Moves against Hezbollah by a Western-backed government in 2008 prompted a short civil war.
The current government banned Hezbollah’s military wing after it opened fire on Israel last month.
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Italy Suspends Defense Cooperation Deal With Israel as Trump Turns on Meloni
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni listens to debate, after she reported on her government’s actions and is expected to speak on the latest developments in Iran, at the lower house of Parliament in Rome, Italy, April 9, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Tuesday her government had suspended a defense cooperation deal with Israel, reflecting frayed ties between previously close allies as the conflicts in the Middle East continue.
Meloni‘s right-wing government has been one of Israel‘s closest friends in Europe, but in recent weeks it has criticized its attacks on the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which have killed hundreds and injured thousands.
Israel also fired warning shots last week at Italian troops serving in Lebanon under a UN mandate, causing damage to a vehicle.
“When there are things we don’t agree with, we act accordingly,” Meloni told reporters on the sidelines of a wine fair in Verona, northern Italy.
“In light of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defense agreement with Israel,” she added.
Meloni‘s announcement marked another diplomatic realignment for her right-wing government, coming a day after she criticized another close ally, US President Donald Trump, for his attacks on Pope Leo.
A source close to the matter, who requested anonymity, said Meloni took the decision on Monday with her foreign and defense ministers, Antonio Tajani and Guido Crosetto, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.
Israel‘s foreign ministry played down the consequences.
“We have no security agreement with Italy. We have a memorandum of understanding from many years ago that has never contained any substantive content. This will not affect Israel‘s security,” it said in a statement.
MELONI CHANGES TACK
Meloni has been in power since 2022 and will face a general election by late 2027.
“It’s a repositioning,” Lorenzo Castellani, political historian at Rome’s Luiss University, told Reuters.
“She’s afraid that a sizeable portion of the electorate, even among the center-right, will become highly critical of Trump and Netanyahu and of the effects of this war on Iran on the economy,” he added, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
Italy’s opposition parties had long called for a stop to the deal with Israel.
Signed in 2003 by the government of then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the memorandum entered into force in 2006 and was subject to automatic renewals every five years unless one of the parties withdraws.
It spans fields including procurement, training and the “import, export, and transit of defense and military equipment.”
As diplomatic tensions have risen, Rome last week summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest over the incident involving Italian troops in Lebanon. Then on Monday, Netanyahu’s government summoned the Italian ambassador “to discuss the situation in Lebanon.”
TRUMP TURNS ON MELONI
Meanwhile, Trump told an Italian newspaper on Tuesday that Meloni lacks courage and has let Washington down.
Meloni had been a vociferous supporter of Trump, but she distanced herself from him after he went to war with Iran in February, and on Monday she openly criticized him for lashing out at Pope Leo, saying his verbal assault was “unacceptable.”
Trump responded in an interview with Corriere della Sera, saying Meloni was “very different from what I thought” and denouncing her for refusing to help re-open the Strait of Hormuz, which has been blocked by Iran.
“I’m shocked by her. I thought she had courage. I was wrong,” he was quoted as saying in the Italian-language article.
The White House declined to comment on the reported quotes. Meloni‘s office also declined to comment, but politicians of all stripes rallied to her defense, including Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, head of the coalition Forza Italia party.
“We are, and will remain, sincere supporters of Western unity and steadfast allies of the United States, but that unity is built on loyalty, respect, and mutual frankness,” he said, applauding Meloni for denouncing Trump‘s attack on the pope.
Trump‘s criticism marked a dramatic change in tone toward Meloni, the only European leader to attend his inauguration in 2025 and whom he had hailed as “a great leader” just one month ago.
On Tuesday he accused her of failing to back US efforts to tackle Iran’s nuclear program and guarantee energy flows through the Gulf, saying she wanted America “to do the job for her.”
Asked about her condemnation of his comments on Pope Leo, he said: “She is the one who is unacceptable, because she does not care whether Iran has a nuclear weapon and would blow Italy up in two minutes if it had the chance.”
The reprimand capped a tumultuous month for Meloni, who lost a crunch referendum on judicial reform in March and then saw her political ally Viktor Orban ousted from power in Hungary.
The US-Israeli war in the Gulf threatens to upend the economy with surging energy costs and is hugely unpopular with Italians, putting Meloni on a collision course with Trump.
Seeking to distance herself from the conflict, she refused to let US fighters use an airbase in Sicily for combat operations in Iran last month, before suspending the military cooperation pact with Israel this week.
Trump said the surge in energy prices should have encouraged Italy, which is heavily dependent on oil and gas imports, to help re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
“They pay the highest energy costs in the world and are not even ready to fight for the Strait of Hormuz … They depend on Donald Trump to keep it open,” Trump said.
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US, Iran May Resume Talks This Week Despite Port Blockade
A vessel at the Strait of Hormuz, off the coast of Oman’s Musandam province, April 12, 2026. Photo: REUTERS
Talks to end the Iran war could resume in Pakistan over the next two days, US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, after the collapse of weekend negotiations prompted Washington to impose a blockade on Iranian ports.
Gulf, Pakistani, and Iranian officials also said negotiating teams from the US and Iran could return to Pakistan later this week, though one senior Iranian source said no date had been set.
“You should stay there, really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the New York Post.
While the US blockade drew angry rhetoric from Tehran, signs that diplomatic engagement might continue helped calm oil markets, pushing benchmark prices below $100 on Tuesday.
The highest-level talks between the two adversaries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution ended in Islamabad without a breakthrough, raising doubts over the survival of a two-week ceasefire that still has a week to run.
Since the United States and Israel began the war on Feb. 28, Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz to nearly all vessels except its own, saying passage would be permitted only under Iranian control and subject to a fee. Nearly a fifth of global oil and gas supplies previously flowed through the narrow waterway, making the fallout widespread.
In a countermeasure, the US military said it began blocking shipping traffic in and out of Iran‘s ports on Monday. Tehran has threatened to hit naval ships going through the strait and to retaliate against its Gulf neighbors’ ports.
IMF CUTS GROWTH OUTLOOK
US Central Command said the blockade of Iranian ports involved more than 10,000 US military personnel, more than a dozen warships, and dozens of aircraft.
“During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the US blockade and 6 merchant vessels complied with direction from US forces to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman,” CENTCOM said in a statement posted on X.
Shipping data showed the blockade had made little difference to Strait of Hormuz traffic on Tuesday, with at least eight ships crossing the waterway.
The latest standoff has further clouded the outlook for global energy security and the supply of goods that rely on petroleum.
On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund cut its growth outlook and said the global economy would teeter on the brink of recession if the conflict worsens and oil stays above $100 per barrel into 2027.
The International Energy Agency slashed its forecasts for global oil supply and demand growth, saying both are now expected to fall from 2025 levels.
The US’ NATO allies including Britain and France said they would not be drawn into the conflict by taking part in the blockade, although they have offered to help safeguard the strait by drawing together a defensive multilateral mission to assist when an agreement is in place.
China, the main buyer of Iranian oil, said the US blockade was “dangerous and irresponsible” and would only aggravate tensions.
PROPOSAL FOR 20-YEAR SUSPENSION OF NUCLEAR ACTIVITY
US Vice President JD Vance, who led Washington’s delegation in Pakistan, has said Trump was adamant that any enriched nuclear material must be removed from Iran and a mechanism be established to verify that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.
A source briefed on the matter confirmed reports that the US had proposed a 20-year suspension of all nuclear activity by Iran “with all sorts of restrictions.”
Two Iranian sources said Iran had rejected the proposal, suggesting a halt of just three to five years.
One source involved in the negotiations in Pakistan said backchannel talks since the weekend had produced good progress in closing the gap on the nuclear issue, bringing the two sides closer to a deal that could be put forward at a new round of talks.
Complicating Pakistan’s mediation efforts, Israel has continued targeting Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel and the United States say that campaign is not covered by the ceasefire, while Iran has insisted it is.
Israeli and Lebanese envoys were to meet in Washington on Tuesday in a rare encounter also expected to be attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Lebanon’s government has sought negotiations with Israel despite objections from Hezbollah.
Israel continued to target Hezbollah after the Iran ceasefire was announced last week, but later said it was willing to discuss a separate ceasefire with the Lebanese government.
Regarding Iran, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters in Jerusalem on Tuesday: “We will never allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons … The enriched materials must be removed from Iran.”
CEASEFIRE STILL HOLDING
With the war unpopular at home and rising energy prices causing political blowback, Trump paused the US-Israeli bombing campaign last week after threatening to destroy Iran‘s bridges and power grid unless it reopened the strait.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted from April 10 to 12 after the ceasefire was announced showed that 35% of Americans approve of US strikes against Iran, down from 37% a week earlier.
The ceasefire has largely held over its first week despite sharp rhetoric from both sides.
An Iranian military spokesperson called any US restrictions on international shipping “piracy,” while Trump said that Iran‘s navy had been “completely obliterated” and that only a small number of “fast-attack ships” remained.
“Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED,” Trump wrote on social media.