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Which side are you on: Jewish American or American Jew?
(JTA) — Earlier this month the New York Times convened what it called a “focus group of Jewish Americans.” I was struck briefly by that phrase — Jewish Americans — in part because the Times, like the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, tends to prefer “American Jews.”
It’s seemingly a distinction without a difference, although I know others might disagree. There is an argument that “American Jew” smacks of disloyalty, describing a Jew who happens to be American. “Jewish American,” according to this thinking, flips the script: an American who happens to be Jewish.
If pressed, I’d say I prefer “American Jew.” The noun “Jew” sounds, to my ear anyway, more direct and more assertive than the tentative adjective “Jewish.” It’s also consistent with the way JTA essentializes “Jew” in its coverage, as in British Jew, French Jew, LGBT Jew or Jew of color.
I wouldn’t have given further thought to the subject if not for a webinar last week given by Arnold Eisen, the chancellor emeritus at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In “Jewish-American, American-Jew: The Complexities and Joys of Living a Hyphenated Identity,” Eisen discussed how a debate over language is really about how Jews navigate between competing identities.
“What does the ‘American’ signify to us?” he asked. “What does the ‘Jewish’ signify and what is the nature of the relationship between the two? Is it a synthesis? Is it a tension, or a contradiction, or is it a blurring of the boundaries such that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins?”
Questions like these, it turns out, have been asked since Jews and other immigrants first began flooding Ellis Island. Teddy Roosevelt complained in 1915 that “there is no room in this country for hyphenated Americans.” Woodrow Wilson liked to say that “any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of the Republic.” The two presidents were frankly freaked out about what we now call multiculturalism, convinced that America couldn’t survive a wave of immigrants with dual loyalties.
The two presidents lost the argument, and for much of the 20th century “hyphenated American” was shorthand for successful acculturation. While immigration hardliners continue to question the loyalty of minorities who claim more than one identity, and Donald Trump played with the politics of loyalty in remarks about Mexicans, Muslims and Jews, ethnic pride is as American as, well, St. Patrick’s Day. “I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said in announcing her run for the Republican presidential nomination this month.
For Jews, however, the hyphen became what philosophy professor Berel Lang called “a weighty symbol of the divided life of Diaspora Jewry.” Jewishness isn’t a distant country with quaint customs, but a religion and a portable identity that lives uneasily alongside your nationality. In a 2005 essay, Lang argued that on either side of the hyphen were “vying traditions or allegiances,” with the Jew constantly confronted with a choice between the American side, or assimilation, and the Jewish side, or remaining distinct.
Eisen calls this the “question of Jewish difference.” Eisen grew up in an observant Jewish family in Philadelphia, and understood from an early age that his family was different from their Vietnamese-, Italian-, Ukrainian- and African-American neighbors. On the other hand, they were all the same — that is, American — because they were all hyphenated. “Being parallel to all these other differences, gave me my place in the city and in the country,” he said.
In college he studied the Jewish heavy hitters who were less sanguine about the integration of American and Jewish identities. Eisen calls Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the renegade theologian at JTS, “the thinker who really made this question uppermost for American Jews.” Kaplan wrote in 1934 that Jewishness could only survive as a “subordinate civilization” in the United States, and that the “Jew in America will be first and foremost an American, and only secondarily a Jew.”
Kaplan’s prescription was a maximum effort on the part of Jews to “save the otherness of Jewish life” – not just through synagogue, but through a Jewish “civilization” expressed in social relationships, leisure activities and a traditional moral and ethical code.
Of course, Kaplan also understood that there was another way to protect Jewish distinctiveness: move to Israel.
A poster issued by the National Industrial Conservation Movement in 1917 warns that the American war effort might be harmed by a “hyphen of disloyalty,” suggesting immigrants with ties to their homelands were working to aid the enemy. (Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress)
The political scientist Charles Liebman, in “The Ambivalent American Jew” (1973), argued that Jews in the United States were torn between surviving as a distinct ethnic group and integrating into the larger society.
According to Eisen, Liebman believed that “Jews who make ‘Jewish’ the adjective and ‘American’ the noun tend to fall on the integration side of the hyphen. And Jews who make ‘Jew’ the noun and ‘American’ the adjective tend to fall on the survival side of the hyphen.”
Eisen, a professor of Jewish thought at JTS, noted that the challenge of the hyphen was felt by rabbis on opposite ends of the theological spectrum. He cited Eugene Borowitz, the influential Reform rabbi, who suggested in 1973 that Jews in the United States “are actually more Jewish on the inside than they pretend to be on the outside. In other words, we’re so worried about what Liebman called integration into America that we hide our distinctiveness.” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the leading Modern Orthodox thinker of his generation, despaired that the United States presented its Jews with an unresolvable conflict between the person of faith and the person of secular culture.
When I read the texts Eisen shared, I see 20th-century Jewish men who doubted Jews who could be fully at home in America and at home with themselves as Jews (let alone as Jews who weren’t straight or white — which would demand a few more hyphens). They couldn’t imagine a rich Jewishness that didn’t exist as a counterculture, the way Cynthia Ozick wondered what it would be like to “think as a Jew” in a non-Jewish language like English.
They couldn’t picture the hyphen as a plus sign, which pulled the words “Jewish” and “American” together.
Recent trends support the skeptics. Look at Judaism’s Conservative movement, whose rabbis are trained at JTS, and which has long tried to reconcile Jewish literacy and observance with the American mainstream. It’s shrinking, losing market share and followers both to Reform – where the American side of the hyphen is ascendant — and to Orthodoxy, where Jewish otherness is booming in places like Brooklyn and Lakewood, New Jersey. And the Jewish “nones” — those opting out of religion, synagogue and active engagement in Jewish institutions and affairs — are among the fastest-growing segments of American Jewish life.
Eisen appears more optimistic about a hyphenated Jewish identity, although he insists that it takes work to cultivate the Jewish side. “I don’t think there’s anything at stake necessarily on which side of the hyphen you put the Jewish on,” he said. “But if you don’t go out of your way to put added weight on the Jewish in the natural course of events, as Kaplan said correctly 100 years ago, the American will win.”
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Trump Says No ‘Definitive’ Agreement With Netanyahu, US Talks With Iran to Continue
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach to shake hands at a joint press conference in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Sept. 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump said after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday they reached no “definitive” agreement on how to move forward with Iran but he insisted negotiations with Tehran would continue to see if a deal can be achieved.
Netanyahu, who had been expected to press Trump to widen diplomacy with Iran beyond its nuclear program to include limits on its missile arsenal, stressed that Israel’s security interests must be taken into account but offered no sign that the president made the commitments he sought.
In their seventh meeting since Trump returned to office last year, Netanyahu – whose visit was more muted than usual and closed to the press – was looking to influence the next round of US discussions with Iran following nuclear negotiations held in Oman last Friday.
The two leaders spoke behind closed doors for more than two and a half hours in what Trump described as a “very good meeting” but said no major decisions were made and stopped short of publicly accepting Netanyahu’s entreaties.
Trump has threatened strikes on Iran if no agreement is reached, while Tehran has vowed to retaliate, stoking fears of a wider war as the US amasses forces in the Middle East. He has repeatedly voiced support for a secure Israel, a longstanding US ally and arch-foe of Iran.
In media interviews on Tuesday, Trump reiterated his blunt warning to Iran, while saying he believes Tehran wants a deal.
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated,” Trump said in a social media post after the meeting with Netanyahu. “If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference.”
“If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be,” Trump added, noting that the last time Iran decided against an agreement the US struck its nuclear sites last June.
TRUMP SAYS NO TO IRANIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS, MISSILES
Trump told Fox Business in an interview broadcast on Tuesday that a good deal with Iran would mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles,” without elaborating. He also told Axios he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier strike group as part of a major US buildup near Iran.
Israel fears that the US might pursue a narrow nuclear deal that does not include restrictions on Iran‘s ballistic missile program or an end to Iranian support for armed proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah, according to people familiar with the matter. Israeli officials have urged the US not to trust Iran‘s promises.
Iran has rejected such demands and says the Oman talks focused only on nuclear issues.
“The Prime Minister emphasized the security needs of the State of Israel in the context of the negotiations, and the two agreed to continue their close coordination and tight contact,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after Wednesday’s talks.
The two leaders had also been expected to talk about potential military action if diplomacy with Iran fails, one source said.
Iran has said it is prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions but has ruled out linking the issue to missiles.
“The Islamic Republic’s missile capabilities are non-negotiable,” Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran‘s supreme leader, said on Wednesday.
Netanyahu’s arrival at the White House was lower-key than usual. The two leaders were shown shaking hands in a photo released by the Israeli Embassy. But unlike previous Netanyahu visits with Trump, a press pool was not allowed into the Oval Office. It was not immediately known why he received such low-profile treatment.
GAZA ON THE AGENDA
Also on the agenda was Gaza, with Trump looking to push ahead with a ceasefire agreement he helped to broker. Progress on his 20-point plan to end the war and rebuild the shattered Palestinian enclave has stalled, with major gaps over steps such as Hamas disarming as Israeli troops withdraw in phases.
“We discussed the tremendous progress being made in Gaza, and the Region in general,” Trump said after the meeting.
Netanyahu’s visit, originally scheduled for Feb. 18, was brought forward amid renewed US engagement with Iran. Both sides at last week’s Oman meeting said the negotiations were positive and further talks were expected soon.
Trump has been vague about broadening the negotiations. He was quoted as telling Axios on Tuesday that it was a “no-brainer” for any deal to cover Iran‘s nuclear program, but that he also thought it possible to address its missile stockpiles.
Iran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes, while the US and Israel have accused it of past efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
During a 12-day war last June, Israel heavily damaged Iran‘s air defenses and missile arsenal. Two Israeli officials say there are signs Iran is working to restore those capabilities.
Trump threatened last month to intervene militarily during a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran, but ultimately held off.
ISRAEL WARY OF A WEAKENED IRAN REBUILDING
Tehran’s regional influence has been weakened by Israel’s June attack, losses suffered by its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and the ousting of its ally, former Syrian President Bashar al‑Assad.
But Israel is wary of its adversaries rebuilding after the multifront war triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, assault on southern Israel.
While Trump and Netanyahu have mostly been in sync and the US remains Israel’s main arms supplier, they appear to be at odds on another key issue.
Part of Trump’s Gaza plan holds out the prospect for eventual Palestinian statehood – which Netanyahu and his coalition have resisted.
Netanyahu’s security cabinet on Sunday authorized steps that would make it easier for Israeli settlers in the West Bank to buy land while granting Israel broader powers in what the Palestinians see as part of a future state.
The decision drew international condemnation, and Trump on Tuesday reiterated his opposition to West Bank annexation.
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Gaza Peace Plan Stalls Amid Reports of US Allowing Hamas to Keep Some Arms, Israel Readying New Offensive
Israeli military vehicles drive past destruction in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border in southern Israel, Jan. 21, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The US-backed plan to end the war in Gaza appears to have hit major roadblocks, with Hamas reportedly being allowed to keep some small arms and Israel readying its military for a new offensive to disarm the Palestinian terrorist group.
According to a New York Times report, officials involved in the US-led Board of Peace have drafted a plan that would let Hamas retain small arms while giving up longer-range weapons, a move Israeli officials warn would let the terrorist group maintain its grip on Gaza.
The compromise could further strain the already fragile ceasefire, under which further Israeli military withdrawals from Gaza are tied to Hamas’s disarmament.
The draft plan reportedly calls for a “phased disarmament” of Hamas over several months, with heavy weapons “decommissioned immediately.” However, details remain unclear on where surrendered arms would go or how the plan would actually be enforced.
The initial framework would also require “personal arms” to be “registered and decommissioned” as a new Palestinian administration takes charge of security in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has previously warned that Hamas must fully disarm for the second phase of the ceasefire to move forward, pointing to tens of thousands of rifles and an active network of underground tunnels still under the Islamist group’s control.
If the Palestinian terrorist group does not give up its weapons, Israel has vowed not to withdraw troops from Gaza or approve any rebuilding efforts, effectively stalling the ceasefire agreement.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) currently occupy 53 percent of the Strip, with most of the Palestinian population living in the remaining portion of the enclave under Hamas control.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the country will not accept anything less than the full demilitarization of Gaza, pledging to prevent Hamas from carrying out another attack like its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel. The attack, in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people, kidnapped 251 hostages, and perpetrated rampant sexual violence, launched the war in Gaza, where Hamas had total governing control before Israel’s military campaign.
Under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, phase two would involve deploying an international stabilization force (ISF), beginning large-scale reconstruction, and establishing a Palestinian technocratic committee to oversee the territory’s administration.
According to media reports, the ISF could total around 20,000 troops, though it remains uncertain whether the multinational peacekeeping force will actually help disarm Hamas. Indonesia, one of the contributing members, announced this week that it could provide up to 8,000 soldiers.
Hamas has repeatedly rejected disarmament, with senior official Khaled Meshal most recently suggesting that the group has never agreed to surrender its weapons.
“As long as there’s an occupation, there’s resistance,” Meshal said during the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha on Sunday.
Amid rising tensions, Israel is planning to resume military operations in the Gaza Strip to forcibly disarm Hamas, with the Times of Israel reporting that the IDF is drawing up plans for a renewed major offensive.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that Hamas will be disarmed by force if it continues to violate the ceasefire and pose a threat to Israel’s security.
“If Hamas does not disarm in accordance with the agreed framework, we will dismantle it and all of its capabilities,” the Israeli defense chief said this month.
Since the ceasefire took effect last year, both sides have accused each other of violations. This month, Israeli officials said that Hamas “has violated the agreement and focused its efforts on restoring its military capabilities.”
If Israel undertakes a renewed offensive, it could be far more intense than the IDF’s previous operations in Gaza over the past two years of conflict, which were constrained by efforts to protect the hostages.
Israeli officials have insisted that Hamas terrorists will continue fighting as long as they have access to weapons.
Last week, the IDF announced that a Hamas terrorist responsible for a deadly 2004 double suicide bombing, which killed 16 Israeli civilians and wounded over 100, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip.
The operation was part of a series of targeted strikes against terrorist operatives, carried out in response to an attack by gunmen on Israeli troops in the northern Gaza Strip, during which a reservist officer was seriously wounded.
Captured in 2004 and sentenced to prison, Basel Himouni was later released and exiled to Gaza in a 2011 deal, in which Israel exchanged 1,027 terror prisoners for captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
According to the IDF, since his release, Himouni “returned to recruiting attackers and directing terrorist activity.”
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Spanish Authorities Question Steel Workers Over Alleged Israeli Arms Sales, Sparking Outrage
Containers are seen in the Port of Vigo, Spain, March 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Nacho Doce
Spanish authorities on Tuesday raided a steel factory near Bilbao, northern Spain, questioning staff over suspected violations of the country’s arms embargo on Israel – a move that has sparked outrage among local Jewish leaders and government officials, who denounced it as blatant intimidation.
According to the Spanish news outlet El Debate, police in Basauri – a town in Spain’s northern Basque Country – questioned staff at Sidenor Group, a steel manufacturer and trader, as part of a criminal investigation into alleged illegal arms sales to Israel.
José Antonio Jainaga, president of Sidenor, is accused of “smuggling and aiding in crimes against humanity or genocide by selling unauthorized batches of steel to Israel Military Industries,” according to the report.
However, Jainaga denied “any irregularity in the sales of steel to Israel” in testimony last year, asserting that the steel produced by Sidenor and exported to Israel was not “among the products subject to special control” by the Spanish government.
The Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM) group, a leading pro-Israel organization in Spain, strongly condemned the government’s latest actions as part of a “pattern of political pressure on economic actors for ideological reasons” and an “authoritarian drift and threat to democratic standards.”
“What should have been an administrative compliance process is increasingly perceived as a show of force by a government that has strayed from the standards of transparency, proportionality, and legal certainty promoted by the European Union,” ACOM wrote in a post on X.
“The combination of state intervention with a political climate that tolerates — and sometimes encourages — aggressive activism against Israel and its partners creates a scenario in which civil liberties and the legal security of companies and citizens are steadily eroded,” the statement read.
Spain under Sanchez: authoritarian drift and the threat to democratic standards
Recently, Spain witnessed an event that should alarm any international observer: the National Police conducted a raid on the headquarters of @sidenoraceros in Basauri, in Spain’s Basque Country,… pic.twitter.com/jAmEvcdUGa
— Acción y Comunicación sobre Oriente Medio – ACOM (@ACOM_es) February 10, 2026
ACOM also accused Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of turning the country into one of Europe’s most hostile toward Israel, alleging the move was meant to divert attention from corruption scandals within his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and from recent electoral setbacks.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Spain has launched a fierce anti-Israel campaign aimed at undermining and isolating the Jewish state on the international stage.
In September, the Spanish government passed a law to take “urgent measures to stop the genocide in Gaza,” banning trade in defense material and dual-use products from Israel, as well as imports and advertising of products originating from Israeli settlements.
More recently, Spanish officials also announced a ban on imports from hundreds of Israeli communities in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
Among all European Union members, Spain is the second country to take such action, following Slovenia — one of the bloc’s smallest economies — which became the first EU member to ban Israeli products in August, and potentially to be joined by Ireland, where parliament is currently working on a similar measure.
As a major trading partner, Israel exports roughly $850 million in goods to Spain each year — about half the value of Spanish exports to Israel — with products from the West Bank and the Golan making up only a small fraction of those shipments, according to the Israel Export Institute.
Last year, the Spanish government also announced it would bar entry to individuals involved in what it called a “genocide against Palestinians” and block Israel-bound ships and aircraft carrying weapons from Spanish ports and airspace.
Spain has also canceled a €700 million ($825 million) deal for Israeli-designed rocket launchers, as the government conducts a broader review to systematically phase out Israeli weapons and technology from its armed forces.
Amid this increasingly hostile stance toward the Jewish state, the Sánchez administration is facing mounting pressure from the country’s political leaders and the Jewish community, who accuse the government of stoking antisemitic hostility.
In December, Spanish authorities granted Airbus, the European aerospace and defense company, exceptional permission to produce aircraft and drones using Israeli technology at its Spanish plants – a move that reflects growing pressure from companies and domestic interests against the government’s push for trade sanctions on Israel over the war in Gaza.