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Changing Jewish views on Zionism could scramble the antisemitism debate
Should hostility toward Israel be understood as an expression of animus toward Jews? That question sits at the center of most contemporary debates over antisemitism, and the views of Jews themselves are often cited by partisans on both sides.
Many Jewish leaders have argued that because Zionism — meaning general support for the existence of a Jewish state in Israel — is so widespread among Jews, those on the left should accept that anti-Zionism is at least sometimes a form of antisemitism.
There are other arguments that rest on merits divorced from identity, including that Israel is held to a double standard for antisemitic reasons, or that it’s offensive to deny Jews an independent homeland following the Holocaust. But the claim that support for Israel is a core part of Jewish identity is especially important for both legal and moral reasons — legally, it’s what allows the government to place limits on anti-Zionist campus protests, for example, while morally it suggests that respecting Jews as a group means respecting their attachment to Israel.
The fact that this argument has failed to resonate among many liberals has become itself presumed evidence of antisemitism. “It is a progressive article of faith — much heightened during the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 — that those who do not experience racism need to listen, to learn, to accept and not challenge, when others speak about their experiences,” David Baddiel, a Jewish comedian, said during his book tour for Jews Don’t Count. “Except, it seems, when Jews do — non-Jews, including progressive non-Jews, are still very happy to tell Jews whether or not the utterance about them was in fact racist.”
Progressives often respond that the existence of Jewish anti-Zionists negates this argument — they are in fact listening to Jews, and those Jews agree with them.
And so the question of who the representative Jews are — those who view attachment to Israel as an important part of Jewish identity, or those who insist there is no inherent connection between the two — has become central to how to understand antisemitism.
The Jewish establishment long held up statistics claiming that 95% of American Jews were Zionist, a claim that always rested on a shaky foundation but one that became widely repeated and helped marginalize the vocal minority of anti-Zionist Jews.
More recently, the Jewish Federations of North America has distributed data acknowledging that only a minority of American Jews identify as “Zionist,” but arguing that other proxies for Zionism — like supporting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state — still approach 90% agreement.
Other data, like the American Jewish Committee’s finding that 83% of Jews in the U.S. consider the statement that “Israel has no right to exist” to be a form of antisemitism, appear to confirm that the vast majority of the Jewish community subscribed to at least a passive form of Zionism.
But a new survey has called this assumption into question. It found that 24% of Jewish adults want to replace Israel with a binational state, nearly double the share who expressed that preference the last time the question was polled a few years ago, and that figure jumps to 44% of Jews under 35 and 51% among non-Orthodox Jews in that age group.
The general trend of younger Jews drifting away from Israel — even as a majority of the overall population remains attached — has been consistent for many years, and if the surge of support for a binational state among Jews under 35 continues, the Zionist majority among American Jews may evaporate over the next 20 or 30 years.
This has serious consequences for who gets to speak on behalf of these Jews. If anti-Zionist Jewish organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace represent 5% of the community, it is easy to treat them as fringe voices. Even at 10%, 15% or 20%, they’re still representing a small minority of Jews. But this becomes impossible at 45% or 50%, with significant consequences for who is understood to be a representative Jew in debates over Zionism and antisemitism.
The data itself is solid.
It comes from Jim Gerstein, a Democratic pollster with expertise in polling American Jews for organizations like J Street and the Jewish Democratic Council of America (both of which are Zionist organizations).
Gerstein and his sponsors have long been willing to poll questions that other Jewish organizations won’t, and it was his firm that found in 2021 that 38% of U.S. Jews under 40 believed Israel was an apartheid state.
But there are important caveats.
The current polling suggests that a significant minority of American Jews both say the best resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict involves replacing Israel with a binational state — widely considered to be an expression of anti-Zionism — while still saying that Israel should be allowed to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and that opposing Israel’s “right to exist” is antisemitic.
This underscores the failure of terms like “Zionist” and “anti-Zionist” to capture how American Jews really feel about Israel.
What does it mean for someone to support the premise of Zionism — a Jewish state in Israel — while simultaneously advocating for its eradication? One possibility is that they might support the concept of a Jewish and democratic state, but believe that Israel is failing as a democracy and prioritize restoring its democratic status over maintaining its Jewish majority.
That might suggest a roadmap for pro-Israel Jewish organizations in the U.S. to focus more on addressing Israel’s far-right shift, rather than simply on defending the country against its American critics.
And what could it mean that some Jews want to replace Israel with a binational state but, at the same time, believe that denying Israel’s “right to exist” is antisemitic? Perhaps they understand a binational state as a legitimate reconstruction of the government, while denying Israel’s “right to exist” sounds like support for the country’s violent destruction.
That could mean that anti-Zionist leaders should do more to condemn the growing share of the left that is expressing support for organizations like Hamas.
Either way, the evidence points to an American Jewish community that is fracturing along generational lines, but the fallout from those divisions could be softened if leaders are willing to open the door to more honest and nuanced conversations than they’ve been ready to have to date.
The post Changing Jewish views on Zionism could scramble the antisemitism debate appeared first on The Forward.
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Is AIPAC a ‘monster’ that decides Congressional races? The data shows otherwise
At a rally for progressive candidates last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called AIPAC “monsters.” The pro-Israel lobby, he told the crowd, uses “millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal, to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another.”
This is not an insulated idea. Graham Platner, Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee, was proud to stress that he was a candidate AIPAC would never endorse starting with one of his very first online ads.
On the left — and, more quietly, the right — versions of the “monster” narrative are spreading, suggesting that AIPAC is an electoral force with bottomless pockets that decides who serves in Congress.
The truth is quite different. To find it, I pulled both primary and general election outcomes for every Congressional candidate that AIPAC’s traditional PAC backed in 2022 and 2024 — 788 candidates across the two cycles — from the Federal Electoral Commission. I ran the same exercise for 17 peer single-issue PACs, including the NRA and Planned Parenthood.
The data shows that while AIPAC has an impressive operation, its electoral results do not outperform those of any other major single-issue lobby. AIPAC itself cites a 95% win rate on endorsed candidates as evidence of its political muscle, but that high level of success is partially attributable to the fact that, according to my sample, some 86% percent of AIPAC’s endorsements go to sitting members of Congress. And incumbents win about 95% of general elections — regardless of who funds them.
What’s more remarkable than the number of elections AIPAC wins is how often it gets credit or blame — depending on your politics — for deciding races.
When former Rep. Cori Bush lost her 2024 primary against an AIPAC-backed challenger, AIPAC was widely cited as influencing the race — even though even though Bush spent much of 2024 fighting a federal investigation into her campaign-fund spending, and lost to Wesley Bell, a former St. Louis County prosecutor with the kind of district-wide name recognition no PAC can buy. That same year, Rep. Summer Lee, who had been at least as outspoken on Israel’s conduct in Gaza as Bush, beat AIPAC’s preferred candidate in the Pittsburgh primary by more than 20 points.
Somehow, the narrative that AIPAC rather than voters decides Congressional races wasn’t overturned by Lee’s win. It’s almost like people who want to believe that Jews control politics in the United States have a bias toward seeing instances that on the surface may appear to confirm that belief — and toward ignoring those that contest it.
When the group’s main PAC supported candidates who were not yet sitting members of Congress, their picks won about 91% of primaries. This sounds high, indeed, but other major lobbies do even better. For instance, lobbies including the NRA, Sierra Club, and Planned Parenthood all boast success rates over the same period of more than 95%.
AIPAC is, in this context, indistinguishable in terms of its win rate than all other lobbies.
Perhaps an even more important test is tight races — primaries decided by 10 percentage points or fewer. Here, AIPAC wins about 79% of the time. This is comparable to the win rate of all other lobbies I saw, but not by far the largest. For instance, the NRA’s win rate in these tight races is 84%, the Sierra Club 88%, and Planned Parenthood 83%.
So it is true that AIPAC plays a real role in American politics. What gets missed amid the excess scrutiny on AIPAC: that role is, in effect, no different from that of any other lobby. In fact, AIPAC is in practice often slightly less effective than many of its peers.
That truth helps make clear how dangerous the disproportionate attention AIPAC receives from the media, and from candidates opposed to its priorities, can be. To single out a well-funded lobby with many Jewish members, and to cast it as the secret hand behind every contested race, isn’t just wrong on the data. It rhymes with the oldest antisemitic trope there is: that Jews quietly run the world.
The post Is AIPAC a ‘monster’ that decides Congressional races? The data shows otherwise appeared first on The Forward.
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Feds open antisemitism investigation into National Education Association
(JTA) — The Trump administration is launching an antisemitism investigation into the National Education Association, the influential public school teachers union, over purported employment discrimination.
The probe is based on allegations that Jewish members of the NEA were harassed and “physically intimidated” during the organization’s 2025 annual convention, including a reported case of NEA members appearing to cheer at mention of the 2005 attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado.
The complaint, based on the accounts of several Jewish NEA members, also spotlighted recent controversies, such as materials from the union that labeled a map of the state of Israel as “Palestine” for Indigenous People’s Day and a handbook that failed to identify Jews as the primary victims of the Holocaust. They further alleged that the union’s diversity hiring guidelines harmed its Jewish members.
The Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a legal group that has brought several other such antisemitism cases to the Trump administration, filed the complaint that triggered the NEA investigation. The case is being handled through the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, whose authority to investigate employment discrimination also extends to union membership.
“We really appreciate the EEOC’s decision to open this investigation,” Marci Miller, director of legal investigations at the Brandeis Center, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
In a statement to JTA, the NEA said, “We take concerns like this seriously and are reviewing the matter through our established processes.” The union added that it “does not tolerate antisemitism in any form and is committed to ensuring that all members and students, including Jewish members and students, can work and learn in a safe and welcoming environment.”
The NEA has previously said its map labeled “Palestine” “does not meet our standards,” and updated its Holocaust handbook in response to the pushback.
Jews in public school education have expressed concern about tensions over the last few years. In 2021, many Jewish groups rallied against NEA proposals to oppose Israel; the measures did not pass. At its 2025 convention, the NEA had voted to boycott the Anti-Defamation League, though its executive committee rejected the vote following pushback from Jewish groups.
The GOP-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce is also investigating the union over antisemitism, citing several of the same instances later outlined in the Brandeis Center complaint.
The EEOC’s NEA case is part of an expansion of the Trump administration’s antisemitism investigations beyond college and K-12 campuses. Last week the U.S. Health and Human Services Department opened its own probe into the American Psychological Association, also based on a Brandeis Center complaint.
In addition to alleged harassment of Jewish members at the convention, Miller said the center’s NEA complaint also involved diversity-based hiring practices at the union: “Jewish members in particular have been harmed by this policy because they have not been recognized as a racial or ethnic group worth counting for purposes of this policy.”
The EEOC has tackled antisemitism cases against other institutions, but its role in such investigations is controversial. The agency’s chair, Andrea Lucas, is currently demanding that the University of Pennsylvania turn over a list of Jews affiliated with the university as part of the commission’s antisemitism investigation into the Ivy League school. Several Jewish groups, as well as the university itself, have argued that such a demand will make Jews less safe.
Some Jewish groups have alleged that the administration has used antisemitism allegations as a pretext to undermine institutions it considers ideologically unfriendly.
One of Lucas’s defenders in the Jewish community is Kenneth Marcus, the Brandeis Center’s founder. Lucas herself is not Jewish but recently defended her legal strategy to Jewish leaders at a campus antisemitism conference.
Asked about this, Miller said the Brandeis Center was providing “dozens” of Jewish witnesses to the EEOC for consensual interviews.
“There’s no demand for anybody else,” she said. “We have plenty of information.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Feds open antisemitism investigation into National Education Association appeared first on The Forward.
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New York primary tests Mamdani’s pull and Israel as a campaign issue
New York City Democratic voters are going to the polls today in congressional primaries that are doubling as a referendum on U.S.-Israel relations, as candidates allied with Mayor Zohran Mamdani test whether his brand of democratic socialism and criticism of hardline pro-Israel money in politics will translate into broader electoral success.
Mamdani has endorsed Columbia Gaza war encampment leader Darializa Avila-Chevalier and former City Comptroller Brad Lander in challenging sitting members of Congress, and Assemblymember Claire Valdez for an open seat.
All have campaigned using the terms “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and Mamdani himself has singled out Israel and its champions as adversaries.
At a Brooklyn campaign rally last week, Mamdani compared the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “monsters” who “move millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal — to preserve their power, so that they can turn us against one another.”
The statement drew widespread condemnation from Jewish leaders, including some of Mamdani’s supporters. And it comes as Democratic infighting over Israel nationally has intensified, with candidates across the political spectrum increasingly treating support from AIPAC as politically toxic.
All three of the Mamdani-endorsed congressional candidates have made Israel or AIPAC a central part of their campaigns, though each in different ways. AIPAC backs candidates aligned with continued U.S. support for Israel military aid and has spent upwards of $38 million nationally this election cycle, a Politico analysis found — though exact AIPAC contributions are difficult to track due to its use of shell PACs and tactic of funneling money directly to campaigns.
In the 10th Congressional District in lower Manhattan and western Brooklyn, Lander is challenging incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman, zeroing in on Goldman’s support for U.S. military aid to Israel and his past ties to AIPAC. Lander opted not to take part in New York City’s annual Israel Parade, while Goldman used his participation to appeal to Jewish voters.
Earlier this month, Israel and Gaza consumed roughly 15 minutes of a one-hour debate between the candidates. Goldman expressed a desire to move on, arguing that “Israel is not the most important issue in this district,” while Lander countered that Gaza represents “one of the significant moral and humanity challenges of our time.”
Goldman has defended his support for Israel as consistent with his values. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in February that there is “an undercurrent of antisemitism in the degree to which AIPAC seems to be vilified.”
The heat boiled over on Sunday when a Brooklyn coffee bar chain, Poetica Coffee, declared on social media after Goldman and his young daughter stopped by that it would have turned Goldman away from the cafe had staff known who he was, posting to Instagram that they don’t serve “genocide enablers.”
Next to a picture of Goldman taken outside the shop after he had ordered a coffee, and another image showing $9.82 refunded, the post added: “Do you see how it doesn’t taste like genocide juice? Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference?” (The account has since been disabled.)
Lander, who identifies as a liberal Zionist, had acknowledged the potential for anti-Israel passions in the race to get out of hand — telling an interviewer that criticizing AIPAC makes him “queasy” given “the antisemitic tropes at play,” but that he feels an obligation to call out its funding nonetheless as he promises to curtail U.S. military aid to Israel.
Goldman has not commented on the incident, other than to reply on Instagram: “The barista could not have been nicer to my 7-yr-old daughter and me.” Lander criticized the coffee shop’s response, telling the Forward, “There are plenty of ways to lobby elected officials and express outrage at the votes they’ve taken without turning coffee shops into places people don’t feel welcome.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Avila Chevalier attended a rally held in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023 widely condemned for condoning Hamas’ violence. She has said she attended in anticipation of an Israeli military response, citing “a pattern in which whenever there is an incident, the state of Israel engages in a response that is often disproportionate and creates a greater loss of life.”
And she told the New York Editorial Board last week that Zionism “is an ideology that is looking to create a political system where one group of people has more standing before the law than another group of people.”
She faces AIPAC-backed incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in NY-13, which covers Upper Manhattan and portions of the Bronx.
“To know that my opponent takes AIPAC money is something that, for a lot of people, is just disqualifying. It is [about] Palestine at the heart of it, but it’s also what it says about someone’s inability to stand up against something that is so blatantly horrific, someone who refuses to name a genocide,” Avila Chevalier told the Nation. “Can you trust someone who won’t even say that word to fight for you on the most basic of issues?”
Addressing AIPAC’s support for him in a primary debate, Espaillat said “no one dictates or tells me how to vote, my constituents do that.”
Meanwhile, in NY-7, which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens, Valdez has sought to make Israel and AIPAC a campaign issue in a race where AIPAC is not involved and the candidates have broad agreement on Gaza.
Valdez faces Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, whom she has critiqued for not using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions until after he announced his candidacy. She also accused Reynoso of benefiting from secretive pro-Israel money, despite no evidence that AIPAC has supported his campaign.
The post New York primary tests Mamdani’s pull and Israel as a campaign issue appeared first on The Forward.
