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Eli Rosenbaum takes skills honed Nazi-hunting to investigating war crimes in Ukraine
WASHINGTON (JTA) –– During the 35 years Eli Rosenbaum spent hunting Nazis, he always looked up to his forebears in the profession. But it was only recently, as he ventured into Ukraine to track down Russian war criminals, that he felt a personal connection with the investigators who pursued Adolf Hitler’s henchmen in the years following World War II.
For the first time in his career, Rosenbaum was seeking evidence of crimes as soon as, or almost as soon as, they were committed.
“I’m accustomed to working on atrocity crimes when the conflict is over — World War II, Rwanda, Bosnia, Guatemala, et cetera,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency recently. “But in this case, the atrocities are being committed every day.”
Rosenbaum said he has been working “if not 24/7, 20/7” since June, when Merrick Garland, the Jewish U.S. attorney-general, named him to lead the Justice Department’s War Crimes Accountability Team in Ukraine. Rosenbaum had previously spent the bulk of his career in the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations, which he directed from 1995 to 2010. The OSI tracked down and deported 70 Nazis hiding in the United States. In 2004, it expanded its purview to track down war criminals from other conflicts who had entered the United States.
Rosenbaum’s current team, he said in congressional testimony in September, “provides Ukrainian authorities with wide-ranging technical assistance, including operational assistance and advice regarding criminal prosecutions, evidence collection, forensics, and relevant legal analysis.”
Rosenbaum rattles off names and events in the evolution of war crimes prosecution in a way that sends a listener scrambling to a search engine. He’s been a war crimes geek since college, when he took a film course and a professor screened Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will.”
Rosenbaum told his parents about the movie. His father, Irving, a refugee from Nazi Germany who enlisted in the U.S. Army, had been tapped to interrogate Nazis and their enablers after the war because he spoke German.
“I mentioned to my dad that I was taking this course and we had just seen this film. And my father said, ‘Oh, Leni Riefenstahl. I questioned her after the war.’ I [said], ‘Oh, my God. Really?’”
Rosenbaum recalls his father responding, “Yeah, and I have the report on it. Might your professor want to see it?”
As a student at Harvard Law School, Rosenbaum interned in 1979 for the then-just-established OSI, where he spent the next three decades. Garland, in naming Rosenbaum, said that made him a natural fit for the Ukraine job, noting at the time Rosenbaum’s experience in coordinating among different U.S. government departments.
Describing his work to JTA, Rosenbaum repeatedly circled back to the pioneers of war crimes prosecution, among them, Aron Trainin, the Soviet Jewish scholar, and Robert Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court justice who established the framework for prosecuting Nazis for the “crime of aggression” at the Nuremberg trials, a concept unknown until then.
The relevance of their theories persists, he said, because Russia is not a signatory to the agreement that established the International Criminal Court, making it difficult to prosecute Russians in that body. Instead, Ukraine wants to set up a special tribunal to try Russians, modeling it on the proceedings at Nuremberg.
“We look to Nuremberg routinely, it is the mother of all trials for international crimes,” Rosenbaum said. “It’s in many ways the origin of international criminal law.”
Rosenbaum feels the “crime of aggression” is particularly relevant in the Ukraine case because Russia’s invasion was unprovoked. He described how the “crime of aggression” became, with President Harry Truman’s blessing, part of the canon in international law enshrined in the principles framing the Nuremberg trial, and then in the United Nations charter.
Rosenbaum is awed by Jackson and his intellectual journey.
“There’s an amazing letter that he wrote to Harry Truman, which I just reread the other day, in the course of my Ukraine work, in which he explains to the president why … there’s no precedent for prosecuting aggression. In the old days, this was how nations behaved. They attacked one another and, under international law, they were considered to have equal standing,” Rosenbaum said. “So [Jackson] said that had to end, and he persuaded President Truman, and now we have that crime in international law.”
Rosenbaum says Ukraine proves Jackson’s prescience. He quoted Jackson’s opening statement at the Nuremberg trials: “What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust.”
Rosenbaum, like Jackson before him, is appealing to the U.S. government to expand its capacity to prosecute war crimes. In his congressional testimony, Rosenbaum described one area of frustration: Unlike crimes of genocide, war crimes must have a U.S. party (as perpetrator or victim) to be prosecutable in a U.S. court.
Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy and counselor for War Crimes Accountability at the US Department of Justice, testifies about the war in Ukraine during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “From Nuremberg to Ukraine: Accountability for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity,” Sept. 28, 2022. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“This means that if a war criminal from the current conflict in Ukraine were, for example, to come to the United States today and were subsequently identified, our war crimes statute would not apply, thus potentially allowing that war criminal and others to walk the streets of our country without fear of prosecution,” Rosenbaum said in his congressional testimony.
Another parallel with World War II that has surprised Rosenbaum is that he is getting reports from survivors of Russian atrocities who are gathering evidence in real time. He mentioned two men he admires: Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, Slovak Jews who fled Auschwitz and were the first to describe, in a detailed report, the mechanics of the Nazi genocide to the outside world.
“I got to meet Rudolf Vrba, who was a witness for [the OSI] in our very first case that was going to trial — eventually it didn’t go to trial, the defendant gave up — but it was an Auschwitz case in Chicago, and Rudolf came out there,” Rosenbaum said. “It’s just amazing that we have his analogs in people who are gathering evidence, people are escaping from Russian captivity.”
Another pair of Nuremberg trials-era researchers that Rosenbaum names as relevant again are Budd and Stuart Schulberg, Jewish brothers who worked for the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA under legendary Hollywood director John Ford. The brothers tracked down films of atrocities that the Nazis themselves had produced, which the Schulbergs then compiled for presentation at the trials. (Budd Schulberg went on to be a celebrated novelist and screenwriter.)
Rosenbaum is a contributing expert to a just-released hour-long documentary on the brothers, titled “Filmmakers for the Prosecution.”
“The Schulberg brothers really pioneered something that’s extremely important in the history of law enforcement and accountability in courts, [which] is something we take for granted here in the 21st century, and that is the presentation of full-motion film [and] video evidence in courts of law,” he said.
Such evidence-gathering is happening today in Ukraine as well, Rosenbaum said.
“The Ukrainian authorities with which we work very closely have a website onto which the public or to which the public can upload their own videos,” he said. “And now that everybody who has a cell phone, has a video camera…so much evidence of the aftermath of atrocities and even the perpetration of atrocities has been captured via moving images.,”
He says he has been rattled at times by researching war crimes as they happen, especially during his visits to Ukraine.
“It was an unforgettably moving experience to meet our colleagues in the middle of a war in Ukraine,” he said. “One of the senior prosecutors was actually in his military fatigues, because he had taken off briefly from his unit for this meeting, and then he went right back.”
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The post Eli Rosenbaum takes skills honed Nazi-hunting to investigating war crimes in Ukraine appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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More Democrats than ever are voting against aid to Israel. That could actually be good for Israel
Israel is losing Democratic support in the same way a character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises went bankrupt: “gradually and then suddenly.”
When 103 House Democrats voted for a resolution that would eliminate United States aid to Israel yesterday — that was the “suddenly.” Even though the resolution didn’t pass, what seemed unimaginable on a few years ago now, after a period of gradual change, looks inevitable. When the current $38-billion weapons aid agreement between the U.S. and Israel winds down in 2028, the next one will involve what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called “a major reset” in the relationship.
And you know what? It’s long overdue. This shocking, historic vote is an opportunity to redefine the U.S.-Israel relationship in a way that benefits the U.S., Israel, Palestinians and the region.
Proponents have always framed U.S. aid to Israel as a win-win. We give them money — most of which has to be spent on American-made weapons — and in exchange Israel serves as a kind of land-based battleship in the Middle East. It looks out for American interests in a volatile region.
But increasingly, Americans are failing to see the value in that bargain. A recent poll found that 48% of Americans feel the U.S. is too supportive of Israel. At least among young people, this antipathy doesn’t just exist on the left: 53% of Republicans under age 45 oppose renewing the current aid agreement.
The fact of Israel’s booming economy, driven by the high tech and weapons industries that make it a valuable U.S. partner, has fueled that opposition. Why, a growing number of Americans ask, should our tax dollars fund a country that ranks 24th in median adult wealth according to a newly released USB survey — while the U.S. itself ranks 28th?
But what opponents mostly object to is Israeli government policy under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has cashed American checks and carried on with policies in Gaza and the West Bank that most Americans — including most American Jews — reject. What defenders have long asserted is a mutually beneficial arrangement increasingly feels more like a teenager with a credit card and a bad attitude.
A better approach, the “reset” Jeffries speaks of, would adjust the relationship from one of parent and child to one of peers and partners.
Ensuring Israel’s long term security would continue to be a key goal of that partnership. The U.S. might stop funding Israeli weapons purchases, but it could still sell Israel defensive systems.
But the security of Palestinians and other Israeli neighbors would also be key. The U.S. ought to consider defense guarantees to Israel and certain neighbors, including the Gulf States and even, perhaps, a reformed Syria. Those guarantees should come with sanctions if any government misuses American-made weapons. Security also means funding humanitarian aid that is attached to rooting out extremism and promoting freedom and self-determination.
Such a reset could make Israel itself stronger: less reliant on the whims of U.S. foreign and domestic policy; better able to diversify its sourcing and sale of weapons; and a key player in a regional peace, which includes the Palestinians. All of those changes could help bring true security.
These outcomes may seem aspirational. But it’s not like the old and now defunct patterns of aid were bringing Israelis the security they need. Democrats and Republicans, by listening to changing public opinion, have a chance to establish a new relationship rooted in a new vision.
Make no mistake, this vision will not satisfy the hardcore anti-Israel crowd on either side of the aisle. They want no aid and no partnership. They want to boycott Israeli products, artists and academics and arrest Israeli leaders. Their solution is the dissolution of the Israeli state.
Some of the Democrats who voted for the resolution no doubt belong in this category — among them the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who was the sole House member to vote “nay” on a Nov. 2023 resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist.
But many Democrats who voted for the Wednesday resolution said they did so despite their ongoing support for Israel, as a way to lodge their dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s policies.
“We simply cannot continue to condone Netanyahu’s actions that are against our moral conscience and our own national security interests by perpetuating the status quo,” said Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, who has a long record of support for Israel.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss, also of Massachusetts, voted for the bill, but said it “should not impair the state of Israel’s right to defend itself against the atrocities of the terrorist regimes that threaten it.”
Both Auchincloss and Moulton pointed out the bill’s flaws, among them that it would deny Israel purely defensive weapons systems, as well as humanitarian aid that also serves Palestinians.
But if Israel’s sensible supporters can, once the current agreement expires, put one in place that allows for defensive weapons and humanitarian aid, they’ll be on the way to promoting a more effective partnership than that we have now. Doing so could dampen the extremes both here and in Israel. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The post More Democrats than ever are voting against aid to Israel. That could actually be good for Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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The quiet wave of Arab emigration from Israel: ‘Every day felt like I was on trial to prove I was a good citizen’
This article was produced through a collaboration between Shomrim, an investigative outlet, and Wasla, an Arabic-language business news site, and was published on both platforms.
More than 207,000 Israelis left the country between 2023 and 2025. Arab citizens account for only a small share of those emigrants: 6.2% in 2024, lower than their share in the population. But surveys from the past 12 months forecast a change: between 20% and 30% of Arab citizens say that they are considering leaving Israel.
Increasingly, Arab families, including many with established careers, are choosing to build new lives abroad. Their reasons go well beyond economics: they cite fears of future wars, a surge in organized crime and deadly violence within Israel’s Arab communities, and a growing sense that they no longer belong.
Dr. Nasreen Haj-Yahya, a social and family researcher who is also a couples and family therapist, says that the fact that more families are even talking about the possibility of leaving the country shows that a change has taken place. “Arab families in Israel are not migrant families by nature,” she says. On the contrary: one of their defining characteristics is that they stay on their land, close to their extended families and to the places they grew up. “Physical and geographical proximity to the family is part of our social structure,” she explains.
According to Haj-Yahya, when families buy a one-way ticket, it is a response to extreme pressure. “It’s not something that fits in with the structure of the Arab family. For a family to get up and leave, there must have been very extreme forces at work.”
These forces are not primarily economic. Haj-Yahya explains that the question of emigration has become a key issue among the families she sees at her clinic and encounters in her research. “The war created a lot of uncertainty, fear and a kind of hopelessness,” she says. “At the same time, violence within Arab society is no longer perceived as something that only affects people involved in criminal activities. Violence is also visited on innocent people, making people fear for their very existence.”
There is also a sense of being silenced. Members of a young and educated generation, who were raised on values like freedom of expression and human rights, found themselves, in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, afraid to speak their minds. “People feel as if their mouths have been shut. The possibility of living somewhere where they can speak freely and feel safe has become one of the main reasons for emigration.”
Haitham Khalaila, 53, married with one child, from Shefa-Amr, an Arab city in Northern Israel. Returned to Israel from the United States in 2008 and emigrated back to Michigan in 2024
Khalaila decided to leave for the United States again after seeing the psychological effect of the war on his 10-year-old son. “When the war started, I felt completely helpless to protect my son, who was 10 at the time. Every time the siren went off, we’d run for cover, but we didn’t have a bomb shelter near our house. I felt like I couldn’t even give my family the bare minimum of a sense of security. My son refused to sleep alone and kept asking me, ‘Who’s going to raise me if you guys die in the war?’ Those questions are what made up my mind. I realized the fear had already scarred him.”
At first, his wife was very resistant to the idea of moving away from Israel. “She was really hesitant. She doesn’t speak English, she has no family here, and the move terrified her. But as the war dragged on, she realized we had to do it to save our kid.
“The beginning was incredibly expensive. We had huge expenses for lawyers and sorting out my wife’s legal status, and we bought a house for $480,000 with a mortgage. Today I’m working as a big-rig truck driver making around $8,000 a month. It’s a fresh start in every sense of the word.
“Even after we got to the U.S., my son would panic at the sound of regular airplanes, thinking they were drones coming to bomb us. Today he’s calmer, more confident, and introduces himself freely as a Palestinian Muslim. For me, that says it all. If the situation back home stays the way it is – with no security, a high cost of living, and no real change — I don’t see a stable future to bring my family back to. I have no intention of going back.”
Noura Amouri, 43, married with two children from I’billin, a local municipality in northern Israel. A former occupational therapist for the Ministry of Education and a clinic owner, she emigrated with her family to the town of Varallo in Italy
You lived a stable life — professionally and economically. What caused a family like yours to pack up everything and leave?
“It was never about work or money. The decision started to form because of this constant, lingering fear for the future, and especially the violence that keeps getting worse within Arab society. I felt like my kids were growing up in an environment that didn’t give them real opportunities or any sense of security. When you realize you can’t even protect your children’s mental well-being — the clinic, the pharmacy and the house all lose their value.
“Because of a delay with my husband’s work visa, we moved temporarily to Canada for two months. We burned through about 100,000 shekels [about $33,000] there on housing, paperwork and living expenses. That amount would have lasted us a whole year in Italy. Today we’re living on my husband’s income as a pharmacist and on our savings. I’m trying to get my degree recognized so I can get back to work.
“For the first time, I see my kids living a calm, freer life. They play outside, walk around and just feel safe. That alone tells me we made the right choice. But the truth is, homesickness never leaves you. The little details of our old house haunt me even here. I miss my home, the smallest things in it, even the couch I left behind. When you emigrate, you aren’t just leaving a place. You’re leaving a piece of your memory behind.
“As far as we’re concerned, the decision to leave the country is final. There’s no going back. Italy might just be a stepping stone for now and it’s not certain this is where we’ll settle down for good, but the decision not to return home has already been made.”
Rania Laham, 50, married with two children, from Haifa. A VP at a non-profit organization, she moved to Limassol, Cyprus.
Unlike most migration stories, yours unfolded in reverse — you emigrated while your young daughter stayed behind in Israel. How did that shape your life?
“Usually, kids move with their parents. With us, it was the other way around: we left and our daughter stayed behind. For my husband and me, that’s the most painful part of this whole move. My husband, our 16-year-old son and I moved to Cyprus, while our oldest daughter, who is 19, stayed to continue her university studies. It’s a tough situation, but we temporarily sacrificed our life together as a family so we wouldn’t disrupt her education and her future.
“Cyprus wasn’t some long-held dream. It was just the most practical choice: close enough that we can keep a connection to the work and the life we left behind, but it also gives us more peace of mind. The mental toll was a huge factor. We just couldn’t take any more wars and the constant murders and crime within Arab society.
“I’m still working as the deputy director of the I’lam Media Center and the non-profit’s financial manager. I can work remotely without any issue. The fact that I kept the exact same job gave us financial stability and made the move feel less risky, since we didn’t lose our main source of income. It’s true that rent in Limassol is relatively high, because it’s the most expensive city on the island, but daily expenses and food are cheaper than back home.
“I don’t look at this move as a final step, but more like an open-ended experiment that depends on what happens back home. Ultimately, whether we stay here or not depends mostly on my ability to keep working remotely and secure my livelihood.”
Shaden Atiya, 43, married with two children. A pharmacist from Jerusalem, she moved to Barcelona
When did you decide you’d had enough of life in Israel?
“I spent many years living between Jerusalem and Beit Jala. Our lives revolved around daily commutes, checkpoints and closures. My husband’s work in the hotel industry took a hit time and time again — first during COVID and then with the war. At first, we thought about moving mostly for financial reasons, because housing prices in Jerusalem made buying a home almost impossible. But after the war in Gaza, the move became a mental and political necessity. I felt like we just had to have a fresh start, away from the suffocating atmosphere and the uncertainty.
“Today, in Barcelona, for the first time I feel like I can freely and calmly define myself as a Palestinian. I’m no longer living with the constant tension and stress that followed me for years. The fact that we have relatives here was a major factor, and we also felt that Spanish society is close to Arab society in certain ways — in social relationships, the weather and the lifestyle. The beginning wasn’t easy. The paperwork took nearly two years and cost us close to 100,000 euros [about $114,000] out of our savings. We also had to learn both Spanish and Catalan. Today I’m working part-time as a pharmacist alongside an independent project I’m developing and my husband works in marketing for a medical equipment company while also doing some remote work.”
What is your work environment like now compared to how it was in Israel?
“I had a really hard time adapting to working with Israelis. More than once, I felt discrimination and racism because of my Palestinian identity. I tried to find Palestinian workplaces, but the wage gaps pushed me to work in Israeli institutions. Here, I’ve completely freed myself from that daily stress.”
Will you ever return home?
“The question of remaining abroad or going home depends entirely on what happens in Israel.”
Wafaa Haj-Yahya, 46 married with two children, from Taibeh, an Arab city in central Israel. A gormer organizational consultant and kindergarten director, she emigrated with her two sons to Dubai
“I first started having thoughts about leaving back in 2014. I was in the hospital right after giving birth to my second son when I heard that the principal of the school where I worked had been murdered. When he was killed, I realized that was it. Something inside of me broke. It left a deep wound and for the first time, I asked myself if I really wanted my kids to grow up in this kind of reality. But at the time, the price of leaving felt impossible: we had a house, I had a stable job as a kindergarten director in a Jewish community, my husband was working too, and the thought of giving everything up and starting over terrified me.
“When I arrived in the Emirates in 2022 with my two sons, I felt a sense of security I’d never known before. I made a quick decision to buy a house there as an investment and a foundation for the future. I paid a down payment of about 200,000 shekels [about $66,7000] and later committed to monthly payments of about 10,000 shekels [$3,300] for 30 months. But the real reason we left was life in Taibeh: our house was broken into five times, I was exposed to murders that deeply affected me and my husband was injured trying to stop one of the thieves. Fear has just become a part of our daily life.
“During the first year of the war, I ran a kindergarten in Kfar Saba with a Jewish staff. I happened to overhear one of the assistants say she hoped Itamar Ben-Gvir would stay in the government so that not a single Arab would be left in the country. Precisely because my relationship with the staff was good, that sentence shook me. It reinforced the feeling that I don’t want my children to live in a place where their very existence is seen as something to be rejected.
“Back home, I constantly felt like I was on a daily trial to prove I was a good citizen. That feeling wore me down and it was only in Dubai that I realized just how exhausted I was. Today I’m planning my future in peace and I have no intention of going back.”
The post The quiet wave of Arab emigration from Israel: ‘Every day felt like I was on trial to prove I was a good citizen’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Thousands of Israelis left after Oct. 7. With Netanyahu on the ballot, they’re booking flights home to vote.
Hours after Israel finally announced the official date for its upcoming elections last weekend, Israeli expats flooded social media with photos of the airline tickets they purchased to fly home and cast their ballots at the end of October.
Israel is one of the few democracies that do not allow citizens living abroad to cast absentee ballots. That leaves an estimated 500,000 Israelis overseas and eligible to vote with a choice: spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to fly to Israel, or sit out a consequential election that will decide whether Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party hold on to power.
The vote will be the first since the Oct. 7 attacks and comes after nearly three years of war, during which a surge in emigration has left an unusually large share of eligible Israeli voters living overseas. Even from thousands of miles away, Israeli expats say they have become representatives of the country and often targets of the conflict’s fallout — giving them extra motivation to help decide their nation’s future.
“Israel is at stake right now,” said Josh Drill, a social activist who hopes his vote will help unseat Netanyahu. Drill left Israel temporarily to pursue a master’s degree at Columbia University. “My wife and I, and also our broader circles, are doing everything in our power to be in Israel for election day.”
To help Israelis return, the AID Coalition, a U.S. based nonprofit organization, launched an initiative called FLY&VOTE to help expats search for flights within their budgets and navigate travel logistics. They also plan to charter flights to the country, with passengers paying their own way.
“We’re not creating voters; we’re removing logistical and informational barriers,” said Batell Blaish-Sultanik, the AID Coalition’s executive director.
Earlier this year, the AID Coalition surveyed roughly 4,500 Israelis living abroad and found that 84% viewed the coming election as one of the most important in Israel’s history. Seventy-three percent said they wanted to return to vote, while 45% said they would do whatever it took to exercise that right.
In the 36 hours after the election date was announced, Blaish-Sultanik says, more than 5,000 additional people registered with FLY&VOTE, bringing the total number of registrants to more than 25,000. The AID Coalition’s goal is to help 50,000 Israelis return to cast ballots.
“If we can’t bring the election to them,” Blaish-Sultanik said, “we’ll bring them to the election.”
Their urgency is heightened by the sheer number of Israelis now living elsewhere, with the number leaving the country in 2024 and 2025 about double previous annual numbers. Last year, 70,000 Israelis departed, with about half heading to North America. Many cited dissatisfaction with the Netanyahu government and the difficulties of living in a country at war.
According to demographer Uzi Rebhun, chair of diaspora relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, those who move abroad do not represent the average Israeli. They are disproportionately young, highly educated and secular. Rebhun says that based on these demographic characteristics, many are likely centrist voters.
But the AID Coalition is adamant that it supports any Israeli who wants to cast their ballot, regardless of political affiliation. “We don’t pick a side; we back the right to vote,” said Blaish-Sultanik.
Who gets to vote?
Beyond the cost of airfare, Israeli voters abroad also face uncertainty over which airlines will actually be flying to Israel. Several foreign carriers have suspended service during the war with Iran, with El Al being one of the few airlines that has operated consistently. A non-stop round trip El Al flight from New York around the time of the election starts at roughly $1,500 and can easily exceed $2,000 depending on travel dates.
But Israeli expats living in the U.S. told the Forward airfare isn’t the only factor that will determine whether they can make the trip.
Some worry Israel could have a second round of elections if no coalition is able to reach 61 seats, as was repeatedly the case during elections from 2019 through 2022. As the polls currently stand, neither the pro-Netanyahu bloc nor the opposition is consistently projected to win a 61-seat majority.
“There is a good chance for a second round of elections,” said Avia Liberman, an Israeli pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at Yale who plans to return to Israel after graduation to work in the public sector. “So am I spending my money now and then not affecting the next one? Am I putting my bet on the next election? Those might be during winter break, and then it will be easier to go back.”
Others cited the difficulty of taking significant time away from work or school.
For families, another challenge presents itself.
Assaf Wolff, a 45-year-old father of three who moved to New Jersey five years ago, said that while he and his wife are both Israeli citizens, only he plans to make the trip.
“There is an issue in the community because if both parents want to come to vote and they have young children, at least one person has to stay behind,” he said.
Debate about diaspora
Whether Israelis should be able to vote from abroad has long been a contentious question, with some Israelis believing that those who no longer bear the direct consequences of their vote, specifically when it comes to Israel’s security situation, should not be allowed to cast a ballot.
According to Ofer Kenig, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, one reason Israel does not allow absentee voting is because of the sheer size of its diaspora.
“Because of the Law of Return, citizenship in Israel is acquired very easily. All a Jew needs to do is just arrive in Israel, get a citizenship, and then go back to his home country. And do we want him or her to participate in the elections? I’m not sure,” he said. According to Kenig, similar laws on absentee voting exist for other democracies with large diaspora populations like Greece and Ireland.
Kenig suggests only those Israelis living abroad whose center of life is in Israel should be able to participate in elections. “The day-to-day life here, especially security-wise, makes it extremely unfair for Israelis who never lived here for long, or maybe they lived here for long, but left many years ago, to have an impact on my and my neighbors’ day-to-day lives,” he added.
According to a study done by Kenig, in the 2022 elections, approximately 36,227 votes correlated to one election seat, meaning votes from Israelis living abroad could have a substantial impact on the outcome depending on how many decide to make the trip.
The growing significance of overseas voters seems to have drawn attention from within the government as well. Haaretz reported this week that senior figures at the Transportation Ministry are discussing how to prevent or limit charter flights to Israel like the ones being organized by the AID Coalition.
For Liberman, those critical of expat voters misunderstand the reality for Israelis living abroad, especially after Oct. 7.
“Everything that’s happening in Israel deeply affects the way you experience your life in the U.S. or wherever you are,” he said. “People see us as part of the country, and we are treated as a direct response to what is happening in the Middle East.”
He said Israelis abroad find themselves “affiliated with a country that they may have a complex or distant or close relationship with,” he explained. “But they still, by the forces of life, have to represent it.”
And those who have grown up there, never truly leave Israel behind, observed Blaish-Sulatnik.
“Israelis living abroad, these are people that check Israeli news first thing in the morning. They live Israel in real time, They breathe Israel,” she said. “After Oct. 7, they do advocacy for Israel.”
Nir Paz, a 52-year-old who moved to the U.S. 16 years ago, told the Forward that even though he has not lived in Israel for years, he plans to cast his ballot. He too intends to vote for the opposition.
“The events of October 7 and everything that has followed have profoundly affected not only Israelis living in Israel but also Jewish communities around the world. The decisions made by Israel’s leadership have far-reaching consequences for all of us.”
The post Thousands of Israelis left after Oct. 7. With Netanyahu on the ballot, they’re booking flights home to vote. appeared first on The Forward.
