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How Michigan’s Senate race is testing pro-Israel Jews’ loyalty to the Democratic Party
(JTA) — Joel Tauber has been through many an election in his 92 years. And, with the exception of “one out of 100 times,” he’s always backed a Democrat — something even more important in the current midterm cycle, he believes.
“Winning the Senate and the House is the beginning of a way back to our democracy,” Tauber, a founding chair of Jewish Federations of North America who has hosted former President Bill Clinton and other Democratic leaders, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s really, really important to me.”
But Tauber is a Michigan resident, and the state’s upcoming U.S. Senate primary is making him deeply uneasy. Like many a Jew in the mitten state, he is pulling for pro-Israel centrist U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens to win on Aug. 4.
Should her opponent, former county health official and staunch Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed, prevail instead, Tauber would take a step he’s said he’s never done before: leave the Senate ballot blank.
“I’d sit it out,” he said, of the general election. Of El-Sayed, he said, “There’s no way that I could vote for him.”
Some Jewish Democratic leaders in the state are prepared to go even further. Several prominent Metro Detroit Jews who have traditionally fundraised for Democrats are also planning fundraisers for the presumptive GOP nominee, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, as a “hedge.” Others are planning to help him if El-Sayed wins the Democratic nomination, one Jew who is close to the Stevens campaign told JTA.
Others affirmed the idea that the Jewish Democratic donor class, feeling abandoned by the party, would back Rogers.
“There are leaders in our Jewish community who are longtime, lifelong Democrats and Democratic fundraisers, who are very concerned with where their party’s going,” said Dennis Bernard, national chair of government relations for the nonpartisan JFNA and a metro Detroit resident. “And if this is the case, they’ve made it clear, both financially and with their vote, that they would support Mike Rogers in the event El-Sayed wins the primary.”
Detroit-area Jewish Democrats have asked Bernard, over golf outings, for introductions to Rogers, he said.
The reason: They see El-Sayed — who has questioned whether Israel should be a Jewish state and suggested that Democrats who support Israel only do so because of financial motives — as portending an existential threat to the national Jewish community. If he wins in a purple state, one in which pro-Israel Jews have for years butted heads U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the pro-Palestinian Democrat, some fear more candidates with similar views will follow, and lead to an unsafe environment for Jews in Michigan and beyond. They worry that increasingly hostile discourse creates an environment in which antisemitic harassment becomes more acceptable and Jewish political activism is considered suspect.
“This is a truly once-in-a-lifetime moment where you have to become a single-issue voter,” Bernard said. “And that issue is antisemitism, our Judaism and Israel. This is where you put party third: our people first, our country second.”
Left-wing congressional primary wins in New York, Colorado and other states have stoked anxiety over the Senate race here, as Michigan — also home to a large Arab/Muslim population — is morphing into a litmus test for the relationship between pro-Israel Jews and the Democratic Party. For the majority of American Jews who back liberal policies, a decades-long bond is being tested like never before.
A similar dynamic played out on a smaller scale after Zohran Mamdani, a vocal anti-Zionist, secured the Democratic nomination in New York City’s 2025 mayoral election. Then, several prominent Jewish donors backed a rival bid by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent while maintaining Democratic ties. Despite recent polling showing that 44% of American Jews hold a favorable opinion of the mayor — a higher favorability score than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — pro-Israel voters still regard his pro-Palestinian rhetoric as disquieting.
The backlash against Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza and growing calls to shun the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC are further straining Jewish-Democratic bonds — and, for some of the most influential of Michigan’s estimated 129,000 Jews, are on the verge of breaking them.
Another Jewish leader told JTA there was also an effort underway to convince pro-Israel Republicans to vote for Stevens in the state’s open primary, even if they decide to later vote for Rogers in the general.
“Anyone who cares about the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Democrat or Republican, needs to vote for Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary,” they said, requesting anonymity because they did not want to be seen as speaking for the community. The Republican Party is currently engaged in its own tug-of-war over Israel and antisemitism, with Vice President JD Vance recently criticizing Israel while entertaining conspiracy theories about its ties to Jeffrey Epstein on a popular podcast.
When contacted by JTA, Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (which is phone-banking for Stevens) and a native of East Lansing, Michigan, declined to comment directly on the possibility of the state’s Jewish Democrats backing Rogers over El-Sayed.
“Our focus is ensuring Haley Stevens wins the primary election,” Soifer said in a statement, also saying that El-Sayed’s “views are not aligned with the vast majority of Jewish Americans.”
At Michigan’s Democratic convention earlier this year in Detroit, Stevens was booed by the rank and file while state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who was then also running for the seat, alleged that an attendee directed an antisemitic remark at her Jewish husband. At the same convention a lawyer for pro-Palestinian encampment participants, who himself had a history of social media posts supporting Hezbollah and retweeting antisemitic conspiracy theories from far-right podcaster Candace Owens, ousted a pro-Israel Jewish incumbent for the party’s nomination for University of Michigan board of regents, a statewide elected position.
The convention was an inflection point for many top Jewish Democratic supporters. Many of these Jewish leaders declined to comment to JTA. Others said much of the enthusiasm for the broader party goals among the staunchly pro-Israel Jews of the Detroit suburbs has been drained.
“I’m feeling kind of confused, and it must be how my Republican friends felt once the Tea Party took over,” said Neil Gorosh, a retired commercial mortgage banker in West Bloomfield and past president of a local Jewish senior living community.
Gorosh ran for office once: a local parks-and-recreation position in 1988. A Democrat during the George H.W. Bush-led GOP wave, he lost. Since then, he said, he has always backed Democrats while developing an elections calculus: He leads with local issues on local races, but Israel on contests of national import.
Accusing the Democrats of “completely rejecting Israel,” he added, “I’m rudderless right now.”
“If it came down to Mike Rogers and El-Sayed, I will vote for Mike Rogers,” Gorosh said. “I wouldn’t write a check, but I would vote for him, and I would tell my like-minded friends to do the same, and the reasons why.”
Michelle “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, was one of a very few Jewish leaders who told JTA on the record she would back El-Sayed over Rogers. She insists that there are many others.
“This is what I’ve heard from Jews, even in Detroit: The Supreme Court is too critical to not support a Democrat,” she said.
Alexander recently had an hours-long sitdown with El-Sayed, she said, and believes “he absolutely would be open to dialogue.” In his rallies, the candidate has welcomed Jews and stated, “AIPAC and Israel are not the same as Judaism and the Jewish people.”
For now, though, the focus is purely on Stevens, who is not herself Jewish but represents a large slab of Oakland County — affluent, heavily Jewish Detroit suburbs that have trended liberal over the last few election cycles after formerly electing Republicans. While the Stevens campaign has not responded to interview requests for JTA, she recently told The New York Times that Israel is not a central issue for her and added, “I am not a Netanyahu apologist.”
The congresswoman’s Jewish backers are hoping to drive a strong enough voter turnout to neuter both El-Sayed and the national progressive insurgent movement he represents. (The Democratic Socialists of America are behind many of the emerging candidates, though El-Sayed himself is not a member of the group and has distanced himself from the socialist label.)
Stevens’ supporters point to a growing number of encouraging signs, including endorsements from party leaders such as retiring Sen. Gary Peters, whose seat she hopes to fill. Chuck Schumer, the Jewish Senate majority leader, has also endorsed her. A recent poll commissioned by the Detroit News shows her ahead by seven points, though social media in recent days has been flooded with so many unflattering memes of Stevens on the campaign trail that El-Sayed himself denounced his supporters’ behavior.
Another Detroit News poll this week shows that most likely Democratic voters have a negative view of AIPAC, which according to an AdImpact analysis of the most recent filings has spent more than $28 million for Stevens to date. AIPAC’s support of Stevens is one of El-Sayed’s biggest attack lines. The candidate recently claimed that the group has spent more than $50 million against him, though a campaign representative told JTA that figure includes $20 million from new super PACs that have not disclosed their funding sources and have no immediately apparent links to AIPAC.
The Jewish Stevens supporters who spoke to JTA, some of whom are or have been AIPAC supporters themselves, argue that AIPAC has been unfairly demonized compared to other lobbying groups.
They also shrug off Stevens’ recent critiques of Netanyahu during a debate, at which she said the Israeli prime minister “is a danger to Jews in America and around the world.” Many of her backers chalked up the language to a new political reality for Democrats that rewards criticism of Israel, rather than a shift in her own thinking.
“It’s the needle Democrats have to thread to have any credibility path at all,” Gorosh said. Referring to Israel’s own upcoming elections, he added, “I think he’ll [Netanyahu] be gone after October, but he’ll be gone eventually. Then what do you criticize?”
El-Sayed also has Jewish supporters, most notably former U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, a progressive member of a powerful Michigan political family who lost his House seat to Stevens after AIPAC spent heavily for her in 2022. There is also a Jews For Abdul affinity group.
Speaking to JTA, Levin dismissed concerns about Jewish Democrats rejecting El-Sayed in the general. He said the conversation was being dominated by hardline pro-Israel donors in the community who have pushed similar red lines for decades, rather than being a new shift from the Jewish mainstream.
“I do not take a backseat to any of these so-called ‘lifelong Democrats’ about self-determination for the Jewish people in the holy land, about fighting antisemitism at home and abroad,” he said. “I just have a different view of how we accomplish these things, and they do not have a monopoly in the Jewish community.”
Levin also defended El-Sayed’s record on Jewish issues, saying, “He is a strong advocate for Jewish safety here, in our community.”
For Jews who have long seen themselves as committed Democrats, the prospect of leaving the party is a tough sit. Tauber, for his part, says he still can’t bring himself to vote for any Republican “who is so controlled by Trump, who’s a man of immorality, no values.” (Rogers’ campaign touts his Trump endorsement, and the candidate has also backed Trump’s unfounded claims about election fraud in the state as well as supported the president’s holding up of an international bridge in Michigan. The candidate has also acknowledged antisemitism on the right.)
The Rogers campaign did not respond to a JTA request for comment.
The nationwide importance of this race and the Jewish vote was evident when New York state Republicans recently made an explicit appeal for Jewish Democrats, stating in a digital ad campaign that Jews were leaving the party “in droves” “from Maine to Michigan.” Before he dropped out last week as the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine over sexual assault allegations he has denied, Graham Platner put anti-Israel criticism near the center of his platform.
Some Jews who spoke to JTA comfort themselves by insisting that the House, at least, seems likely to flip, providing a check on Trump even if the Senate remains led by Republicans.
Shimon Levy, an Israeli-American entrepreneur who has lived in the Detroit area since 2014, said he was unconcerned about the prospect of Republicans keeping the Senate.
“F— that,” Levy told JTA. Levy has drifted between the parties over the years, he said, but “I stand and I lead with my Jewish identity. Safety and security of the Jewish community is my first and foremost goal.”
That wouldn’t be possible with El-Sayed on the ticket, he insisted: “El-Sayed has done nothing but put Jews at risk and in danger, and through his words has been so poisonous and has ostracized and villainized, single-handedly, the Jews of Southeast Michigan.”
He added, “If today, as a Jew, you’re still like, ‘Democratic all the way, Democratic down the ticket,’ you need to rethink your survivalist instinct.”
Recently Levy, who describes himself as a reluctant political activist, hosted a candidate meet-and-greet fundraiser that brought in more than $70,000 for Stevens. Attendees were not just Jewish, and not just Democrats. Republicans, too, showed up: “People who are concerned about common-sense politics, who would vote for Haley in a heartbeat.”
The question of how Jewish safety is linked to Israel discourse isn’t abstract in Michigan. West Bloomfield’s Temple Israel was the site of an attack this spring by a Michigan resident whose family members were killed when Israel targeted a Hezbollah outpost in Lebanon. The incident became a factor in the Senate campaign after El-Sayed said of the attacker, “Hurt people hurt people,” which critics felt minimized the crime and equated the attacker with his intended victims.
In late June, the temple itself — the largest Reform congregation in the country — sent an email to congregants stating, “This year, antisemitism is on the ballot.” Without naming candidates, the unsigned message concluded, “The Talmud reminds us that our leaders are chosen by us — silence is not a choice we can make right now.”
Mailers funded by AIPAC’s United Democracy Project and sent to some voters in Michigan, and circulated online, attacked El-Sayed for his friendship with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and for his statement after the Temple Israel attack.
The mailers accused El-Sayed of having “rationalized a terrorist attack on a Michigan synagogue filled with Jewish children.” (The synagogue preschool was open at the time of the attack.) El-Sayed had condemned the attack, but the mailers accused him of equivocating.
This was not a total break with all Democrats, many emphasized. Jewish pro-Israel state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is running for Stevens’ congressional seat, and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson, along with others, continue to receive high marks from the Jewish donor class.
Across Michigan, particularly in the Detroit area, there are (literal) signs of strain. Last month the Oakland County roads commission ordered the removal of Adopt-a-Road signs, located a few miles from Temple Israel, that had been sponsored by a group called “Voices for Palestinians” after temple members voiced objections. A Fourth of July parade in Huntington Woods, another heavily Jewish suburb in the county, was briefly disrupted by a protest after parade organizers had put in place rules forbidding pro-Palestinian signs from being displayed.
In early July the state Anti-Defamation League chapter, together with Temple Israel, hosted a bipartisan delegation of Michigan lawmakers on the site of the attack, and advocated for increased synagogue security funding. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Jewish Democrat, as well as Rep. Shri Thanedar, a Democrat who has tacked from the left to the center on Israel since his election and is now facing a primary challenger endorsed by El-Sayed, were among those in attendance.
Rabbis at the temple gave voice to the uneasiness of the political moment for Jewish liberals.
Rabbi Paul Yedwab, who called the state Democratic convention “a shonda,” or shame, in a recent sermon, said during the same sermon, “The glib answer would be to say, I guess you become a Republican. But that is not as easy as it seems for a liberal Jew.” He went on to criticize the Trump administration’s legal assault on the Southern Poverty Law Center, a monitor of far-right extremism.
Yedwab concluded, “From here on in, it will be incumbent upon us as Americans and as Jews to evaluate each proposal, each issue, each platform, and, indeed, each candidate according to our own independent set of values.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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250 years of American Jewish life is a miracle. Don’t take it for granted.
When I moved from Belgium to the United States for graduate school in the early 2000s, international-student orientation warned me about three areas in which I would experience culture shock: doctors, dating, and food. They were right: I am still looking for good chocolate. But what nobody mentioned was that culture shock can also work in the other direction: you can encounter something so different in a good way that it, too, takes time to understand. For me, that was American Jewish life.
The Judaism I had grown up with in Belgium was timid and a little subdued; it felt to me as though it did not quite dare to put down roots or imagine itself as fully Belgian. American Judaism bewildered me at first by its sheer pluralism: so many denominations, and within them so many people experimenting with what it meant to be and do Jewish in this country and in this world.
Even more surprising was its creativity — the music, the intellectual life, the social activism, the constant invention of new institutions, rituals and communities. It was also loud and argumentative. American Jews tangled about Judaism, politics, Zionism and one another. The old story about two Jews having three opinions was not a joke here but a reality.
I loved it. Not because I agreed with all of it — I certainly did not — but because even the arguing seemed to me evidence that American Jews did not feel they had to hide or be discreet, not even about their disagreements.
Of course, Jewish success in the United States did not mean that America offered the same possibilities to everyone. Jewish integration took place in a country whose deepest structures of exclusion targeted Black Americans. That inequality is part of the American Jewish story and complicates any account of its success.Nor was the American Jewish experience free of prejudice: American Jews encountered social ostracism, quotas in higher education, exclusion from neighborhoods and country clubs, and violence.
And yet, over 250 years, Jews in the United States became deeply woven into the political, cultural and civic life of the country. How the encounter between Jewish traditions brought from many parts of the world and the particular freedoms, tensions and possibilities of American life produced a distinctively American form of Judaism is a question that has stayed with me ever since, and America’s 250th anniversary seems like a good moment to return to it.
I think part of the answer lies in the American idea of hyphenated identities. In a country of immigrants from many parts of the world, the hyphen suggested a social architecture, albeit imperfect, that allowed for multiple communities to coexist within a larger whole. By contrast the Europe in which I grew up remained more attached to myths of national homogeneity that made Jewish belonging harder.
But today, across the political spectrum, people are asking what America as an idea and a national community stands for. Historically, such moments have often made Jews a test case for the limits of inclusion. To those who imagine the nation as a homogenous family, Jews are strangers; to those who imagine it as a universal community, Jews often seem too particularistic.
Amid rising antisemitism, the aftermath of Oct. 7, turmoil on university campuses and intense political polarization, it is not surprising then that many American Jews are feeling anxious about the future. The pessimists believe something fundamental is broken and wonder whether it is time to keep a packed suitcase ready. The optimists insist that America remains different, even exceptional, and that American institutions and laws are strong. This too shall pass, they say.
As a historian, I am skeptical of both positions. The past is full of moments that look inevitable in retrospect because, once we know what happened, it becomes harder to imagine other outcomes. But in the moment, multiple futures are always possible. History cannot tell us which one will become ours, but it can broaden the range of possibilities we are able to see.
That is one reason I created a new public course at Brandeis this fall, America and Its Jews at 250. I wanted to see what becomes visible when the questions troubling American Jews today are placed against that much longer historical horizon. Over the course of the semester, 28 scholars and public thinkers will examine the relationship between Jews and America from the colonial period to the present. At a moment when so much attention is understandably focused on Israel, I also wanted us to look more closely at the American Jewish experience and what Jews built here.
Doing this at Brandeis is especially meaningful. Many of America’s oldest and most influential universities grew out of Christian religious communities. Brandeis represented something different: the possibility that a university could be rooted in American Jewish life while being as intellectually ambitious and universal as any of them. A course about America and its Jews belongs in that tradition because these are not two histories that happened in parallel; they are intertwined.
Time has cured most of my culture shock, but I have not forgotten the surprise I felt 26 years ago at the vibrancy and pluralism of American Jewish life. Much of our discussions, in this anniversary year, focus on the country’s uneven path toward more justice and equality, and rightly so. But that should not obscure the immense creativity that this messy and contested American experiment made possible. American Jews embraced its possibilities with a vitality that produced forms of Judaism few of their forebears would have recognized, yet that remain deeply connected to what came before. That dynamism also produced disagreements and fragmentation, and anxiety about what still holds Jews together.
Culture and creativity depend on the soil in which they develop. Protecting American jewish life therefore means not only to fight for Jews and Judaism, but also for the pluralistic republic that allowed them to flourish. Perhaps one day historians will give this entanglement of Judaism and America a name. But for now it remains unnamed because it is still being made, and because its future, I hope, is still in our hands.
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El-Sayed defends opposing Israel aid as he woos Jewish voters
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed made opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel a defining issue of his campaign in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary. On Sunday, as the party’s nominee, El-Sayed explained why he supported sending American military aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia but opposes sending aid to Israel as it fights Hamas and other armed groups in the region.
“In Ukraine, you’re talking about attacks from a leader of a neighboring sovereign country, who clearly violated international law in attempting to breach the sovereignty of the Ukrainian public,” El-Sayed said in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press. “That is conditional on that circumstance.”
As for Israel, he argued, the United States has “been offering unconditional foreign military aid to Israel independent of the circumstances for years and years and years.”
The distinction comes as El-Sayed tries to draw a clearer line around his position on Israel aid as he moves into the general election, following a narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens, who was backed by AIPAC and other pro-Israel Jewish groups.
Since his primary win, El-Sayed said in media appearances that his opposition to unconditional military aid — including funding to the Iron Dome defense system — goes beyond Israel. He pointed to Egypt, where his parents were born, as well as to Saudi Arabia and Jordan, saying those U.S. allies should not receive unconditional American military support either.
“It’s not just Israel,” El-Sayed said, adding, “It’s about the conditions.”
When pressed on whether there was any scenario in which he would support military aid to Israel, El-Sayed said he could consider supporting it if Israelis and Palestinians reached an agreement that guaranteed, as he described it, the “Palestinian people and Jewish Israeli people” equal rights to “peace, dignity, and self-determination.” During the primary, El-Sayed stopped short of explicitly backing a two-state solution.
The Jewish voter test
El-Sayed’s position on Israel is becoming a test of whether he can unite Democrats for the general election in one of the nation’s most important swing states. Many Jewish Democrats remain uneasy with his rhetoric on Israel — including his calling Israel “bloodthirsty” — even as the party needs their support to defeat Republican Mike Rogers and improve its chances of winning back the Senate.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America, which backed Stevens and said its volunteers made nearly 100,000 calls on her behalf, said that the “razor-thin margin” in El-Sayed’s victory is evidence that pro-Israel Democrats remain an important electorate within the party.
Halie Soifer, JDCA’s chief executive and a Michigan native, said in a Substack post Friday that Jewish Democrats are standing “on a political fault line” after El-Sayed’s victory. “Jewish voters’ concern with El-Sayed and other far-left candidates is rooted in concern for our safety and security given rising antisemitism and antisemitic violence, including when Jews are blamed for the actions of Israel,” she wrote.
Jewish voters make up just 1.4% of the electorate in Michigan, but they could still prove decisive in a close race. Michigan has been decided by narrow margins in recent elections: Donald Trump won the state in 2016, Joe Biden flipped it in 2020, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin narrowly won her Senate race in 2024 even as Trump carried the state in the presidential race.
AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, which spent more than $30 million in the primary, is reportedly weighing additional spending in the general election to boost Rogers. It would likely be joined by other groups, including the centrist Democratic groups Third Way and Welcome PAC, as well as the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street — a progressive alternative to AIPAC — urged El-Sayed to take a different approach to the Jewish voters who opposed him. Ben-Ami wrote in a Substack post that El-Sayed should spend significant time listening to Jewish Michiganders and their concerns about vulnerability and antisemitism, while making clear “in words and in actions” that Jews who care deeply about Israel have a place in his coalition.
‘I love and revere Judaism’
In the Sunday interview, El-Sayed sought to reassure Jewish voters who remain skeptical of him.
Asked to respond to President Donald Trump’s comments that El-Sayed “hates” Israel and Jewish people “with a passion that burns in his heart,” El-Sayed said, “I love and revere Judaism and the Jewish people. I believe they’re a light unto the world.”
El-Sayed recalled growing up in Bloomfield Hills, a metro Detroit community with a large Jewish population, and being invited to Passover Seders, synagogues and bar and bat mitzvahs. “I’m really honored for what I learned and got to share with my Jewish sisters and brothers,” he said. “But they are not the same as AIPAC and Israel.”
The candidate also disavowed some remarks by Hasan Piker, the popular pundit and streamer who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric and who appeared with El-Sayed on the campaign trail. El-Sayed said Piker’s statement that “America deserved 9/11” was “dumb,” though he did not commit to ending campaign appearances with him.
The test in the coming months is whether El-Sayed can win over skeptical Jewish and moderate Democrats without moderating his views on Israel or losing the progressive and pro-Palestinian voters who propelled him to victory.
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The Nakba exhibit and the importance of historical context
By NOAH STRAUSS When I went to the Nakba Exhibit, I was shocked, not by the contents of the exhibit but by its size. The exhibit was tiny in my eyes, and I thought the amount of outcry was excessive for an exhibit that is less than 500 words. It felt like every other day the National Post had an article about the exhibit, criticizing different aspects of it. But then I had a realization: the exhibit was never criticized because it was “too” big, but because of the contents of it. When I was toured by the curator, I actually asked her, “Where is the rest of it?” I was confused because I had been misled by the media to believe the size of the exhibit was massive.
I believe that every human being should be able to live a free life. No human should be bullied for who they are. That is not okay, and to some credit, the Nakba exhibit does cover this. But where my problem now comes into play is the fact that the museum fails to portray the full history surrounding the Nakba.
The museum is publicly funded; our taxpayers’ dollars go there. It is supposed to represent our nation and our beliefs, not take a side on history. The Museum did exactly that. It took a side, and guess what? It caused chaos.
Whenever asked why it does not show the other side of history, the museum would always say something along the lines of: our space is limited, the focus of the exhibit is solely the Nakba, etc. But to me, these are excuses, and I will call that out.
For context, the Nakba was an event that occurred around 1948 after the 1947 UN Partition Plan. The Nakba continued until about 1949. During this time, approximately 750,000 Palestinians were either forced out or left what is now Israel.
The Museum is contributing to concerns surrounding the rise of antisemitism. The Museum has failed to mention that during the same era as the Nakba, hundreds of thousands of Jewish people were displaced from Middle Eastern and North African countries, with many forced to leave because of their religion.
Context matters. Yes, 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, but what happened during the same era also left hundreds of thousands of Jewish people without homes. When a visitor with no historical context walks in to see what the “Jewish” people did to the Palestinians, of course they’re going to blame the Jews. Because it makes me, a Jewish person, look terrible.
In my view, the exhibit contributes to concerns about growing antisemitism by presenting an incomplete historical narrative.
But then, as Jewish people, we need to know when it’s time to move forward. We need to focus on how we can positively portray the Jewish community and show the world who we are, rather than allowing others to define us through a one-sided historical narrative.
Noah Strauss is a 15-year-old Gray Academy student
