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Israel looms large as Maine heads to the polls in Graham Platner’s Senate primary
(JTA) — As Graham Platner wrapped up his campaign for the Maine Democratic Senate nomination Tuesday, he ended it the way he began: by taking aim at AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby and political funder.
The Democrat’s first online ad, released in August, boasted that, unlike his competitors, he would never get AIPAC’s endorsement because he believed Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Last week, he suggested that AIPAC funding meant his Republican opponent was “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu,” drawing allegations of antisemitism from a range of Jewish groups.
Along the way, Platner has courted multiple rounds of controversy over Israel and Jews. And in the race’s final days, new reports about Platner’s past behavior toward women have fueled anti-Israel rhetoric among some of his supporters — and further splintered Democratic support for the oyster farmer and political neophyte whose spirited run for office has alarmed many Jewish leaders.
Now, Mainers are heading to the polls with Israel and antisemitism allegations looming large.
Platner, 41, ran as a populist promising to inject progressive energy into a Senate race where both the incumbent Republican and the establishment Democratic pick, Gov. Janet Mills, are in their 70s. (Mills suspended her primary campaign as Platner soared in polls, but she remains on Tuesday’s ballot.) In an election cycle when anti-Israel rhetoric is surging on the left, Platner — who has Jewish extended family, including a stepbrother who lives in Israel and works on Israel policy issues for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies — embraced the stance by making genocide accusations a key part of his stump speech.
That has earned him support in some corners. In a viral video from a rally over the weekend, a Platner supporter dismissed concerns about his tattoo of the Totenkopf symbol, a skull-and-crossbones image worn by Nazi concentration camp guards, which Platner tattooed over earlier this year amid criticism even as he insisted that he hadn’t known it was a Nazi symbol.
Then the supporter asserted that if Platner had a different tattoo, it would have been a dealbreaker for her: an Israeli flag.
“I don’t support genocide, and he doesn’t either, and that would show that he’s being inconsistent,” the woman told the New York Sun.
The exchange exacted disbelief from some. “Are you kidding me? A tattoo of the Israeli flag is worse than a Nazi symbol?” tweeted Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who is Jewish. “This should not be welcome in the Democratic Party!”
Pro-Israel donors have responded accordingly, shoring up the war chest of Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
“Susan Collins’s latest financial report just came out. A staggering one-third of her money raised this quarter came directly from AIPAC,” Platner tweeted on June 1. “Senator Collins is bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu, and she votes accordingly.”
Collins has described herself as broadly “pro-Israel” but also recently provided a crucial vote for a measure to end the joint U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. OpenSecrets, the nonpartisan campaign finance information website, confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that its analysis of public Federal Election Commission data showed that a third of donations to Collins in the previous quarter were gifts from individuals who used the pro-Israel lobby as an intermediary. Collins also received a small donation directly from the group’s super PAC.
Still, Platner’s tweet ignited sharp criticism for suggesting that AIPAC represented Israeli influence, rather than donations by American supporters of Israel.
The Anti-Defamation League said the remark “invokes classic antisemitic rhetoric” and added, “Such accusations call up the age-old dual loyalty trope that casts Jewish Americans as more loyal to Israel than their own country.”
The Nexus Project, an antisemitism watchdog that is more forgiving of some forms of criticism of Israel than the ADL, also criticized the tweet.
“The insinuation that the government of Israel is ‘buying’ or directly controlling any politician who receives AIPAC funding or any American political donor that donates through a pro-Israel conduit is reductive and wrong,” Jonathan Jacoby, Nexus’ president, told JTA in a statement.
Undeterred, Platner on Saturday again invoked AIPAC while going after a member of his own party: Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a staunch Israel supporter. Fetterman had recently criticized Platner in harsh language, telling CNN, “When I was growing up, if someone had a clear Nazi tattoo on them, you probably could conclude that they’re a Nazi sympathizer.”
Fetterman, Platner said in response, had “become a stooge for AIPAC and the Republican party.”
Reached for comment on the phrasing of his AIPAC remarks, a Platner campaign spokesperson said, “Whether it’s private equity, billionaires, corporations, super PACs, etc., Graham is committed to getting money out of politics.”
Amid the mounting scandals, Platner met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last week to shore up support for his candidacy among Democratic leaders. Speaking with reporters afterward, Schumer — who is Jewish, considers himself a leader on fighting antisemitism and had said he would support Platner’s campaign after Mills dropped out — repeatedly dodged questions about his confidence in Platner.
Some anti-Israel voices claim that the criticism reflects a conspiracy by Israel to prevent Platner from taking office.
“If you want a handy list of people who work for Israel, look at everyone criticizing Graham Platner now, especially Democrats,” the progressive influencer Cenk Uygur tweeted on Friday. “I get why Republicans want to tear him down. But Democrats attacking their own candidate only happens when they are ordered to do so by their handlers.”
His supporters, meanwhile, went on the offensive after a report in The New York Times cited multiple ex-girlfriends who said he had engaged in abusive and bullying behavior during their relationships.
The story featured as its most prominent voice Lyndsey Fifield, a Republican operative and former staffer at the conservative Heritage Foundation. In the article, Fifield claimed that Platner had known about his Totenkopf tattoo when he was dating her despite the candidate’s public insistence that he hadn’t recognized its Nazi origins. Platner had called his tattoo “my Totenkopf” while with her, Fifield told the Times, sharing a text in which she referred to the tattoo as a Nazi symbol before Platner said he was aware of what the tattoo represented.
Platner “has a Nazi tattoo on his chest,” Fifield texted her friends last summer, according to the Times. “It’s a Totenkopf … I will personally go campaign for Collins.”
Speaking to Maine’s public radio after the Times story ran, Platner denied Fifield’s claim. In another interview with MS NOW, Platner struggled to sort out the timeline of Fifield’s text to her friends about his tattoo, which occurred before he said he knew about the tattoo’s origins. Reached for comment, a Platner campaign spokesperson pointed to a previous interview the candidate held with JTA, in which he noted his “direct family connection to Judaism” and positive associations with Jewish religious tradition. Platner has also cast doubt on Fifield’s account, alleging that she is the sole source for reports about his knowledge of his own tattoo.
Reached for comment, Fifield told JTA by email, “I’ve been a vocal Zionist since college. I’ve been a proud conservative since then as well. Both of those things were true when I dated Graham.” Fifield is also close with the Jewish conservative commentator Bethany Mandel, with whom she formerly co-hosted a podcast.
To JTA, Fifield added, “If not being an antisemite is enough to fuel a mob of conspiracy theorists, it says something very dark about our culture.”
Some of Platner’s defenders have suggested the Times article was fueled by pro-Israel adversaries. Online, pro-Palestinian commentator Mehdi Hasan called Fifield “an anti-Palestinian racist and bigot,” sharing a tweet of hers in which she mocked the concept of “a Palestinian museum” and wrote, “What are their accomplishments, inventions, or other notable figures apart from terrorists and bombs made from the water pipes Israel gave them to pipe in free water for their people?”
Others have pointed out that the reporter who wrote the article, Katie Glueck, was co-president of Students for Israel at Northwestern University when the chapter won an “Activist of the Year” award from pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC in 2009.
“The most shocking part of this story is that the NYT had a former AIPAC Activist of the Year (Katie Glueck) write a piece devoted to detailing unsubstantiated claims from a professional Republican activist (Lyndsey Fifield) on how a left Democratic Senate candidate who has promised to take on Israel (Platner) was a lousy boyfriend and sold it as a legit journalistic scoop,” tweeted Marcus Stanley, the director of studies at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an anti-interventionist think tank.
In a statement to JTA, a New York Times spokesperson defended Glueck’s participation in the article.
“Katie Glueck has covered politics for over a decade and is one of the best journalists in media at producing incisive coverage of candidates and campaigns,” the Times’ Charlie Stadtlander wrote in an email. “She approached this article about Graham Platner’s past personal conduct with the same independence she brings to all of her reporting.”
Stadtlander added that the Times stands behind its reporting “of the accounts from Ms. Fifield and the other women, who provided a revealing look at the behavior of a major candidate for the U.S. Senate.”
The drumbeat of criticism has tempered excitement among some Democrats about Platner and his potential to flip a Senate seat. Even California Rep. Ro Khanna, a leading critic of Israel in Congress, offered indirect criticism of Platner and his defenders on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” over the weekend, where he said Platner’s supporters shouldn’t go after his accusers and “should not attack the New York Times reporters who wrote this story.”
“I know those reporters. They’ve written things critical of me. That’s what journalists do,” Khanna said. “Our party doesn’t attack the press. Our party believes that you treat women with equality and respect in all aspects of their lives.”
Still, he continued to signal support for Platner, saying that “he’s taken accountability for that period of his life.” Khanna also spoke at a rally for Platner in Maine over the weekend.
While Platner does not have many prominent Jewish supporters in Maine, and has seen the Jewish Democratic Council of America pointedly withhold its own support of his bid, one of his most visible Jewish allies in the state says he will stand by him.
“I’m still very much in Camp Platner,” Steven Koltai, the chair of J Street Maine who helped organize a Passover seder with the Platner campaign, told JTA following the latest revelations.
Koltai suggested that Platner’s past behavior paled in comparison to the president’s: “Thanks to President Trump, the bar for public office in America has been set at a level that even a subterranean earth worm could overcome.”
Asked about Platner’s comments regarding Collins and AIPAC specifically, he signaled a degree of difference with his candidature: “Of all Senator Collins’s votes, her votes on aid to Israel are very low on my list of complaints about her voting record.”
Platner is expected to sail through the primary. Most recent polls suggest that he and Collins are running neck and neck heading into November.
The post Israel looms large as Maine heads to the polls in Graham Platner’s Senate primary appeared first on The Forward.
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The woodcutter and the water carrier in the Torah portion, Nitzavim
לעילוי נשמת מײַן באָבע מנוחה וויטקא ע״ה לזרוב, לכבֿוד איר יאָרצײַט, ט״ו אלול
איינער פֿון די שטאַרקסטע קעגנער מיט וועמען אַ מענטש דאַרף זיך אויסקעמפֿן איז…זיך אַליין.
די סיבה איז פּשוט: די געדאַנקען און געפֿילן וואָס אַ מענטש קען צום בעסטן, זענען זײַנע אייגענע. און ווײַל דאָס זענען זײַנע פּערזענלעכע געדאַנקען און נײגונגען, איז מען נאַטירלעך גענייגט זיי צו געבן אַ גרויסע חשיבות. אויב איך פֿאַרשטיי אַזוי, אָדער איך פֿיל אַזוי, איז דאָס שוין לכאורה אַ גענוג גוטע סיבה צו טאָן אַלץ וואָס איך קען כּדי אויסצופֿירן מײַנע געדאַנקען און באַפֿרידיקן מײַן ווילן.
אָבער זייער אָפֿט טרעפֿט דווקא דאָס פאַרקערטע. דער מענטש וואָס שטעלט אויס זײַן לעבן בלויז לויט דעם וואָס אים דאַכט זיך ריכטיק אָדער באַקוועם, קען צום סוף שאַפֿן געלעגנהייטן וואָס גייען ווײַט העכער פֿון זײַנע באַגרענעצטע און פֿאַרבײַגייענדיקע פּערזענלעכע געפֿילן.
מיט אַנדערע ווערטער, באַקוועמלעכקייט און צוגעוווינטקייט קענען זײַן די גרעסטע שׂונאים פֿונעם מענטשן, אַנשטאָט זײַנע מיטהעלפֿער.
אין דער סדרה פֿון דער וואָך, נצבים־וילך, ווענדט זיך משה רבינו צום ייִדישן פֿאָלק אַזוי:
„אַתֶּם נִצָּבִים הַיּוֹם כֻּלְּכֶם לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֵיכֶם… מֵחֹטֵב עֵצֶיךָ עַד שֹׁאֵב מֵימֶיךָ“ — איר שטייט הײַנט אַלע פֿאַר דעם אייבערשטן, אײַער ג־ט… פֿון דײַנע האָלצהעקערס ביז דײַנע וואַסער־שעפּערס (וואַסער־טרעגערס).
דער גרינדער פֿון חב״ד, רבי שניאור זלמן, באַקאַנט ווי דער אַלטער רבי, דערקלערט אַז דאָס האָלצהאַקן און וואַסער־שעפּן האָבן, אויסער זייער פּשוטן באַטײַט, אויך אַן אינערלעכן טײַטש אין דער פּערזענלעכער עבֿודה פֿונעם מענטש.
דער אויסדרוק „עֵצֶיךָ“, דײַן האָלץ, קען מען אויך פֿאַרשטיין ווי „עצותיך“, דײַנע אייגענע עצות, געדאַנקען און חשבונות.
דאָס „וואַסער“ איז מרמז אויף דעם יסוד המים פֿונעם נפֿש הבהמית — דער מקור און טרײַבקראַפֿט פֿון קערפּערלעכע תּענוגים.
די לערנונג, זאָגט רבי שניאור זלמן, איז אַז אַ מענטש דאַרף „אויסהאַקן“ די אייגענע חשבונות און „אויסשעפּן“ די תּאוות וואָס צילן בעיקר אויף פּערזענלעכע קערפּערלעכע הנאות.
ערשט ווען אַ מענטש קען נייטראַליזירן אָט די צוויי כּוחות און זיך נישט לאָזן פֿירן פֿון זיי, קען ער צום בעסטן מקיים זײַן זײַן שליחות אין לעבן — אָן דעם שוחד פֿון פּערזענלעכער באַקוועמלעכקייט. שוחד פֿאַרבלענדט דאָך די אויגן און לאָזט ניט זען קלאָר און אָביעקטיוו. דאָס זעלבע טרעפֿט מיט באַקוועמלעכקייט. עס לאָזט ניט טראַכן אָביעקטיוו.
מען וואָלט אָבער געקענט מיינען אַז אַזאַ דיסציפּלין איז שייך בלויז צום תּורה־לערנען, צו מענטשן וואָס פֿירן אַ רוחניותדיק לעבן, אָדער בלויז ווען אַ מענטש וויל מצליח זײַן אין זײַן אייגענער גײַסטיקער זוכעניש.
וואָס איז אָבער מיט מסחר, פּרנסה אָדער אַ פּראָפֿעסיע — מיט די לכאורה „נישט־רעליגיעזע“ געביטן פֿון לעבן? דאָרט מעג מען דען נישט טאָן וואָס מען אַליין האַלט פֿאַר ריכטיק און וואָס גיט פּערזענלעכע צופֿרידנקייט?
דער ליובאַוויטשער רבי — זכותו יגן עלינו — ווײַזט אָן אַז דער ענטפֿער אויף דער פֿראַגע ליגט שוין אינעם פּירוש רש״י אויפֿן פסוק.
ווער זענען געווען די דאָזיקע האָלצהעקערס און וואַסער־שעפּערס?
רש״י דערקלערט אַז זיי זענען געווען כּנענים וואָס זענען געקומען צו משה רבינו ע״ה מיט דער כּוונה זיך מגייר צו זײַן, און משה האָט זיי באַשטימט צו דינען ווי האָלצהעקערס און וואַסער־שעפּערס.
דער רבי ווײַזט אן אַז דאָס וואָרט „כּנעני“ מיינט אויך אַ סוחר.
דער רמז איז, אַז נישט בלויז ווען עס רעדט זיך וועגן הימלישע און רוחניותדיקע ענינים — „רעליגיעזע“ באַשעפֿטיקונגען — דאַרף מען זיך באַפֿרײַען פֿון פּערזענלעכע אינטערעסן, צי שׂכלדיקע צי פֿילעוודיקע.
אויך אין מסחר, אין אַלע ענינים וואָס האָבן צו טאָן מיט גשמיות און מאַטעריע, דאַרפֿן די „האָלצהעקערס“ און „וואַסער־שעפּערס“ גיין צו דער אַרבעט.
מען דאַרף זיך העכערן איבער די אייגענע חשבונות און תּאוות, און זיך אָפּגעבן מיט די גשמיותדיקע טעטיקייטן מיט דער כּוונה, אַז דורך זיי זאָל מען אַרײַנברענגען הייליקייט און ג-טליכקייט אין דער וועלט — דורך דעם ליכט פֿון דער תּורה און דער נפֿש האלוקית.
עס זענען דא מענטשן וואָס קענען דאָס באַטראַכטן ווי אַ באַגרענעצונג: „מען לאָזט מיר נישט טאָן וואָס איך וויל.“
מען קען דאָס אָבער באַטראַכטן גאָר אַנדערש — ווי אַן אויסערגעוויינטלעכע געלעגנהייט:
„שטענדיק — אַפֿילו אין די מערסטע וועלטלעכע און לכאורה נישטיקע טעטיקייטן — האָב איך די מעגלעכקייט צו דערגרייכן עפּעס וואָס האָט אַן אומענדלעכע און אייביקע ווערט.“
דעריבער איז די געצײַג פֿון דער וואָך:
אויב דו פֿילסט זיך שלעכט ווײַל עס דאַכט זיך דיר אַז אַ גרויסער טייל פֿון דײַן לעבן האָט נישט קיין באַזונדערן זין אָדער ווערט, געדענק אַז עס ליגט אין דײַנע הענט צו באַשליסן אין וועלכער ריכטונג דו וועסט גיין.
דו קענסט צייכענען דײַן וועג לויט דײַנע פּערזענלעכע געדאַנקען און געפֿילן, וואָס קומען און גייען און לאָזן נישט קיין אייביקע שפּור.
אָדער דו קענסט זיך באַפֿרײַען פֿון זייער הערשאַפֿט און זיך אָפּגעבן מיט עפּעס וואָס איז אַ טייל פֿון אַ ציל וואָס איז אומענדלעך גרעסער — און אומענדלעך מער ווערטפֿול.
The post The woodcutter and the water carrier in the Torah portion, Nitzavim appeared first on The Forward.
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Vance, who’s drawn ire of Jewish conservatives, will speak at Republican Jewish confab
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance, who has drawn the ire of a number of Jewish conservatives, will speak at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas on Monday, the RJC confirmed.
“The Republican Jewish Coalition is proud to welcome Vice President JD Vance to our National Leadership Summit in Las Vegas,” said an RJC spokesperson. “JD Vance is a friend, who is coming back after first joining us in 2022 as a candidate for the US Senate.”
Vance’s appearance comes as a number of Jewish Republicans and major GOP donors have indicated that they would rather support Marco Rubio for the presidential nomination in 2028 than Vance, who is seen as Donald Trump’s likeliest successor. Some of those donors will be in the room on Monday at the Venetian Resort, which is owned by the billionaire Adelson family — a major backer of Trump and various Jewish and Israeli causes.
The vice president has lost the confidence of the pro-Israel crowd with his reprimanding of Israeli officials, indulgence of anti-Israel conspiracy theories and silence on Tucker Carlson, the prominent pundit who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. Multiple donors told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency during last year’s confab that they would not support Vance in 2028.
Carlson, meanwhile, was a major focus of the discussion at the RJC’s 2025 summit, where signs reading “Tucker is not MAGA” were handed out to attendees. His son, Buckley Carlson, is a former Vance staffer.
An agenda sent by the RJC lists Vance as a speaker during a Monday evening session that will be closed to press. A spokesperson confirmed that Vance will be speaking in a “fireside chat.”
A number of high-profile Republican candidates are also expected to speak at the RJC confab, which is being held on Sunday and Monday, a few months ahead of the midterm elections. Speakers include U.S. Senate candidates Mike Collins, the Georgia congressman who is challenging Jewish Democrat Jon Ossoff, and former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is running against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
Collins has faced accusations of antisemitism and having ties to the far right. He has said that some of his statements were misunderstood, and has defended himself by citing his support for Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Israeli expats push for voting rights in Oct. 27 election
(JTA) — When Ilana Mittman, a retired social scientist with American and Israeli citizenship, began arranging a trip to Israel from her home in Baltimore, she planned to observe her late father’s Yahrzeit and cast her ballot in the national elections on Oct. 27. Checking her voter registration status online, she made a startling discovery: She had been excluded from the voter registry and was ineligible to vote.
The discovery came as a shock. Mittman’s mother was born in pre-state Palestine. Her parents had drained swamps in order to create arable land and served in the Haganah pre-state military organization.
Mittman has lived in the United States since 1980, having moved for her husband’s medical studies and career. But she has never viewed her life abroad as severing her ties to Israel. She watches television in Hebrew, follows the country’s news, stays in frequent contact with family, donates to the country’s emergency services and engages in pro-Israel advocacy efforts.
“I didn’t really choose to leave the country; I fell in love with a man who came from overseas, and I followed him,” she said. “I’ve grieved for the loss of my country and my friends … It’s been a constant, chronic sorrow.”
Puzzled by the discovery of her voter status, Mittman reviewed her records through the Ministry of Interior online portal and noticed that on March 7, 1986, her residency status had been altered under administrative “Code 51.”
That date matched a visit to the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco shortly after the birth of her son, where she went to register him as an Israeli citizen in accordance with consular requirements. She said that during that routine appointment, consular staff took away her state-issued ID card without explanation, leaving her with only her passport for foreign travel.
“I remember how bad of a feeling it was to give that document away,” Mittman recalled. “I felt I gave a part of myself away when that happened. But I didn’t know that my biggest right as a citizen – the right to vote – was just robbed from me.”
When she spoke with friends in the expat community, it turned out that others had found themselves in a similar situation. Some only made the discovery after they had already made expensive travel arrangements to return to Israel for the election, since voting must be done in person.
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Under Israel’s Basic Law: The Knesset, every Israeli citizen aged 18 or older has the right to vote, unless a court has deprived them of that right. In practice, however, voting is limited to those included in the voter registry.
Israelis whom the government classifies as nonresidents are assigned a designation known as Code 51 and removed from the voter registry, even though they retain their citizenship.
As expats across North America, Europe, Australia and South Africa began to realize in the lead-up to the October vote that they were no longer in the voting registry, they began comparing their experiences in a WhatsApp group that grew to some 120 members.
Some, like Mittman, had not voted in Israel for decades. Others, like kibbutz-born Ayala Graham, had returned to vote in the previous elections, held just four years ago. Yet others retained their eligibility, such as Graham’s husband, who hadn’t cast a ballot in Israel in four decades.
“My blood is boiling from this situation,” said Graham, who left Israel in 1986. “I am a citizen through and through, and I was very offended by this arbitrary rejection. I feel that in these elections, the situation is even more acute than in 2022.”
With the grounds for rescinding voting eligibility opaque and no easy path to appeal the exclusion, the disenfranchised Israelis decided to pursue legal action. They are calling the grassroots initiative to restore their voting eligibility “Our Right to Vote – Code 51.”
To challenge the Code 51 exclusions, the group raised money for legal representation through crowdfunding. Then they initiated a multi-stage legal strategy designed to exhaust administrative remedies before escalating to Israel’s Supreme Court.
Represented by attorney Gilead Sher, they submitted a Freedom of Information request to compel the Israeli Ministry of Interior to disclose the criteria behind the administrative “Code 51” designations. Then they sent letters to the Ministry of Interior, the attorney general and the Central Elections Commission requesting the immediate restoration of their status.
The Israeli Ministry of Interior has not yet responded to the group’s letter about Code 51, the criteria used to remove expats from the voter registry, or the total number of citizens affected by the regulation.
Israeli Ministry of Interior spokesperson Yaffa Shai did not address questions about the meaning of Code 51 posed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Instead, she pointed to Israeli election law, which requires voters to be listed in the Population Registry as residents, with an address in Israel, and stressed that the ministry had conducted “an extensive multilingual campaign” urging citizens to check their voter status.
Since the law requires that the voting registry be finalized on Sept. 3, the legal team set a one-week deadline for administrative responses. If the matter remains unresolved, they intend to file an emergency petition directly with the Central Elections Commission and the High Court of Justice.
There is no known official count of how many Israeli expats have been excluded from the voter registry. “We received a rough, totally unofficial estimate of several dozen thousands, out of whom we represent about 120,” said Sher, the lawyer.
He stressed that there is also no clarity regarding the criteria used to remove citizens living abroad from the voter registry. “Our argument is that whatever this arbitrary Code 51 stands for or signifies, it cannot override the constitutional right to vote,” he said.
Sher acknowledged the possibility that some expats who travel to Israel to vote may only discover their status on election day. Given the tight timeframe before the election, Sher is seeking both temporary relief and an interim injunction in the petition to ensure eligible citizens are not disenfranchised while bureaucratic procedures are reviewed.
‘Essentially voter suppression’
On the West Coast, another Israeli expat, Silicon Valley attorney Rony Sagy, was struck by the arbitrariness of the system, particularly given her past travels to Israel during election cycles.
For the IDF elite unit veteran, maintaining a close connection to Israel has been consistent over decades of living in the U.S. Her career as a San Francisco–based lawyer has included serving as a legal bridge between Israeli startups and American tech companies, and she travels to Israel several times a year, renews her passport and keeps a permanent address in the country.
She suspects that her name was removed from the voter roll following a routine consulate visit for passport renewal sometime in the 1980s, during which she was required to surrender her domestic Israeli ID card. She noted that the experience was difficult enough for someone with deep connections to the country, but the lack of transparency surrounding the act added insult to injury.
“Voting was always very, very important to me,” Sagy emphasized. “My understanding was that my voting rights would not be hampered by the confiscation of my ID card. The uneven, unidentified way or form of removing certain people from the voter rolls is essentially voter suppression.”
The debate over Israeli citizens’ inability to cast ballots from abroad with limited exceptions (for example, official government representatives stationed abroad), has been ongoing for decades. Proponents of overseas voting note that most Western democracies allow it. Opponents argue that the large number of Israelis living abroad could potentially sway an election, even though those living in Israel bear the consequences of its outcome more directly.
Public opinion in Israel on overseas voting is split, though polls typically focus on whether expats should be allowed to cast ballots from abroad rather than retain their eligibility to vote if their center of life is elsewhere.
A survey last year by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 51% of Israelis opposed allowing citizens living abroad to vote from overseas, while 39% supported it. Opposition was particularly high among Arab respondents – 55% opposed, 36% supported – relative to Jewish respondents. Among Jewish respondents, opinion was evenly divided, with 45% supporting and 45% opposing overseas voting.
Attitudes were also strongly associated with respondents’ own willingness to leave the country. Among Israelis considering moving abroad, 52.5% supported overseas voting and 40% opposed it, compared to 34% support and 55% opposition among those not considering leaving Israel.
Members of the group challenging the denial of their eligibility to vote point to the global economy, which facilitates remote work, as well as the rising number of Israelis who have left the country since Oct. 7, 2023, due to Israel’s enmeshment in several regional wars. Some have deliberately chosen to disconnect. Mittman, however, believes that the number of years spent living abroad should not define the strength of one’s connection.
“What do you mean by center of life?” she asks. “If I spend hours a day immersing myself in Israeli culture, if I am supporting friends and relatives in Israel and charitable causes in every way I can … I feel that my heart is there, that I’ve never ceased to be an Israeli. So, what does it mean to be a citizen if you cannot vote?”
She insisted that this initiative to restore expats’ voting rights is not partisan: “If somebody told me today that I can vote, I don’t know who I’m going to vote for. I have not decided.”
Regardless of whether the legal challenges are resolved ahead of the election, she plans to make the trip, spending election day volunteering to help elderly and mobility-impaired voters reach their polling stations.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israeli expats push for voting rights in Oct. 27 election appeared first on The Forward.
