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U.N. exhibit remembers when the world turned its back on stateless Jewish refugees
(New York Jewish Week) — In 2017, Deborah Veach went back to Germany, looking for the site of the displaced persons camp where she and her parents had been housed after World War II. They were in suspension, between the lives her parents led in Belarus before they were shattered by the Nazis, and the unknown fate awaiting them as refugees without a country.
To her dismay, and despite the fact that Foehrenwald was one of the largest Jewish DP centers in the American-controlled zone of Germany, she found barely a trace. A complex that once included a yeshiva, a police force, a fire brigade, a youth home, a theater, a post office and a hospital was remembered by almost no one except a local woman who ran a museum in a former bath house.
“It was sort of an accident of history that we were there in that particular camp in Germany, of all places, with no ties, no extended family, no place to call home,” said Veach, who was born at Foehrenwald in 1949 and lives in New Jersey. Now, “they renamed it. They changed the names of all the streets. There is nothing recognizable about the fact that it had been a DP camp.”
Veach is part of a now-aging cohort of children born or raised in the DP camps, the last with a first-hand connection to the experience of some 250,000 Jewish survivors who passed through them at the end of the war. To make sure memories of the camps survive them, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the United Nations Department of Global Communications have staged a short-term exhibit, “After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps.”
On display at U.N. headquarters in New York City Jan. 10 through Feb. 23, it is intended to illuminate “how the impact of the Holocaust continued to be felt after the Second World War ended and the courage and resilience of those that survived in their efforts to rebuild their lives despite having lost everything,” according to a press release.
Residents of a displaced persons camp in Salzburg, Austria. Undated, post-Second World War. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
Among the artifacts on display are dolls created by Jewish children and copies of some of the 70-odd newspapers published by residents, as well as photographs of weddings, theatrical performances, sporting events and classroom lessons.
The exhibit is “about the displaced persons themselves, about their lives and their hopes and their dreams, their ambitions, their initiatives,” said Debórah Dwork, who directs the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center-CUNY, who served as the scholar adviser for the exhibition.
“There’s no point where the residents of these DP camps were just sitting around waiting for other people to do things for them,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “They took initiative and developed a whole range of cultural and educational programs.”
As early as 1943, as the war displaced millions of people, dozens of nations came to Washington and signed onto the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Authority. (Despite its name, it preceded the founding of the U.N.) After the war, the British and U.S. military were in charge of supplying food, protection and medical care in hundreds of camps throughout Germany and Austria, and UNRRA administered the camps on a day-to-day basis.
Early on, Jewish Holocaust survivors — some who suffered in concentration camps, others who had escaped into the Soviet Union — were put in DP camps alongside their former tormentors, until the U.S. agreed to place them in separate compounds. Unable or unwilling to return to the countries where they had lost relatives, property and any semblance of a normal life, they began a waiting game, as few countries, including the United States, were willing to take them in, and Palestine was being blockaded by the British.
Abiding antisemitism was not the only reason they remained stateless. “Jews were [accused of being] subversives, communists, rebels, troublemakers, and the world war quickly gave way to cold war, and with it the notion that Hitler had been defeated and what we have to worry about is the communists,” David Nasaw, author of “The Last Million,” a history of the displaced persons, told the New York Jewish week in 2020.
In 1948 and 1950, Congress grudgingly passed legislation that allowed 50,000 Jewish survivors and their children to come to the United States. The rest were eventually able to go to Israel, after its independence in 1948.
The U.N. exhibit focuses less on this macro history — which includes what became another refugee crisis for the Palestinians displaced by Israel’s War for Independence — than on life in the DP camps.
“The exhibition illustrates how the displaced persons did not shrink from the task of rebuilding both their own lives and Jewish communal life,” said Jonathan Brent, chief executive officer at YIVO, in a statement.
Among those rebuilding their lives were Max Gitter and his parents, Polish Jews who had the perverse good luck of being exiled to Siberia during the war. The family made its way to Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, where Gitter was born in 1943. After the war ended, his parents returned to Poland, but repelled by antisemitism sought refuge in the American zone in Germany. They spent time in the Ainring DP camp, a former Luftwaffe base on the Austrian border, and at a small camp called Lechfeld, about 25 miles west of Munich.
Dolls made by stateless Jewish children residing in a DP camp near Florence, Italy, known as “Kibbutz HaOved.” The dolls are attired in local costumes based on the districts of the Tuscan city of Sienna. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“I was there until we came to the United States when I was six and a half, so I have some very distinct memories and some hazy memories,” said Gitter, emeritus director and vice chair of the YIVO board. One story he hasn’t forgotten is how his father and a friend were walking through the camp when they came upon a long line of people. “They were from the Soviet Union, so they knew that when there’s a line that it might be of interest.” It turned out to be a line for the lottery that would allow them to get into the United States under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948.
The family came to the United States in 1950, to “pretty shabby lodgings” in the Bronx, before his father bought a candy store and moved to Queens. Max went on to attend Harvard College and Yale Law School, and became a corporate litigator.
Gitter’s brother was born in one of the camps, and the exhibit includes a poster depicting the population increase between 1946 and 1947 at the Jewish DP center Bad Reichenhall. The birthrate in the camps has often been described as evidence of the optimism and defiance of the survivors, but Dwork said the truth is somewhat more complicated.
“There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. This is the age group of reproductive age, at 20 to 40,” she said. “However, this image of fecundity hides what was rumored to be a significant abortion rate, too. And women had experienced years of starvation. Menstruation had only recently recommenced. So many women, in fact, miscarried or had trouble conceiving to begin with.”
A chart by artist O. Lec depicts the natural population increase of the Jewish Center Bad Reichenhall, Germany, 1946-1947. There was a very high birth rate among the Jews in DP camps. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
“There is no silver lining here,” she added. “People live life on many levels. On the one hand, DPs look to the future and look with hope; at the same time, they carry tremendous burdens of pain and suffering and trauma and trepidations about the future.”
Veach, a member of the YIVO board, hopes visitors to the exhibit understand that such trauma is hardly a thing of the past.
“I think the real lesson is that history keeps repeating itself,” said Veach, growing emotional. “Basically we have DPs on our border with Mexico, you have DPs from Ukraine. I don’t think people realize the repercussions for these people who are trying to find a place to live. These are good people who are just placed where they are by history.”
Gitter, who like Veach will speak at an event Jan. 24 at the U.N. marking the exhibit, also hopes “After the End of the World” prods the consciences of visitors.
“A lot of the countries, a lot of places, including the United States, would not accept Jews after the war,” he said. “The issue of memory, the issue of statelessness, the issue of finally there was some hope for the Jews in their immigration to Israel and the United States — that part of the story also needs to be told.”
“After the End of the World: Displaced Persons and Displaced Persons Camps” is on view from Jan. 10-Feb. 23, 2023, at the United Nations Headquarters, 405 E 42nd St, New York, Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Entrance to the United Nations Visitor Centre in New York is free, but there are requirements for all visitors. See the United Nations Visitor Centre entry guidelines.
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We Jews have three choices: Separating, assimilating or integrating
אַבֿרהם און שׂרה, טאַטע און מאַמע פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק, האָבן ביידע געהאַט די זעלבע השקפֿה און שליחות אין לעבן. פֿונדעסטוועגן האָט יעדער איינער פֿון זיי געלייגט דעם טראָפּ אויף אַן אַנדער אַספּעקט פֿונעם לעבן.
אַבֿרהם האָט זיך מער געוואָנדן אַרויסצו, צו דער וועלט בכלל, מיטן ציל אַרײַנצוברענגען אין איר דעם באַוווּסטזײַן וועגן איר באַשעפֿער. שׂרה, פֿון דער צווייטער זײַט, האָט זיך מער קאָנצענטרירט אינעווייניק, זאָרגנדיק פֿאַרן פֿיזישן און גײַסטיקן וווילזײַן פֿון איר זון יצחק — דער איינציקער גליד וואָס האָט געזאָלט ווײַטער פֿירן די טויזנט־יאָריקע קייט וואָס זײַן פֿאָטער האָט אָנגעהויבן.
אַ ייִד וואָס לעבט אין אַ ניט־ייִדישער געזעלשאַפֿט האָט דרײַ מעגלעכקייטן: זיך אָפּצוזינדערן, זיך צו אַסימילירן אָדער זיך צו אינטעגרירן.
דער וואָס פֿילט זיך באַדראָט פֿון דער געזעלשאַפֿט, אָדער פֿילט אַז ער האָט נישט עפּעס באַזונדערס בײַצוטראָגן ווי אַ ייִד, קלײַבט געוויינטלעך אויס צו האַלטן זײַן ייִדישקייט אין שטוב און אין שול, בעת אויף דער גאַס פֿירט ער זיך ווי אַ „נאָרמאַלער“ בירגער. ער האָט ליבער נישט צו פֿאַרעפֿנטלעכן זײַן ייִדישקייט.
דער וואָס זעט גאָרנישט באַזונדערס אין דעם וואָס ער איז אַ ייִד — בפֿרט אויב ער האַלט זיך נישט פֿאַר „רעליגיעז“ — אָדער וויל דאָס פֿאַרבײַטן אויף אַ לעבנסשטייגער, וואָס פּאַסט זיך בעסער צו דער געזעלשאַפֿט אַרום אים, קלײַבט אָפֿט אויס זיך צו אַסימילירן. דאָס הייסט: ער פֿאַרלאָזט זײַן ייִדישע אידענטיטעט כּדי אָנצונעמען אַ וועלטלעכע און מער „אוניווערסאַלע“ אידענטיטעט.
דער וואָס איז זיכער אין זײַן ייִדישקייט און אין דעם בײַטראָג וואָס ער קען, דווקא פֿון זײַן ייִדישקייט, געבן דער גאַנצער מענטשהייט, דאַרף נישט אַנטלויפֿן און דאַרף זיך אויך נישט אַסימילירן. זײַן ברירה איז זיך צו אינטעגרירן אין דער אַלגעמיינער געזעלשאַפֿט דווקא ווי אַ ייִד, און זי צו באַרײַכערן פֿון זײַן אייגענעם באַזונדערן אָרט.
פֿאַרשטייט זיך, אַז כּדי זיך געזונט צו אינטעגרירן און האָבן אַן השפּעה אויף דער ברייטערער געזעלשאַפֿט, דאַרף מען האָבן שטאַרקייט און קלאָרקייט וועגן דער אייגענער אידענטיטעט, און זײַן שטאָלץ מיט די אחריות וואָס די אידענטיטעט ברענגט מיט זיך.
אַבֿרהם און שׂרה זענען די פּראָוטאָטיפּן פֿון דער דינאַמיק פֿון דער ייִדישער משפּחה דורכויס די דורות. דער מאַן איז דער וואָס באַשעפֿטיקט זיך, קודם־כּל, מיט דער דרויסנדיקער וועלט; די פֿרוי איז די וואָס דערנערט און בויט די אינערלעכע וועלט פֿון דער משפּחה. נאָר דער וואָס האָט געהאַט און האָט נאָך אַלץ אַ שטאַרקע אינערלעכע וועלט קען זיך שטעלן אַנטקעגן דער דרויסנדיקער וועלט און זי באַאײַנפֿלוסן.
פֿון דער אידענטיטעט פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק, לאָמיר איצט אַריבערגיין צו דער אידענטיטעט פֿונעם ייִדישן לאַנד.
ארץ־ישׂראל: דאָס לאַנד פֿון די ייִדן, אָדער אַ ייִדיש לאַנד?
ארץ־ישׂראל איז דאָס נאַציאָנאַלע ירושה־גוט פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק. לויט הלכה־אויטאָריטעטן איז יעדער ייִד אויף דער וועלט דער נאַטירלעכער בעל־הבית פֿון לכל־הפּחות אן „אמה על אמה“ — 0.48 קוואַדראַט־מעטער — לאַנד אין ארץ־ישׂראל. דאָס איז אונדזער אייביקע ירושה.
עס זענען דאָ דרײַ שטעט אין ארץ־ישׂראל וועמענס קויפֿן דורך ייִדן איז דאָקומענטירט אין תנ״ך: חבֿרון, שכם און ירושלים. עס וואָלט געדאַרפֿט זײַן מער ווי קלאָר, אַז ס׳איז נישטאָ קיין אָרט פֿאַר אַ מחלוקת וועגן דער היסטאָרישער און לעגאַלער פֿאַרבינדונג צווישן די שטעט און דעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק — וויפֿל עס זאָלן נישט זײַן אַזעלכע וואָס ווילן זיי, חס ושלום, מאַכן „Judenrein“.
אין דער פּרשה חיי שׂרה לייענען מיר ווי אונדזער פֿאָטער אַבֿרהם האָט אָפּגעקויפֿט פֿון עפֿרון החתי די „מערת המכפּלה“ און די אַרומיקע פֿעלדער, מיטן בפֿירושן ציל דאָרט צו באַערדיקן זײַן פֿרוי שׂרה. שפּעטער זענען דאָרט אויך באַערדיקט געוואָרן די אָבֿות יצחק און יעקבֿ, צוזאַמען מיט זייערע פֿרויען רבֿקה און לאה.
דאָס אַלץ איז דאָקומענטירט אין דער תּורה — אַ דאָקומענט וואָס ווערט באַטראַכט ווי היסטאָריש לעגיטים דורך מער ווי 50 פּראָצענט פֿון דער הײַנטיקער וועלט־באַפֿעלקערונג.
כאָטש אַראַבער קענען טענהן אַז זיי שטאַמען אויך פֿון אַבֿרהם דורך זײַן זון ישמעאל און האָבן דעריבער אַ לעגיטימע תּבֿיעה אויף די דאָזיקע לענדער, איז דאָס אַ טעותדיקע טענה צוליב צוויי סיבות.
ערשטנס, זענען די אַראַבער וואָס וווינען הײַנט אין ארץ־ישׂראל נישט די אָפּשטאַמיקע פֿון ישמעאל, נאָר זענען אַריבערגעפֿירט געוואָרן אין אַנדערע געגנטן דורך דעם אַסירישן קעניג און שׂונא פֿון די ייִדן, סנחריבֿ.
צווייטנס, אַפֿילו ווען מיר וואָלטן אָנגענומען אַז זיי זענען בני ישמעאל, קומט זיי דערפֿאַר נאָך נישט ארץ־ישׂראל, ווײַל ישמעאל איז געווען דער זון פֿון שׂרהס דינסט הגר. אַבֿרהם האָט אים געגעבן זײַן ירושה נאָך בײַם לעבן און אים אַוועקגעשיקט ווײַט פֿון ארץ כּנען.
ארץ־ישׂראל איז נישט בלויז דאָס לאַנד פֿון די ייִדן; עס איז אַ ייִדיש לאַנד.
אייגנטום איז אַ צופֿעליקער און ענדערלעכער מצבֿ: הײַנט האָב איך עס, מאָרגן האָסטו עס. עס איז נישטאָ קיין מהותדיקער חילוק אין מײַן אויטאָ פֿון איידער איך האָב עס דיר פֿאַרקויפֿט ביז נאָך דעם וואָס עס איז געוואָרן דײַן אייגנטום; פֿריִער איז עס געווען מײַנס, און איצט איז עס דײַנס.
מיט ארץ־ישׂראל איז אָבער אַנדערש. דאָס לאַנד איז באַשאַפֿן געוואָרן פֿאַרן ייִדישן פֿאָלק, כּדי דאָס פֿאָלק זאָל קענען אויספֿירן זײַן תּכלית: אַנטפּלעקן דעם אויבערשטנס אָנוועזנהייט אין דעם פֿיזישן וועלט אויפֿן בעסטן אופֿן, און פֿון דאָרט, ווי דאָס האַרץ, אַרויספּאָמפּען אָט די אָנערקענונג און באַגײַסטערונג אין דער גאַנצער וועלט.
נישט אומזיסט רופֿט די גאַנצע וועלט דאָס לאַנד „דאָס הייליקע לאַנד“. דערמיט דערקענט מען, אַז אַפֿילו די ערד גופֿא פֿון ארץ־ישׂראל איז הייליק.
אין אַנדערע ווערטער: די פֿאַרבינדונג צווישן ארץ־ישׂראל און עם־ישׂראל איז נישט בלויז היסטאָריש אָדער צופֿעליק. זי איז מהותדיק און נשמהדיק. דאָס לאַנד און דאָס פֿאָלק טיילן אַ שליחות וואָס דער אויבערשטער האָט זיי געגעבן, און די פֿולע אויספֿירונג פֿון דער שליחות איז אָפּהענגיק פֿון ביידע.
ווען מיר קעמפֿן פֿאַר אונדזער לאַנד, טראַכטן מיר נישט בלויז פֿאַר אונדזערט וועגן, נאָר אויך לטובֿת אונדזערע שׂונאים. אויך פֿאַר זיי איז עס צום גוטן, אַז זיי זאָלן לאָזן דעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק אויספֿירן זײַן שליחות אין זײַן לאַנד, בשעת זיי קענען בשלום אויספֿירן זייער שליחות אין דעם לאַנד וואָס געהערט צו זיי.
ווען דער דאָזיקער פּונקט וועט זײַן קלאָר בײַ אונדז, וועט אונדז זײַן גרינגער זי קלאָר צו מאַכן אויך פֿאַר אַנדערע.
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Mike Rogers campaign event for Jews brings out Haley Stevens’ fiancée
(JTA) — BIRMINGHAM, Mich. – The Republican Jewish Coalition typically isn’t known for drawing committed Democrats to its events.
But that’s what happened Wednesday night at the Townsend Hotel in suburban Detroit, when a campaign event for GOP U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers attracted several Jews from the other side of the aisle. Those included Jason Turkish, a Democratic lawyer and megadonor best known as the fiancé of pro-Israel Democratic U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens.
Turkish did not speak at the event. But just before it started, he had gone public with his declaration that he was voting for Rogers, and his conviction that Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee and former county health director who beat his partner in the primary, was antisemitic.
“This choice for me, in the end, was very simple,” Turkish told reporters from the sidelines. He cited recent instances of El-Sayed not answering whether Iran or Israel poses a bigger threat to the United States, and of the candidate only softly distancing himself from a PAC ad that blamed Israel for the price of groceries.
“History will remember who stands where in this moment, and it will not remember Abdul El-Sayed kindly,” Turkish said.
Turkish’s public stance against his party’s nominee, whom Stevens herself has endorsed while not directly campaigning for him, was yet another indication of the deep distrust and anger many of Michigan’s pro-Israel Jewish voters have voiced toward El-Sayed throughout this campaign. Republicans are hoping that will translate into more Jewish lifelong Democrats, like Turkish and former Stevens campaign chair David Kramer, pulling the lever for Rogers instead.
“I love it,” Rogers, a former congressman, told reporters about Turkish’s endorsement. From the stage, the candidate was clear about what he thinks of El-Sayed: “He’s beyond antisemitic. He hates Jews.”
Turkish insisted that despite his Rogers vote, he was not a Republican.
“I will vote for Democrats up and down the ballot,” he said. “This isn’t some major departure. You can support Democrats up and down the ballot and make a choice to choose country over party in one race.”
When asked by reporters at a different campaign event about Turkish, El-Sayed responded, “I’m building a movement to take on the challenges that Donald Trump is facing. If folks have issues that are more important to them than that, that’s fine.”
Most of the Jews in the RJC room were committed Republicans, who booed a mention of progressive Jewish megadonor George Soros and cheered the name of far-right Jewish U.S. Rep. Randy Fine.
The newfound Jewish discomfort with the Democratic nominee and the desire to send a message to the party were a key part of the pitch that Rogers and Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz made to the estimated 500 attendees at the RJC event.
“People who are lifelong Democrats who want to vote for Democrats for every other office, I’m not advocating that,” Cruz joked to the room. “But even if that’s where you are,” he urged, “say there is a line that is too far, and this is that line.”
RJC spokesperson Sam Markstein told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he had to fetch more chairs for overflow seating. Markstein said turnout for Wednesday’s event was double what the RJC had drawn for a similar gathering in 2024 in support of Rogers’ first, unsuccessful Senate run — when the GOP was stronger nationally than it is now.
Hundreds of Jews in the state have signed a pledge to vote for Rogers, though a rival pledge to vote for El-Sayed has nearly twice as many signatures.
El-Sayed’s comments following the March terror attack on the Temple Israel preschool, in which he stated, in part, “Hurt people hurt people,” haunt his perception among Jews months after he apologized for them. An Israeli strike in Lebanon had killed members of the attacker’s family.
At the RJC event, signs read “No, Abdul: Hurt People Help People” and “Mike Will Keep Us Safe.” Some attendees carried a parody picture book called “Hurt People Hurt People,” featuring an El-Sayed-like “Dr. Context” caricature who consoles the Big Bad Wolf instead of the Three Little Pigs.
The RJC has made a $2 million ad buy with pro-Rogers commercials featuring members of Temple Israel, some of whom spoke to the crowd. A separate Jewish organization, the Combat Antisemitism Movement, has made its own ad buy for Rogers via a new political advocacy arm, featuring one of the same Temple Israel moms.
The GOP sales pitch to Jews has also veered into darker territory, which was evident Wednesday night. Onstage, both Cruz and Rogers claimed that El-Sayed receiving Senate-level security clearance for intelligence briefings would pose a risk to national security.
“The risks are too high that he would share sensitive information with the Muslim Brotherhood,” Cruz said, echoing a growing conservative attack line against the Democrat. He also called El-Sayed a “jihadist leprechaun.”
Rogers said that Hasan Piker, the anti-Israel streamer who campaigned with El-Sayed, “should go back to Turkey, where he belongs.”
Asked later by JTA about his comment, Rogers said he was referring to Piker’s dual Turkish citizenship, and said, “I just thought if he wanted to go back there because he hates America so much, I’d pay for the ticket.”
Rogers appeared to distance himself from comments that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made at a Grand Rapids campaign event earlier this week with the candidate present. Kennedy had claimed that Arabs “don’t produce science” and “don’t win the Nobel Prize.”
“Sometimes the campaign takes lefts and rights,” Rogers told reporters, when asked about Kennedy. “What I’m concerned about is what’s happening here. Our Arab community is showing lots of support.” The substantial Arab American community in this swing state makes it a key player in elections, and Republicans have been walking a tightrope between weaponizing El-Sayed’s faith against him and keeping on board Arab Americans who voted two years ago for President Donald Trump.
Rogers sought to make clear to the Jews in the room that he was aligned with Cruz, a pro-Israel stalwart who has picked public fights with far-right commentator Tucker Carlson. Cruz, though, has been a vocal proponent of war in Iran, while Rogers recently told JTA in an interview that “we met our objectives” in Iran and should wind down the war there.
On Wednesday, Rogers took a more hawkish tone on Iran. “I’d love to see this wrapped up, but I don’t think we can leave it where they have any ability to hurt our friends and neighbors,” he said. “So their army, navy, air force has to be as diminished as they can.”
Both men also took time from the stage to denounce antisemitism from the right.
At their donor events, Rogers said, “Without fail. I would get three or four or five young, white men who would come up and say, ‘You’re not going to take Jewish money, are you?’”
Rogers chalked up the problem to college campuses, calling for efforts to “get Qatari money out of our colleges.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Progressive US Jews call for Israel’s opposition bloc to welcome Arab parties
(JTA) — Liberal U.S. Jewish leaders are urging Israel’s opposition parties to abandon their campaign promises and join hands with Arab parties in order to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Following Tuesday’s vote, Netanyahu’s bloc was projected to win 53 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, while the camp of his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, is projected to win 48 seats. That means both fall short of the 61 votes required to form a new majority governing coalition.
One of the most significant shifts in electoral politics coming out of Tuesday’s results was the success of Israel’s two Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, which nearly doubled their representation to 19 seats.
Those gains would be enough to give the Netanyahu or Eisenkot blocs the necessary seats to form a coalition, but neither has publicly indicated a willingness to include Arab-led parties in their coalitions. The idea is also anathema to much of the Jewish Israeli electorate after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
Nonetheless, U.S. Jewish voices urged Eisenkot and his allies – collectively known as the “change” bloc – to welcome the Arab-Israeli parties as partners for implementing that change.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal Zionist lobby J Street, hailed the “extraordinarily high voter turnout,” estimated at nearly 78% of eligible voters, and praised “the historic participation of Arab citizens of Israel,” saying that “their voices and votes are a vital part of Israel’s democratic fabric.”
“This is a moment for the Jewish opposition parties to demonstrate genuine leadership by reaching out to the Arab parties and working together to form an alternative government,” Ben-Ami continued. “Israel cannot build a stronger, more inclusive democracy while treating the political representatives of one-fifth of its population as illegitimate governing partners.”
Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration, commended the voters for creating an “important opportunity for change.” That change, he added, could occur if Eisenkot’s bloc worked with Arab parties.
Shapiro added in a follow-up post that “in almost no scenario” would far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich “continue to have the influence they currently enjoy.”
“Ensuring that is the case is an important incentive to the opposition bloc to avoid going to new elections, which would extend the damaging tenure of these extremist ministers,” Shapiro said.
Gabriel Epstein, a senior policy associate at the Israel Policy Forum, encouraged Eisenkot and his partners not to shy away from taking the historic step of joining with Ra’am and Joint List, both of whose support they would need to come to power.
Epstein said in a post on X that there were benefits beyond politics: “Greater integration of the Arab community into Israeli society is also key for political and democratic legitimacy.”
Israelis for Peace NYC, a self-described group of “anti-occupation activists,” praised Palestinian citizens of Israel for voting in unprecedented numbers and delivering “a victory to the anti-Netanyahu bloc” by dislodging the current ruling coalition. At the same time, however, the group slammed the change bloc for “refusing to accept this gift, out of no other reason but deep-rooted, unexamined and systemic racism.”
Describing the current choice as “a shared future or no future at all,” Israelis for Peace warned that a fifth of the population is “being completely and shamelessly disregarded,” referring to the approximately 20% of Israel that is Arab.
“But this isn’t over,” the group added. “The liberal majority in Israel can hit the streets in mass demonstrations, like it has done so well against Netanyahu for four years, and pressure Eisenkot and other opposition leaders to sit with the Arab parties.”
But Jacob Stoil, a research professor of Middle East Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “there are some real challenges to putting together a coalition that includes the Arab parties,” given the political positions they take and the campaign promises made by Eisenkot’s partners.
Although one party, the Islamist Ra’am, previously served in a coalition and has expressed willingness to do so again, multiple members of Eisenkot’s bloc have pledged not to sit with an Arab party. Meanwhile, the second party, the Joint List, rejects the definition of Israel as a Jewish state and therefore refuses to serve in a Zionist-led government.
One plausible option could be “a minority government with the Arab parties essentially voting to keep the government in office and protecting it,” according to Stoil, who said his comments did not reflect the views of the U.S. Army or the U.S. government. But he warned that such a minority government could “create a lot of challenges in passing legislation.”
“There is a realistic pathway,” Stoil said, noting, however, that this pathway toward partnership with Arab parties can only be determined once the full results of the election are tallied.
At this point, he explained, there are still many things that can change. For example, Israel’s Central Elections Committee has yet to tally ballots cast by soldiers, prisoners and diplomats stationed abroad, which will reportedly add another 430,000-480,000 votes to the mix.
The Jewish Federations of North America, meanwhile, released a neutral statement after the election, applauding “the shared values that bind Israelis and North American Jews, including a deep commitment to democratic principles and civic participation.” The organization said it would continue working “with leaders across the political spectrum.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group whose influence has played a sizable role in November’s U.S. midterm elections, offered similar accolades to Israelis for showing “their commitment to democracy through free and fair elections.”
The massive voter turnout among multiple religious groups “underscores Israel’s diversity and steadfast commitment to the democratic process – a value shared and cherished in America,” an AIPAC statement added.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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