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Which side are you on: Jewish American or American Jew?
(JTA) — Earlier this month the New York Times convened what it called a “focus group of Jewish Americans.” I was struck briefly by that phrase — Jewish Americans — in part because the Times, like the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, tends to prefer “American Jews.”
It’s seemingly a distinction without a difference, although I know others might disagree. There is an argument that “American Jew” smacks of disloyalty, describing a Jew who happens to be American. “Jewish American,” according to this thinking, flips the script: an American who happens to be Jewish.
If pressed, I’d say I prefer “American Jew.” The noun “Jew” sounds, to my ear anyway, more direct and more assertive than the tentative adjective “Jewish.” It’s also consistent with the way JTA essentializes “Jew” in its coverage, as in British Jew, French Jew, LGBT Jew or Jew of color.
I wouldn’t have given further thought to the subject if not for a webinar last week given by Arnold Eisen, the chancellor emeritus at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In “Jewish-American, American-Jew: The Complexities and Joys of Living a Hyphenated Identity,” Eisen discussed how a debate over language is really about how Jews navigate between competing identities.
“What does the ‘American’ signify to us?” he asked. “What does the ‘Jewish’ signify and what is the nature of the relationship between the two? Is it a synthesis? Is it a tension, or a contradiction, or is it a blurring of the boundaries such that you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins?”
Questions like these, it turns out, have been asked since Jews and other immigrants first began flooding Ellis Island. Teddy Roosevelt complained in 1915 that “there is no room in this country for hyphenated Americans.” Woodrow Wilson liked to say that “any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of the Republic.” The two presidents were frankly freaked out about what we now call multiculturalism, convinced that America couldn’t survive a wave of immigrants with dual loyalties.
The two presidents lost the argument, and for much of the 20th century “hyphenated American” was shorthand for successful acculturation. While immigration hardliners continue to question the loyalty of minorities who claim more than one identity, and Donald Trump played with the politics of loyalty in remarks about Mexicans, Muslims and Jews, ethnic pride is as American as, well, St. Patrick’s Day. “I am the proud daughter of Indian immigrants,” former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said in announcing her run for the Republican presidential nomination this month.
For Jews, however, the hyphen became what philosophy professor Berel Lang called “a weighty symbol of the divided life of Diaspora Jewry.” Jewishness isn’t a distant country with quaint customs, but a religion and a portable identity that lives uneasily alongside your nationality. In a 2005 essay, Lang argued that on either side of the hyphen were “vying traditions or allegiances,” with the Jew constantly confronted with a choice between the American side, or assimilation, and the Jewish side, or remaining distinct.
Eisen calls this the “question of Jewish difference.” Eisen grew up in an observant Jewish family in Philadelphia, and understood from an early age that his family was different from their Vietnamese-, Italian-, Ukrainian- and African-American neighbors. On the other hand, they were all the same — that is, American — because they were all hyphenated. “Being parallel to all these other differences, gave me my place in the city and in the country,” he said.
In college he studied the Jewish heavy hitters who were less sanguine about the integration of American and Jewish identities. Eisen calls Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the renegade theologian at JTS, “the thinker who really made this question uppermost for American Jews.” Kaplan wrote in 1934 that Jewishness could only survive as a “subordinate civilization” in the United States, and that the “Jew in America will be first and foremost an American, and only secondarily a Jew.”
Kaplan’s prescription was a maximum effort on the part of Jews to “save the otherness of Jewish life” – not just through synagogue, but through a Jewish “civilization” expressed in social relationships, leisure activities and a traditional moral and ethical code.
Of course, Kaplan also understood that there was another way to protect Jewish distinctiveness: move to Israel.
A poster issued by the National Industrial Conservation Movement in 1917 warns that the American war effort might be harmed by a “hyphen of disloyalty,” suggesting immigrants with ties to their homelands were working to aid the enemy. (Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress)
The political scientist Charles Liebman, in “The Ambivalent American Jew” (1973), argued that Jews in the United States were torn between surviving as a distinct ethnic group and integrating into the larger society.
According to Eisen, Liebman believed that “Jews who make ‘Jewish’ the adjective and ‘American’ the noun tend to fall on the integration side of the hyphen. And Jews who make ‘Jew’ the noun and ‘American’ the adjective tend to fall on the survival side of the hyphen.”
Eisen, a professor of Jewish thought at JTS, noted that the challenge of the hyphen was felt by rabbis on opposite ends of the theological spectrum. He cited Eugene Borowitz, the influential Reform rabbi, who suggested in 1973 that Jews in the United States “are actually more Jewish on the inside than they pretend to be on the outside. In other words, we’re so worried about what Liebman called integration into America that we hide our distinctiveness.” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the leading Modern Orthodox thinker of his generation, despaired that the United States presented its Jews with an unresolvable conflict between the person of faith and the person of secular culture.
When I read the texts Eisen shared, I see 20th-century Jewish men who doubted Jews who could be fully at home in America and at home with themselves as Jews (let alone as Jews who weren’t straight or white — which would demand a few more hyphens). They couldn’t imagine a rich Jewishness that didn’t exist as a counterculture, the way Cynthia Ozick wondered what it would be like to “think as a Jew” in a non-Jewish language like English.
They couldn’t picture the hyphen as a plus sign, which pulled the words “Jewish” and “American” together.
Recent trends support the skeptics. Look at Judaism’s Conservative movement, whose rabbis are trained at JTS, and which has long tried to reconcile Jewish literacy and observance with the American mainstream. It’s shrinking, losing market share and followers both to Reform – where the American side of the hyphen is ascendant — and to Orthodoxy, where Jewish otherness is booming in places like Brooklyn and Lakewood, New Jersey. And the Jewish “nones” — those opting out of religion, synagogue and active engagement in Jewish institutions and affairs — are among the fastest-growing segments of American Jewish life.
Eisen appears more optimistic about a hyphenated Jewish identity, although he insists that it takes work to cultivate the Jewish side. “I don’t think there’s anything at stake necessarily on which side of the hyphen you put the Jewish on,” he said. “But if you don’t go out of your way to put added weight on the Jewish in the natural course of events, as Kaplan said correctly 100 years ago, the American will win.”
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The answered prayers of Trump’s artful ceasefire deal
On Yom Kippur, millions of Jews around the world prayed for the release of the hostages. A week later, those prayers are on the verge of being answered
President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday evening that Hamas and Israel have accepted the first phase of his peace deal — including the release of all the living hostages at once, likely this weekend, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners — is as shocking as it is wonderful.
Just over two years since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel, killing almost 1,200 people and abducting 251, there has been scant good news. As the death toll mounted on both sides, we’ve had little reason to expect anything except for more bloodshed, more vengeance and more destruction.
“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives,” the late Israeli diplomat Abba Eban once said — and Trump saw that Israel and Hamas were both exhausted, with no alternatives.
Israel faced mounting domestic unrest, a steep decline in international support as its allies lined up to back a Palestinian state, cultural and diplomatic isolation, and a war-weary military.
Hamas lost every battle but the one it started on Oct. 7, and found itself cornered in Gaza City without the weapons lifeline of Iran and the cash infusions from Qatar. Hamas had also lost popular support. After Oct. 7, 71% of Palestinians said they supported the attack. In a May 2025 poll, that number was 51%. Support for Hamas among all Palestinians has dropped to 32% from 43% in Dec. 2023.
The outline of the current deal is similar to one President Joe Biden offered a year ago. What’s different: Trump understood that both parties were at the end of the road, and used that knowledge wisely.
He increased American leverage over Hamas by bringing Qatar closer than ever into the United States’ embrace. Skeptics said that part of that closeness came from the economic ties between Qatar and the Trump family and its associates. If that’s what brings the hostages home, I’m frankly not sure I care.
At the same time, Trump finally stood up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to news reports, he lost his temper with Netanyahu following Israel’s September assassination attempt against Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar. That shocking expansion of the war threatened the Abraham Accords, the singular diplomatic achievement of Trump’s first term, as well as direct U.S. interests: Qatar hosts the largest American air base in the Middle East.
The first clue that Trump’s deal might really come through, after so many failed efforts to secure a lasting ceasefire, was that Trump successfully forced Netanyahu to make a personal apology to Qatar last week — something almost unprecedented in Middle East diplomacy. He then extended the promise of a NATO-like American defense shield to Qatar, also unprecedented.
All that maneuvering has led to an agreement that, if it holds, will be a stunning victory against extremism.
Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups have reaped the fruits of violent resistance. Could they be more rotten and bitter?
Far-right Israeli leaders and their supporters who fantasized about re-occupying Gaza — which would’ve been almost inconceivable without consigning the remaining hostages to death — will not get their way. “I said ‘Israel cannot fight the world Bibi, they can’t fight the world,’” Trump said.
And the longer term implications of Trump’s plan provide a pathway to peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, which would almost certainly deprive those same Israelis and their supporters of dominion over the West Bank and the almost 2 million Palestinians who live there.
The deal is a blow to extremists outside the region as well — those online social media warriors who have been trashing the deal, eager to fight the Zionist entity into nonexistence. The prospect of peace and coexistence must be a huge disappointment for them.
“Let it be known that Western leftists who oppose the ceasefire plan in Gaza are now more radical and rigged than Hamas itself,” wrote Palestinian activist Khalil Sayegh last week, “Hamas sounds reasonable compared to the keyboard warriors in the West.”
For the rest of us, the deal is a giant leap in the right direction.
In January, when Trump oversaw a deal to release 33 hostages with the same promise of a long-term Israeli Palestinian accord, I wrote that if it came to pass, I would be the first in line to hang the Nobel medal around his neck. I still think he is a clear and present danger to democracy in the U.S. and to the well-being of the most vulnerable Americans, as the current government shutdown makes clear.
But credit where credit is due. This is an artful deal, one that returns hope to a region where it had all but disappeared.
That last deal fell apart when Netanyahu refused to enter the second phase of negotiations. This one has more of the necessary threats and benefits behind it to keep all the parties in line. Here’s praying it holds — for the hostages, for Israelis and Palestinians, and for the world.
The post The answered prayers of Trump’s artful ceasefire deal appeared first on The Forward.
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Deal to release ‘ALL of the hostages’ from Gaza has been struck, Trump announces
Dozens of Israeli hostages held for two years in Gaza, including 20 who remain alive, are set to be released imminently following an agreement between Israel and Hamas that could lead to a permanent ceasefire.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced the deal on Wednesday evening, saying that both sides had signed off on a “first phase” of the peace proposal he unveiled last week. The agreement came a day after the second anniversary of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel, when the group that has controlled Gaza took about 250 hostages. Of them, 48 remain.
“This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly!” he wrote on Truth Social. “This is a GREAT Day for the Arab and Muslim World, Israel, all surrounding Nations, and the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this Historic and Unprecedented Event happen. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the agreement in a post on X. “With the approval of the first phase of the plan, all our hostages will be brought home. This is a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the State of Israel,” he wrote.
Soon, social media began to fill with footage of celebrations. In Israel, hostage families who have battled for their loved ones’ return could be seen dancing in jubilation and the hostages freed in past ceasefires posted videos of themselves weeping as they addressed the men they were forced to leave behind. In Gaza, Palestinians who have endured two years of deadly bombing, pressing hunger and mass displacement expressed hope that the pressing dangers they face could soon recede.
Einav Zangauker, Michel Iluz, Hagai and Anat Angrest, and Ayelet Samerano– all parents of hostages– in a huge group hug at Hostages Square. They fought like lions. pic.twitter.com/yotiYggzDC
— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي (@NTarnopolsky) October 9, 2025
An exact timeline for the hostage release was not immediately clear, but Israeli media reported that urgent preparations were underway with the expectation that hostages could come home by the weekend — ahead of the Simchat Torah holiday that marks the two-year anniversary of the attack in the Jewish calendar. Family members abroad were being flown to Israel and hospitals were being prepared to receive 20 men who have experienced two years of brutality and hunger.
Special attention was being paid, Israeli media reported, to the families whose loved ones would not immediately return — while Hamas committed to returning the bodies of deceased hostages, it has reportedly not yet located all of them and there is a widespread expectation that some may never be found.
U.S. Jewish groups as well as Israeli hostage advocacy groups welcomed the announcement in press releases and videos that expressed appreciation for Trump’s aggressive efforts to press for a deal. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff joined the Gaza talks earlier on Wednesday, in a sign that an agreement was potentially imminent.
The exact terms of the deal were still emerging on Wednesday evening but Israeli media was reporting that Israel would retain control of a majority of Gaza until the last hostage is released and that Israeli would not be required to release from its prisons anyone involved in the Oct. 7 attack.
Many elements of Trump’s peace proposal, including demands that Hamas disarm and that a postwar governance structure be established, are expected to be negotiated after the first phase. Israel ended the last ceasefire, in February, rather than continue negotiating. But Trump has indicated that he plans to maintain pressure on both sides to extend their truce into a permanent peace.
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The post Deal to release ‘ALL of the hostages’ from Gaza has been struck, Trump announces appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel and Hamas have agreed to hostage release deal, Trump announces
All remaining living hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023 could be released this weekend as part of a multi-phase deal proposed by President Trump, with the first phase agreed to by Israel and Hamas, according to published reports.
The plan, if adopted in full, would eventually end the two-year war that started when Hamas killed almost 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped hundreds. Israel’s attacks on the Gaza strip, where the hostages were taken, have since killed at least 66,000 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry says, and left much of the enclave in ruins.
The new deal would require Israel to release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the 20 living hostages; two previous agreements followed the same parameters in November 2023 and earlier this year.
Israel agreed to pause its military offensive late last week when Hamas indicated willingness to release the hostages, assuming details could be negotiated. This new agreement would require Israel to pull troops back to an agreed-upon line.
The deal was announced by Trump on Wednesday evening and negotiated in Egypt, where his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, hours before.
This is a developing story.
The post Israel and Hamas have agreed to hostage release deal, Trump announces appeared first on The Forward.