Uncategorized
Why there are new laws shaping how schools teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Teachers, parents and schools have long debated what students should learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But lesson plans have typically been discussed in PTA gatherings, faculty meetings, and curriculum committees — not determined by legislation.
That’s changing, as new laws around the country seek to regulate how narratives about the conflict are taught. The measures are testing the boundaries of classroom free speech, teeing up legal battles between teachers who want to express pro-Palestinian viewpoints in the classroom and those who see such lessons as unprofessional or antisemitic.
The latest flashpoint is in California, where a new “antisemitism prevention” bill was signed into law this month, partly in response to controversy created by the state’s ethnic studies curriculum, which Gov. Gavin Newsom made a graduation requirement in 2021.
A tale of two curriculums
“Is Israel a settler colonial state?” and “If so, what does that mean for us in regard to who to support?”
Those were questions a San Jose, Calif., teacher posed to students in January 2025, along with a YouTube video titled “Zionism is not the same as Judaism,” featuring a spokesperson from the anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta.
In April, the California Department of Education found that the lesson “discriminated against Jewish students” and required the school district to provide teacher training on presenting controversial topics in a balanced, non-discriminatory way.
Such disputes have become prevalent in California in the four years since the adoption of the state’s ethnic studies curriculum.
Many Jewish groups support a curriculum that includes lessons on antisemitism and Jewish identity, alongside units on Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
But an alternative curriculum, created by the “Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium,” has drawn sharp criticism for portraying Israel as a colonial state and omitting discussion of antisemitism while covering other forms of bigotry. For instance, it defines the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a “global social movement that currently aims to establish freedom for Palestinians living under apartheid conditions.”
“If I look at the materials that they’re putting forward, it doesn’t provide any balance,” said Larry Shoham, a Jewish English and business teacher at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. “And I’m just afraid that when students are exposed to this curriculum, we’re planting seeds of prejudice and hatred in the next generation.”
Several Jewish groups have sought to keep the “liberated” curriculum out of public schools. But achieving that goal through legal avenues has yielded mixed results.
A coalition of Jewish groups had success in Santa Ana, Calif., where in February the school district settled a lawsuit that alleged ethnic studies courses were biased against Jews. As part of the discovery process, the plaintiffs uncovered several antisemitic messages from the school board, including a text message from a committee member suggesting that “we may need to use Passover to get all new courses approved,” since Jews would not be present. As part of the settlement, the district agreed to terminate their “liberated” ethnic studies classes and redesign the courses with public input.
But in Los Angeles, a federal judge issued a rebuke of parents who sought to use the law to change curriculum. A group under the name “Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles” sued the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, arguing that they had a religious belief in Zionism, and the “liberated” ethnic studies curriculum made it unsafe to express Zionist beliefs.
The parents, the judge wrote in his decision, had the right to petition for curricular changes. But the curriculum, even if offensive to some, was not discriminatory or illegal.
“It is far from clear that learning about Israel and Palestine or encountering teaching materials with which one disagrees constitutes an injury,” Judge Fernando Olguin wrote.
Bills aimed at restricting the “liberated” ethnic studies curriculum have also stalled. Last spring, the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California championed a bill that would have required school districts to submit ethnic studies curricula to the California Department of Education for review, ensuring “content is historically accurate, free from antisemitic bias, and aligned with educational best practices,” JPAC wrote on its website.
But facing opposition from some civil liberties groups, the bill never made it into committee. JPAC shifted its focus to a broader measure creating a new statewide office to combat antisemitism in public schools, JPAC executive director David Bocarsly said in an interview.
That bill, with the requirement that curricula be “factually accurate” and “consistent with accepted standards of professional responsibility, rather than advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship,” just passed.
The new law’s impact
The law establishes a state Office of Civil Rights and an antisemitism prevention coordinator, who will track complaints, issue guidance, and coordinate training about antisemitism.
As for curriculum, supporters say the law simply reinforces longstanding norms for teachers: that lessons should be grounded in fact and free of political bias — requirements which don’t bar thoughtful discussions about Israelis and Palestinians.
“There’s nothing in this bill or existing law that prevents teachers from bringing up international conflicts or controversial issues, and to be able to provide opportunities for students to engage with it with critical thought,” Bocarsly said.
Critics, however, see the law’s vague language as a deliberate attempt to stifle speech and make educators think twice before broaching the subject at all.
“Are you allowed to talk about the occupation of the West Bank?” said Jenin Younes, national legal director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Are you allowed to talk about the Nakba from the Palestinians perspective in 1948? That’s not clear.”
Younes said she’s also troubled by a provision that allows anyone — not just students or parents — to file a complaint about antisemitism. That, she said, “opens up the door to people from outside who want to harass teachers.”
Some educators share those concerns. Mara Harvey, a Jewish social studies teacher at Discovery High School in Sacramento, wrote an op-ed calling California’s law “the wrong response to a real problem” and part of a broader push to bring “right-wing, Trump-style censorship to California schools.”
“Consider what it could mean in a real classroom: A student brings in an article from Haaretz (one of Israel’s most respected newspapers) criticizing government policies. Could a discussion on this be deemed antisemitic?” Harvey wrote. “Yes, it could.”
Combatting antisemitism or ‘attacking teachers’?
Similar debates about curriculum have played out in schools across the country. In Plano, Texas, a high school classroom used a Jeopardy-style game with the prompt, “Group who wants to gain back the country they lost to Israel.” The correct answer: “Who are the Palestinians?”
In August, Texas Attorney general Ken Paxton launched an investigation into Plano Independent School District, writing in a letter that “accounts have circulated that teachers are presenting biased materials and insisting that students take a pro-Palestinian view.”
“Any teacher or administrator that has facilitated or supported radical anti-Israel rhetoric in our schools should be fired immediately,” Paxton wrote on X.
In a statement, the school district said the claims of antisemitism were false and amounted to “political theater.”
Other states are also grappling with how best to address alleged bias in schools.
In Kansas, a law passed in May prohibits “incorporating or allowing funding of antisemitic curriculum.”
Arizona considered an even tougher approach. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have let parents sue educators for teaching antisemitism — meaning teachers would have been personally liable for lawyer fees and financial damages.
“Unfortunately, this bill is not about antisemitism; it’s about attacking our teachers,” Hobbs wrote in a letter explaining her veto.
In other cases, the curriculum has simply been removed. In Massachusetts, the state teachers association’s “curriculum resources” for lessons on “Israel and Occupied Palestine” included an image of a Star of David made of dollar bills. The curriculum resources were taken down after intense backlash.
Incidents like that are what Rebecca Schgallis, senior education strategist at the CAMERA Education Institute — which describes itself as “fighting antisemitism and anti-Israel bias in education” — cites in arguing for closer review of classroom materials nationwide.
She pointed to resources such as “Teaching While Muslim,” a group of New Jersey Muslim educators who say they are “working to actively include social justice, anti-racist & anti-Islamophobic curricula and educators in our schools.” Content on the group’s website includes a worksheet instructing students to color the Palestinian flag over the entire map of Israel — though it’s unclear whether such a lesson has ever actually been taught in public school classrooms.
Because curriculum decisions are made locally, Schgallis said, it’s difficult to track how widespread such lessons are. Often, she added, the problem comes not from official materials but from individual teachers going “rogue.”
“I think teachers have an obligation to teach curriculum and not to insert their personal viewpoints,” Schgallis said. “Everyone has the right to free speech outside of the classroom, but when teachers are teaching, they have a job to do.”
The post Why there are new laws shaping how schools teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
More Democrats than ever are voting against aid to Israel. That could actually be good for Israel
Israel is losing Democratic support in the same way a character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises went bankrupt: “gradually and then suddenly.”
When 103 House Democrats voted for a resolution that would eliminate United States aid to Israel yesterday — that was the “suddenly.” Even though the resolution didn’t pass, what seemed unimaginable on a few years ago now, after a period of gradual change, looks inevitable. When the current $38-billion weapons aid agreement between the U.S. and Israel winds down in 2028, the next one will involve what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called “a major reset” in the relationship.
And you know what? It’s long overdue. This shocking, historic vote is an opportunity to redefine the U.S.-Israel relationship in a way that benefits the U.S., Israel, Palestinians and the region.
Proponents have always framed U.S. aid to Israel as a win-win. We give them money — most of which has to be spent on American-made weapons — and in exchange Israel serves as a kind of land-based battleship in the Middle East. It looks out for American interests in a volatile region.
But increasingly, Americans are failing to see the value in that bargain. A recent poll found that 48% of Americans feel the U.S. is too supportive of Israel. At least among young people, this antipathy doesn’t just exist on the left: 53% of Republicans under age 45 oppose renewing the current aid agreement.
The fact of Israel’s booming economy, driven by the high tech and weapons industries that make it a valuable U.S. partner, has fueled that opposition. Why, a growing number of Americans ask, should our tax dollars fund a country that ranks 24th in median adult wealth according to a newly released USB survey — while the U.S. itself ranks 28th?
But what opponents mostly object to is Israeli government policy under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has cashed American checks and carried on with policies in Gaza and the West Bank that most Americans — including most American Jews — reject. What defenders have long asserted is a mutually beneficial arrangement increasingly feels more like a teenager with a credit card and a bad attitude.
A better approach, the “reset” Jeffries speaks of, would adjust the relationship from one of parent and child to one of peers and partners.
Ensuring Israel’s long term security would continue to be a key goal of that partnership. The U.S. might stop funding Israeli weapons purchases, but it could still sell Israel defensive systems.
But the security of Palestinians and other Israeli neighbors would also be key. The U.S. ought to consider defense guarantees to Israel and certain neighbors, including the Gulf States and even, perhaps, a reformed Syria. Those guarantees should come with sanctions if any government misuses American-made weapons. Security also means funding humanitarian aid that is attached to rooting out extremism and promoting freedom and self-determination.
Such a reset could make Israel itself stronger: less reliant on the whims of U.S. foreign and domestic policy; better able to diversify its sourcing and sale of weapons; and a key player in a regional peace, which includes the Palestinians. All of those changes could help bring true security.
These outcomes may seem aspirational. But it’s not like the old and now defunct patterns of aid were bringing Israelis the security they need. Democrats and Republicans, by listening to changing public opinion, have a chance to establish a new relationship rooted in a new vision.
Make no mistake, this vision will not satisfy the hardcore anti-Israel crowd on either side of the aisle. They want no aid and no partnership. They want to boycott Israeli products, artists and academics and arrest Israeli leaders. Their solution is the dissolution of the Israeli state.
Some of the Democrats who voted for the resolution no doubt belong in this category — among them the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who was the sole House member to vote “nay” on a Nov. 2023 resolution affirming Israel’s right to exist.
But many Democrats who voted for the Wednesday resolution said they did so despite their ongoing support for Israel, as a way to lodge their dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s policies.
“We simply cannot continue to condone Netanyahu’s actions that are against our moral conscience and our own national security interests by perpetuating the status quo,” said Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, who has a long record of support for Israel.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss, also of Massachusetts, voted for the bill, but said it “should not impair the state of Israel’s right to defend itself against the atrocities of the terrorist regimes that threaten it.”
Both Auchincloss and Moulton pointed out the bill’s flaws, among them that it would deny Israel purely defensive weapons systems, as well as humanitarian aid that also serves Palestinians.
But if Israel’s sensible supporters can, once the current agreement expires, put one in place that allows for defensive weapons and humanitarian aid, they’ll be on the way to promoting a more effective partnership than that we have now. Doing so could dampen the extremes both here and in Israel. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The post More Democrats than ever are voting against aid to Israel. That could actually be good for Israel appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
The quiet wave of Arab emigration from Israel: ‘Every day felt like I was on trial to prove I was a good citizen’
This article was produced through a collaboration between Shomrim, an investigative outlet, and Wasla, an Arabic-language business news site, and was published on both platforms.
More than 207,000 Israelis left the country between 2023 and 2025. Arab citizens account for only a small share of those emigrants: 6.2% in 2024, lower than their share in the population. But surveys from the past 12 months forecast a change: between 20% and 30% of Arab citizens say that they are considering leaving Israel.
Increasingly, Arab families, including many with established careers, are choosing to build new lives abroad. Their reasons go well beyond economics: they cite fears of future wars, a surge in organized crime and deadly violence within Israel’s Arab communities, and a growing sense that they no longer belong.
Dr. Nasreen Haj-Yahya, a social and family researcher who is also a couples and family therapist, says that the fact that more families are even talking about the possibility of leaving the country shows that a change has taken place. “Arab families in Israel are not migrant families by nature,” she says. On the contrary: one of their defining characteristics is that they stay on their land, close to their extended families and to the places they grew up. “Physical and geographical proximity to the family is part of our social structure,” she explains.
According to Haj-Yahya, when families buy a one-way ticket, it is a response to extreme pressure. “It’s not something that fits in with the structure of the Arab family. For a family to get up and leave, there must have been very extreme forces at work.”
These forces are not primarily economic. Haj-Yahya explains that the question of emigration has become a key issue among the families she sees at her clinic and encounters in her research. “The war created a lot of uncertainty, fear and a kind of hopelessness,” she says. “At the same time, violence within Arab society is no longer perceived as something that only affects people involved in criminal activities. Violence is also visited on innocent people, making people fear for their very existence.”
There is also a sense of being silenced. Members of a young and educated generation, who were raised on values like freedom of expression and human rights, found themselves, in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, afraid to speak their minds. “People feel as if their mouths have been shut. The possibility of living somewhere where they can speak freely and feel safe has become one of the main reasons for emigration.”
Haitham Khalaila, 53, married with one child, from Shefa-Amr, an Arab city in Northern Israel. Returned to Israel from the United States in 2008 and emigrated back to Michigan in 2024
Khalaila decided to leave for the United States again after seeing the psychological effect of the war on his 10-year-old son. “When the war started, I felt completely helpless to protect my son, who was 10 at the time. Every time the siren went off, we’d run for cover, but we didn’t have a bomb shelter near our house. I felt like I couldn’t even give my family the bare minimum of a sense of security. My son refused to sleep alone and kept asking me, ‘Who’s going to raise me if you guys die in the war?’ Those questions are what made up my mind. I realized the fear had already scarred him.”
At first, his wife was very resistant to the idea of moving away from Israel. “She was really hesitant. She doesn’t speak English, she has no family here, and the move terrified her. But as the war dragged on, she realized we had to do it to save our kid.
“The beginning was incredibly expensive. We had huge expenses for lawyers and sorting out my wife’s legal status, and we bought a house for $480,000 with a mortgage. Today I’m working as a big-rig truck driver making around $8,000 a month. It’s a fresh start in every sense of the word.
“Even after we got to the U.S., my son would panic at the sound of regular airplanes, thinking they were drones coming to bomb us. Today he’s calmer, more confident, and introduces himself freely as a Palestinian Muslim. For me, that says it all. If the situation back home stays the way it is – with no security, a high cost of living, and no real change — I don’t see a stable future to bring my family back to. I have no intention of going back.”
Noura Amouri, 43, married with two children from I’billin, a local municipality in northern Israel. A former occupational therapist for the Ministry of Education and a clinic owner, she emigrated with her family to the town of Varallo in Italy
You lived a stable life — professionally and economically. What caused a family like yours to pack up everything and leave?
“It was never about work or money. The decision started to form because of this constant, lingering fear for the future, and especially the violence that keeps getting worse within Arab society. I felt like my kids were growing up in an environment that didn’t give them real opportunities or any sense of security. When you realize you can’t even protect your children’s mental well-being — the clinic, the pharmacy and the house all lose their value.
“Because of a delay with my husband’s work visa, we moved temporarily to Canada for two months. We burned through about 100,000 shekels [about $33,000] there on housing, paperwork and living expenses. That amount would have lasted us a whole year in Italy. Today we’re living on my husband’s income as a pharmacist and on our savings. I’m trying to get my degree recognized so I can get back to work.
“For the first time, I see my kids living a calm, freer life. They play outside, walk around and just feel safe. That alone tells me we made the right choice. But the truth is, homesickness never leaves you. The little details of our old house haunt me even here. I miss my home, the smallest things in it, even the couch I left behind. When you emigrate, you aren’t just leaving a place. You’re leaving a piece of your memory behind.
“As far as we’re concerned, the decision to leave the country is final. There’s no going back. Italy might just be a stepping stone for now and it’s not certain this is where we’ll settle down for good, but the decision not to return home has already been made.”
Rania Laham, 50, married with two children, from Haifa. A VP at a non-profit organization, she moved to Limassol, Cyprus.
Unlike most migration stories, yours unfolded in reverse — you emigrated while your young daughter stayed behind in Israel. How did that shape your life?
“Usually, kids move with their parents. With us, it was the other way around: we left and our daughter stayed behind. For my husband and me, that’s the most painful part of this whole move. My husband, our 16-year-old son and I moved to Cyprus, while our oldest daughter, who is 19, stayed to continue her university studies. It’s a tough situation, but we temporarily sacrificed our life together as a family so we wouldn’t disrupt her education and her future.
“Cyprus wasn’t some long-held dream. It was just the most practical choice: close enough that we can keep a connection to the work and the life we left behind, but it also gives us more peace of mind. The mental toll was a huge factor. We just couldn’t take any more wars and the constant murders and crime within Arab society.
“I’m still working as the deputy director of the I’lam Media Center and the non-profit’s financial manager. I can work remotely without any issue. The fact that I kept the exact same job gave us financial stability and made the move feel less risky, since we didn’t lose our main source of income. It’s true that rent in Limassol is relatively high, because it’s the most expensive city on the island, but daily expenses and food are cheaper than back home.
“I don’t look at this move as a final step, but more like an open-ended experiment that depends on what happens back home. Ultimately, whether we stay here or not depends mostly on my ability to keep working remotely and secure my livelihood.”
Shaden Atiya, 43, married with two children. A pharmacist from Jerusalem, she moved to Barcelona
When did you decide you’d had enough of life in Israel?
“I spent many years living between Jerusalem and Beit Jala. Our lives revolved around daily commutes, checkpoints and closures. My husband’s work in the hotel industry took a hit time and time again — first during COVID and then with the war. At first, we thought about moving mostly for financial reasons, because housing prices in Jerusalem made buying a home almost impossible. But after the war in Gaza, the move became a mental and political necessity. I felt like we just had to have a fresh start, away from the suffocating atmosphere and the uncertainty.
“Today, in Barcelona, for the first time I feel like I can freely and calmly define myself as a Palestinian. I’m no longer living with the constant tension and stress that followed me for years. The fact that we have relatives here was a major factor, and we also felt that Spanish society is close to Arab society in certain ways — in social relationships, the weather and the lifestyle. The beginning wasn’t easy. The paperwork took nearly two years and cost us close to 100,000 euros [about $114,000] out of our savings. We also had to learn both Spanish and Catalan. Today I’m working part-time as a pharmacist alongside an independent project I’m developing and my husband works in marketing for a medical equipment company while also doing some remote work.”
What is your work environment like now compared to how it was in Israel?
“I had a really hard time adapting to working with Israelis. More than once, I felt discrimination and racism because of my Palestinian identity. I tried to find Palestinian workplaces, but the wage gaps pushed me to work in Israeli institutions. Here, I’ve completely freed myself from that daily stress.”
Will you ever return home?
“The question of remaining abroad or going home depends entirely on what happens in Israel.”
Wafaa Haj-Yahya, 46 married with two children, from Taibeh, an Arab city in central Israel. A gormer organizational consultant and kindergarten director, she emigrated with her two sons to Dubai
“I first started having thoughts about leaving back in 2014. I was in the hospital right after giving birth to my second son when I heard that the principal of the school where I worked had been murdered. When he was killed, I realized that was it. Something inside of me broke. It left a deep wound and for the first time, I asked myself if I really wanted my kids to grow up in this kind of reality. But at the time, the price of leaving felt impossible: we had a house, I had a stable job as a kindergarten director in a Jewish community, my husband was working too, and the thought of giving everything up and starting over terrified me.
“When I arrived in the Emirates in 2022 with my two sons, I felt a sense of security I’d never known before. I made a quick decision to buy a house there as an investment and a foundation for the future. I paid a down payment of about 200,000 shekels [about $66,7000] and later committed to monthly payments of about 10,000 shekels [$3,300] for 30 months. But the real reason we left was life in Taibeh: our house was broken into five times, I was exposed to murders that deeply affected me and my husband was injured trying to stop one of the thieves. Fear has just become a part of our daily life.
“During the first year of the war, I ran a kindergarten in Kfar Saba with a Jewish staff. I happened to overhear one of the assistants say she hoped Itamar Ben-Gvir would stay in the government so that not a single Arab would be left in the country. Precisely because my relationship with the staff was good, that sentence shook me. It reinforced the feeling that I don’t want my children to live in a place where their very existence is seen as something to be rejected.
“Back home, I constantly felt like I was on a daily trial to prove I was a good citizen. That feeling wore me down and it was only in Dubai that I realized just how exhausted I was. Today I’m planning my future in peace and I have no intention of going back.”
The post The quiet wave of Arab emigration from Israel: ‘Every day felt like I was on trial to prove I was a good citizen’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Thousands of Israelis left after Oct. 7. With Netanyahu on the ballot, they’re booking flights home to vote.
Hours after Israel finally announced the official date for its upcoming elections last weekend, Israeli expats flooded social media with photos of the airline tickets they purchased to fly home and cast their ballots at the end of October.
Israel is one of the few democracies that do not allow citizens living abroad to cast absentee ballots. That leaves an estimated 500,000 Israelis overseas and eligible to vote with a choice: spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to fly to Israel, or sit out a consequential election that will decide whether Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party hold on to power.
The vote will be the first since the Oct. 7 attacks and comes after nearly three years of war, during which a surge in emigration has left an unusually large share of eligible Israeli voters living overseas. Even from thousands of miles away, Israeli expats say they have become representatives of the country and often targets of the conflict’s fallout — giving them extra motivation to help decide their nation’s future.
“Israel is at stake right now,” said Josh Drill, a social activist who hopes his vote will help unseat Netanyahu. Drill left Israel temporarily to pursue a master’s degree at Columbia University. “My wife and I, and also our broader circles, are doing everything in our power to be in Israel for election day.”
To help Israelis return, the AID Coalition, a U.S. based nonprofit organization, launched an initiative called FLY&VOTE to help expats search for flights within their budgets and navigate travel logistics. They also plan to charter flights to the country, with passengers paying their own way.
“We’re not creating voters; we’re removing logistical and informational barriers,” said Batell Blaish-Sultanik, the AID Coalition’s executive director.
Earlier this year, the AID Coalition surveyed roughly 4,500 Israelis living abroad and found that 84% viewed the coming election as one of the most important in Israel’s history. Seventy-three percent said they wanted to return to vote, while 45% said they would do whatever it took to exercise that right.
In the 36 hours after the election date was announced, Blaish-Sultanik says, more than 5,000 additional people registered with FLY&VOTE, bringing the total number of registrants to more than 25,000. The AID Coalition’s goal is to help 50,000 Israelis return to cast ballots.
“If we can’t bring the election to them,” Blaish-Sultanik said, “we’ll bring them to the election.”
Their urgency is heightened by the sheer number of Israelis now living elsewhere, with the number leaving the country in 2024 and 2025 about double previous annual numbers. Last year, 70,000 Israelis departed, with about half heading to North America. Many cited dissatisfaction with the Netanyahu government and the difficulties of living in a country at war.
According to demographer Uzi Rebhun, chair of diaspora relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, those who move abroad do not represent the average Israeli. They are disproportionately young, highly educated and secular. Rebhun says that based on these demographic characteristics, many are likely centrist voters.
But the AID Coalition is adamant that it supports any Israeli who wants to cast their ballot, regardless of political affiliation. “We don’t pick a side; we back the right to vote,” said Blaish-Sultanik.
Who gets to vote?
Beyond the cost of airfare, Israeli voters abroad also face uncertainty over which airlines will actually be flying to Israel. Several foreign carriers have suspended service during the war with Iran, with El Al being one of the few airlines that has operated consistently. A non-stop round trip El Al flight from New York around the time of the election starts at roughly $1,500 and can easily exceed $2,000 depending on travel dates.
But Israeli expats living in the U.S. told the Forward airfare isn’t the only factor that will determine whether they can make the trip.
Some worry Israel could have a second round of elections if no coalition is able to reach 61 seats, as was repeatedly the case during elections from 2019 through 2022. As the polls currently stand, neither the pro-Netanyahu bloc nor the opposition is consistently projected to win a 61-seat majority.
“There is a good chance for a second round of elections,” said Avia Liberman, an Israeli pursuing a master’s degree in public policy at Yale who plans to return to Israel after graduation to work in the public sector. “So am I spending my money now and then not affecting the next one? Am I putting my bet on the next election? Those might be during winter break, and then it will be easier to go back.”
Others cited the difficulty of taking significant time away from work or school.
For families, another challenge presents itself.
Assaf Wolff, a 45-year-old father of three who moved to New Jersey five years ago, said that while he and his wife are both Israeli citizens, only he plans to make the trip.
“There is an issue in the community because if both parents want to come to vote and they have young children, at least one person has to stay behind,” he said.
Debate about diaspora
Whether Israelis should be able to vote from abroad has long been a contentious question, with some Israelis believing that those who no longer bear the direct consequences of their vote, specifically when it comes to Israel’s security situation, should not be allowed to cast a ballot.
According to Ofer Kenig, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, one reason Israel does not allow absentee voting is because of the sheer size of its diaspora.
“Because of the Law of Return, citizenship in Israel is acquired very easily. All a Jew needs to do is just arrive in Israel, get a citizenship, and then go back to his home country. And do we want him or her to participate in the elections? I’m not sure,” he said. According to Kenig, similar laws on absentee voting exist for other democracies with large diaspora populations like Greece and Ireland.
Kenig suggests only those Israelis living abroad whose center of life is in Israel should be able to participate in elections. “The day-to-day life here, especially security-wise, makes it extremely unfair for Israelis who never lived here for long, or maybe they lived here for long, but left many years ago, to have an impact on my and my neighbors’ day-to-day lives,” he added.
According to a study done by Kenig, in the 2022 elections, approximately 36,227 votes correlated to one election seat, meaning votes from Israelis living abroad could have a substantial impact on the outcome depending on how many decide to make the trip.
The growing significance of overseas voters seems to have drawn attention from within the government as well. Haaretz reported this week that senior figures at the Transportation Ministry are discussing how to prevent or limit charter flights to Israel like the ones being organized by the AID Coalition.
For Liberman, those critical of expat voters misunderstand the reality for Israelis living abroad, especially after Oct. 7.
“Everything that’s happening in Israel deeply affects the way you experience your life in the U.S. or wherever you are,” he said. “People see us as part of the country, and we are treated as a direct response to what is happening in the Middle East.”
He said Israelis abroad find themselves “affiliated with a country that they may have a complex or distant or close relationship with,” he explained. “But they still, by the forces of life, have to represent it.”
And those who have grown up there, never truly leave Israel behind, observed Blaish-Sulatnik.
“Israelis living abroad, these are people that check Israeli news first thing in the morning. They live Israel in real time, They breathe Israel,” she said. “After Oct. 7, they do advocacy for Israel.”
Nir Paz, a 52-year-old who moved to the U.S. 16 years ago, told the Forward that even though he has not lived in Israel for years, he plans to cast his ballot. He too intends to vote for the opposition.
“The events of October 7 and everything that has followed have profoundly affected not only Israelis living in Israel but also Jewish communities around the world. The decisions made by Israel’s leadership have far-reaching consequences for all of us.”
The post Thousands of Israelis left after Oct. 7. With Netanyahu on the ballot, they’re booking flights home to vote. appeared first on The Forward.
