Liberal Jewish insecurity doesn’t come from Israeli policies

(Oct. 26, 2026 / JNS)

In what is now becoming a ritual among some American Jews, some of their liberal institutions issued a call for “shared responsibility” prior to Israel’s holding of its Knesset election this week. The appeal centered on a letter spearheaded by the Union of Reform Judaism, though also signed by some affiliated with the Conservative and other “Progressive” movements.

Some of its language is anodyne, affirming a basic teaching of Judaism—Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh—that “all Jews are responsible for one another.” But the point of this broadside is to demand that Israelis vote for parties that align themselves with liberal political beliefs in favor of a two-state solution and against policies that prioritize Jewish rights under siege worldwide.

To be fair, it also urged Jews living outside of Israel to embrace “sustained engagement rather than withdrawal when disagreements arise,” which is to say not to boycott an Israel that rejects American advice.

Embarrassed by Israel

That is commendable to a point. Yet the object of this discourse about “shared responsibility” is not to bring Israelis and American Jews closer together. Rather, it is to argue that Israelis are endangering those in the Diaspora by electing leaders who are embarrassingly nationalist, and who focus on security and protecting the rights of their citizens. And who don’t agree about empowering Palestinian Arabs who aren’t so much worried about harvesting olives in peace as they are about continuing a century-old war on Zionism.

Rather than spending so much time worrying about what they think are problematic Israeli choices, perhaps liberal American Jews should be focused more on their own mistaken priorities.

When so many of their erstwhile allies on the left have betrayed them and embraced a political faith that is inherently antisemitic, liberal institutions like the URJ and much of the rest of the American Jewish establishment are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Liberal Jews appear uncertain as to what to do when faced with the choice of supporting or opposing openly anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist political candidates like Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. So, the inherent premise of a letter that treats Israelis as the ones who are behaving irresponsibly toward their American cousins, as opposed to the other way around, is not so much mistaken as it is utterly clueless about the main predicament facing 21st-century Jewish life.

After a campaign in which El-Sayed won a primary by essentially labeling his moderate opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), as a stooge who had been bought by the Jews of AIPAC to betray American interests, the Democratic nominee has lately been speaking more about his opposition to President Donald Trump and domestic issues than anything else. And in a classic bait-and-switch operation, his allies are working hard to remind voters that their economic problems can be blamed on the despicable Jews.

Blaming the Jews

An advertisement that seeks to influence the Michigan race, produced by anti-Israel leftist commentator Cenk Uygur of “The Young Turks” Internet and television program, caused a firestorm of criticism. It was disavowed, though not condemned, by the El-Sayed campaign.

In it, two actors portraying a young couple grocery shopping complain that the price of eggs and bananas is so high because Americans have to set aside money to help Israel to kill Palestinians. The problem isn’t only that eggs and bananas—and how much they cost these days—have nothing to do with the State of Israel.

The ad matters because, much like the famous “Willie Horton” ad put out by a PAC allied with but not formally affiliated with the presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush in 1988, it allows El-Sayed’s allies to engage in the kind of incitement better not done by the candidate himself.

In a year in which the demonization of Israel has, along with opposition to enforcement of immigration laws, become the organizing principle of Democratic Party activism, the ad is notable for saying aloud the underlying assumptions of those who seek to target Jews and Israel with opprobrium.

Uygur and “Young Turks” co-host Anna Kasparian have been among the leaders of an effort to mainstream antisemitic propaganda demonizing not just the Jewish state but its American Jewish supporters. Uygur is also the uncle and mentor of streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with El-Sayed. El-Sayed has not disavowed or condemned Piker, despite appeals from some desperate Democrats. Why should he, since Piker’s open Jew-hatred is little different from the candidate’s own efforts to target Jews or to rationalize anti-Jewish terrorism?

Looking for a pretext

The point is that rather than primarily addressing a crisis of antisemitism on American shores that is reaching epidemic proportions, liberal Jews are still largely obsessed with pearl-clutching about Israeli behavior.

The liberal denominations have fully embraced the “settler violence” narrative that seeks to delegitimize the several hundred thousand-strong Jewish population in Judea and Samaria. They worry about scuffles that result from foreign provocateurs accompanied by hordes of journalists seeking to “assist” the Palestinian olive-oil harvest. While doing so, they fail to note that this is a way of distracting the world from the context of most of the violence going on there: the daily toll of Arab terrorism against Jews that dwarfs the relatively few incidents of Jewish attacks against Arabs, which they fail even to acknowledge.

That is the context for the “shared responsibility” statement.

Some Americans have whined that Israeli insistence on prioritizing the lives of its citizens and security of its borders has been endangering them. But that’s what antisemites do; they blame their own troubles on Jews, wherever they are. The fact that Israel has the largest concentration of this minority makes it an easy target.

For years, liberal American Jews have sought to find a pretext to justify injecting themselves into Israeli election contests, in which those who share their blind faith in reviving the failed “two-state solution” myth have consistently been defeated. Some, like the left-wing J Street lobby, make no bones about their desire to override the verdict of Israeli democracy and to repeat the catastrophic mistake made in 2005 by the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when he withdrew from the Gaza Strip. They seek that for the far larger and more strategic “West Bank.”

As far as Gaza is concerned, that not only led to the creation of a Hamas terrorist state, but set in motion the events that would lead to the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, as much as the miscalculations of the Israeli military, intelligence and political establishment.

It is entirely true that both Israeli and Diaspora Jews should recognize the need to care about and defend each other, despite the fact that—aspirational rhetoric about Jewish unity notwithstanding—they don’t understand or really know that much about each other.

But the notion that “bad” nationalistic and religious Jews in Israel are embarrassing and hurting “good” liberal American Jews dedicated to coexistence is a misnomer. Whatever you may think of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and those who support the current government, their primary responsibility is to defend a still besieged and beleaguered Jewish state. It’s not to make suicidal concessions to opponents who don’t want peace just so American Jews can feel better about themselves.

Diaspora Jews have every right to express their opinions about Israeli politics and policies, albeit while also showing a little humility about the fact that the Israelis are doing the fighting and dying required to ensure their nation’s survival.

American responsibilities

Instead of second-guessing their brethren, American Jews should realize that their role in the battle against international antisemitism is not to stand on the sidelines kibitzing about Israelis doing wrong. It’s to speak up and defend their own communities from people like El-Sayed, Uygur and Piker, as well as institutions that tolerate and encourage the hatred and bigotry that results in violence against them, not to mention targeting their children on college campuses.

A more realistic and productive approach to “shared responsibility” is not for liberal Jewish denominations to pat themselves on the back for not joining in antisemitic boycotts of Israel promoted by the left. Nor is it to prepare to help Democrats or even those Republicans who are hostile to the Jewish state to override Israeli voters if they don’t cast their ballots the way they want them to.

Rather, it is to deploy all of their energy and strength in confronting a growing antisemitic movement on their own front door. If they were truly interested in shouldering their responsibility to defend Jews, then they would be holding accountable those groups and politicians who prioritize partisan goals over Jewish security and well-being, betraying their constituents by supporting El-Sayed.

The failure of liberal advocacy and faith groups to mobilize against the rise of antisemitic politicians like El-Sayed, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and their “progressive” allies is evidence of their inability to focus on what truly matters. That moral bankruptcy gives the lie to the high-minded rhetoric they deploy when bashing Israelis who don’t conform to their notions of how Jews are supposed to behave when attacked.

As they’ve made clear over and over again, these enemies of the Jews make no distinctions between the “good” Israelis that Jewish liberals root for and the “bad” ones like Netanyahu and his allies. Their complaint isn’t really about what Israel does but what it is: a Jewish state in the Middle East. And that intolerance for Jewish sovereignty and power is what is also motivating the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism Americans have experienced.

If liberal denominations and their supporters want to exercise responsibility for the Jewish future, they’d stop trying to second-guess Israelis and concentrate their minds on opposing the haters around them. If they don’t, their failings will be their own fault, not that of the Israelis.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS. Follow him: @jonathans_tobin.