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Last month, as demonstrations in Israel disrupted politics in the Jewish state, Jewish Democrats in the House who built a bastion of support for Israel across the aisle met privately with the country’s ambassador.
Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, a self-described progressive, was particularly blunt. In meetings with liberal groups on and off Capitol Hill, where support for Israel has grown more tenuous by the month, which always falls back on what is called the democratic value of the connection between Israel and the United States, Mr. Cicilline told the ambassador, Michael Herzog.
But the new right-wing government in Jerusalem, with its efforts to undermine Israel’s independent judiciary and include extremist politicians, has made that demand “more difficult,” Mr. Cicilline said in an interview.
In the weeks that followed, tensions between Israel and the Democratic Party, and especially the conservative American Jewish community, only worsened.
The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, may have taken a break from the Israeli courts, but the beating of Muslim pilgrims during Ramadan at the Aqsa Mosque Complex in Jerusalem – known to Jews as the Temple Mount – bloodletting on both sides of Israel. -The Palestinian break-up and the empowerment of right-wing ministers in Mr. Netanyahu’s government have damaged relations between the world’s two largest Jewish communities, Israel and America.
“I represent one of the most ideologically diverse Jewish constituencies in America,” said Representative Jake Auchincloss, a Jewish Democrat from Massachusetts. “On this issue, there is unanimity. There is great concern about the direction Israel is heading, towards an illiberal democracy.
The signs of the strain are everywhere. At Ansche Chesed, a Conservative synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky has replaced the standard prayer for the State of Israel with a more spiritual psalm calling for peace in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Kalmanofsky said that the Netanyahu government crossed the line when it included in the cabinet Bezalel Smotrich, who called for the separation of Jews and Arabs in Israeli society, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who until 2020 hangs a photo in his house. Jewish nationalists who killed 29 Muslim pilgrims in the West Bank.
“I would say to my American Jewish friends, if you have ever said, ‘No, no, no, Israel is not, and never will be, and is not leaning towards an apartheid state,’ and you believe, as I have, then you must say that the inclusion of these two men in the government is a disaster,” said Rabbi Kalmanofsky.
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan founded a movement in Reform Judaism, Amplify Israel, to try to renew the commitment to Zionism in Jewish communities far from the Jewish state. Last month, even he appeared close to breaking point, pleading with Mr. Netanyahu from a synagogue, “Stop the out-of-control car before it runs off the cliff.”
And the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group that has been stalwartly Zionist, there included an extraordinary denunciation of “Jewish racism” in the Israeli government in its annual evaluation of global antisemitism.
In the last years of the presidency of Barack Obama and during the administration of Trump, the strain was visible but did not threaten the relationship between the Israeli and American governments. Mr. Netanyahu has developed partisan ties with congressional Republicans and evangelical leaders in the United States that have boosted support for his government in the GOP and in the conservative Christian community that outnumbers American Jews.
President Donald J. Trump, in turn, did exactly what Mr. Netanyahu wanted, from cheering the annexation of the Golan Heights to moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Evangelical leaders remain uncritical of the Israeli government.
“I’m not involved in the intricacies of the Israeli government, but I’m thankful that Prime Minister Netanyahu was re-elected,” said the Reverend Robert Jeffress, a minister at the Dallas megachurch and a Trump ally who delivered a prayer at the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem in 2018. “He is committed to safety nation and understand the existential threat facing their country.”
And Republicans remain committed to hammering down the wedge that Mr. Trump sought to drive between American liberals and Israeli citizens. Representative Kevin McCarthy and Israel’s partnerAmir Ohana, announced on Tuesday that Mr. McCarthy would later this month become the second House speaker to address the Israeli Parliament, a deliberate contrast to President Biden’s cold relationship with the new right-wing government.
And Gov. Florida’s Ron DeSantis, a possible presidential candidate, will say next week in Israel what he called “there is no need to strain the relationship between Jerusalem and Washington” at a conference celebrating 75 years of Israel’s independence.
But Israeli officials say they understand the importance of relations with American Jews, even the majority of whom remain Democrats. Mr. Trump’s defeat and the instability of the Republican Party have fueled concern in Jerusalem that a friendly administration like Mr. Trump’s may not return to Washington any time soon.
Israeli diplomats in the United States have redoubled their efforts to keep Zionism at the core of American Judaism, regardless of sect. But that effort has been quickly overtaken by current events.
For American liberals, the Netanyahu government’s overhaul of the judicial system is on top of the marginalization of liberal parties in Israel, despair in Gaza and no progress towards Palestinian autonomy and equal rights.
“I’ve been to that area three times in the last 10 years, and without question, it’s the worst,” said Representative Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin and one of many House Democrats willing to openly criticize Israel. .
Last month’s meeting with Ambassador Herzog was a watershed moment, as it was organized and included some of Israel’s strongest supporters in the Democratic Caucus. If Mr. Cicilline spoke for liberal Jews in Rhode Island, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz was also critical of Israel’s actions on behalf of more conservative Jews in the South Florida district.
Representative Brad Schneider, Democrat of Illinois and one of the organizers of the meeting, said, “We are facing a very complex problem that does not have an easy solution, where people have strong feelings, and those feelings are shared like between families.”
As younger Jewish constituents see Zionism as less important to Jewish identity, Democrats are finding it politically easier to offer strong criticism of the Israeli government’s actions, said Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois.
“This next generation of American Jews is a righteous Jew,” he said. “If you expect them to not care” about Israel, he added, “you better address the injustices against the Palestinians.”
Mrs. Schakowsky pointed to his own rabbi in Evanston, Ill., Andrea London, who, in an interview, voiced an opinion that would once sound heretical: “Israel will not be destroyed” by hostile neighbors, he said.
The question facing the world’s Jews is no longer whether Israel will survive, the London Rabbi said. “Is Israel going to be a Jewish and undemocratic state, or is Israel going to be a state for all its inhabitants, from the Jordan River to the sea, and lose its Jewish character,” he said.
The strain is emerging even among Orthodox Jewish leaders, who have long been considered part of a natural alliance between Mr. Netanyahu, conservative Christians and religious Jews. Morton A. Klein, longtime president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America, said his organization was the only one of a variety of Jewish organizations that ran the religious gamut to support the Netanyahu government in order for a Knesset majority to reject Israel’s decision. Supreme Court.
As Israeli politics and voters shift to the right, Mr. Klein said, American Jews of all stripes see the high court as the last lever of liberal power. “This is the main motivator” of American Jewish criticism, he said. “They are losing the power to control policy.”
It’s not just liberal-leaning organizations that are expressing concern. When Mr. Smotrich, Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister, visited the United States last month, many Jewish leaders refused to meet with him; some protested his presence.
The Orthodox Union met with them, said Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the union’s executive vice president. “We are not doing ourselves a service by removing members of the government and relying on the portrayal of the opposition as extreme,” he said.
However, Rabbi Hauer is quick to add, he understands the hardships of today – for all Jews.
“The intensity of the debate has made this a difficult moment in terms of the internal fabric of the State of Israel,” he said, “and an equally delicate moment for North American Jews in terms of being able to relate.”
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