A recent Jerusalem Post report carried an intriguing finding: A majority of “connected” American Jews surveyed by the Jewish People Policy Institute would prefer to see Israel’s opposition defeat the current governing coalition in the upcoming election.
My first reaction was not surprise at the result. It was: Why are we asking?
The survey was conducted by JPPI, an Israeli think tank headquartered in Jerusalem. Its “Voice of the Jewish People” panel surveyed 804 American Jews. Fifty-four percent preferred an opposition victory, while 14% favored the current coalition. Another 24% said it was not their place to express a preference.
That last group may have had a point.
JPPI itself acknowledges an important limitation: Its sample is not representative of all American Jews. Rather, it is intended to reflect the views of Jews who are relatively connected to Jewish life, Israel, or Jewish identity. That qualification matters.
The political composition of the respondents matters as well. Sixty-two percent reported voting for Kamala Harris in 2024, compared with 30% for President Donald Trump. Their Israeli preferences tracked their American political identities closely. Strong liberals overwhelmingly favored the Israeli opposition, while strong conservatives were far more likely to favor the coalition.
In other words, the poll tells us something quite predictable: American Jews who identify with the political Left in the United States are more likely to prefer the Israeli Center and Left, while conservative American Jews are more sympathetic to Israel’s Right.
I have no reason to believe JPPI designed the survey to produce an anti-government result. Indeed, that makes the underlying question more interesting, not less. Even a fair and professionally conducted poll can be asking the wrong question. Why should the political preferences of Americans who cannot vote in Israel be measured as though they constitute a meaningful constituency in an Israeli election?
That may be interesting sociology. It is less clear why it should carry political weight in an Israeli election.
The relationship of American Jews with Israel
American Jews certainly have every right to an opinion about Israel. They can support or criticize the prime minister. They can object to government policy, demonstrate, write articles, contribute to organizations, and argue passionately about Gaza, settlements, judicial reform, religious pluralism, or any other Israeli issue.
A relationship with Israel that permits only applause would not be much of a relationship.
But there is an important distinction between American Jews having opinions about Israel and Israeli institutions converting those opinions into a political metric about who should govern the country.
Only 8% of those surveyed are Israeli citizens eligible to vote in the election. That means 92% of the respondents are being asked whom they would prefer to govern a country in whose election they cannot cast a ballot.
Israelis will live directly with the consequences of that election. They will pay Israeli taxes. Their children will serve in the IDF. They will be called into reserve duty. They will live with government decisions affecting security, terrorism, education, housing, the economy, and war and peace.
That is why Israeli citizens vote.
The inclusion of Israeli-American dual citizens makes the survey even harder to categorize. Those respondents are different from American Jews merely expressing an opinion about Israel. They are members of the Israeli electorate who happen to reside abroad.
Indeed, JPPI also asked respondents whether Israelis living outside the country who fly to Israel specifically to vote are legitimately exercising their franchise.
So an Israeli institution is polling Americans – including Israeli voters living in America – about the political choices of Israelis and about the participation of Israelis abroad in the Israeli electoral process. It begins to resemble a hall of mirrors.
There is another phrase in the survey that deserves examination: “connected American Jews.” Connected how?
I was not asked to participate. To my knowledge, neither were my children. Yet Jewish education, charity, communal involvement, and Israel have been central parts of our family life for decades.
That does not invalidate JPPI’s panel. No poll can ask everyone.
But it does illustrate the danger of allowing a survey panel to take on the aura of representing “connected American Jewry.” Connectedness can mean synagogue attendance, Jewish education, philanthropy, organizational involvement, religious observance, attachment to Israel – or simply being sufficiently interested in Jewish affairs to join a survey panel.
Those are not necessarily the same thing.
Challenges of American Jewry
There is also a broader question that Israeli institutions should consider when examining American Jewish opinion. American Jewry faces enormous challenges concerning Jewish continuity and identity.
Pew Research Center’s major study of American Jews found that 27% of Jewish adults identified as Jews of no religion, rising to 40% among Jews under 30. Among non-Orthodox Jews who had married in the preceding decade, 72% had married non-Jews. Pew also found significantly lower levels of Jewish communal participation and attachment to Israel among Jews of no religion.
None of this means that secular or intermarried Jews are lesser Jews, or that they have no stake in Israel. They plainly do. But it raises a question of priorities.
Perhaps the most urgent issue facing American Jewry is not which Israeli political bloc should form the next government. It is whether future generations of American Jews will possess enough Jewish identity, knowledge, and connection to care about Israel at all.
Israel has every reason to care deeply about the condition of Diaspora Jewry. Israelis should be concerned about antisemitism in America, Jewish education, assimilation, intermarriage, synagogue life, and Jewish continuity. And American Jews should care deeply about Israel.
The relationship between the two largest Jewish communities in the world is indispensable. But mutual concern does not require creating an informal overseas electorate.
I would make precisely the same argument if JPPI’s survey had found that 54% of American Jews wanted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition returned to office.
My objection is not to the result. It is to the notion that the preferences of people who overwhelmingly cannot vote in an Israeli election should acquire political significance simply because someone in Jerusalem decided to poll them.
American Jews should have a strong voice in the future of American Jewish life and in the relationship between American Jewry and Israel. When it comes to deciding who governs Israel, however, Israelis already have a perfectly good polling mechanism. It is called an election.
The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror (now available in an expanded paperback edition on Amazon.com) and is the chair of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi. An oleh, he divides his time between Jerusalem and New Jersey.