![American and Israeli Jews [Illustrative]](https://images.jpost.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy/q_auto/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_720,w_1280/433149 "American and Israeli Jews [Illustrative]")
American Jews occupy an increasingly awkward political space. On most questions of foreign policy, they sit comfortably within the liberal Democratic mainstream. But on matters touching Israel – especially the question of Iran – they often find themselves to the right of their liberal non-Jewish neighbors, and still well to the left of Israelis, including many on Israel’s own center-left, who believe Iran’s nuclear ambitions should be bombed into irrelevance, legal and diplomatic objections notwithstanding.
None of this is entirely new. A classic joke in American Jewish political culture holds that Jews in the United States “earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans.” The line – usually attributed to the late political analyst Milton Himmelfarb – captured a paradox: a community that achieved remarkable economic success while remaining firmly anchored to the Democratic Party.
What is new is how stark the gap has become between the strategic assumptions of Israelis and the ideological mood of the American left, leaving American Jews increasingly caught somewhere in between.
In the 2024 presidential election, roughly two-thirds of American Jews voted for Kamala Harris, continuing a decades-long trend in which Jewish voters have supported Democratic candidates by large margins. Since 1968, about 70 percent of American Jews have voted Democratic in presidential elections.
Yet on questions of Middle Eastern security, American Jews have often held views somewhat more hawkish than the political party they overwhelmingly support.
The current war with Iran exposes that tension more clearly than any recent conflict.
US public opinion is against the war in Iran
Public opinion in the United States is broadly skeptical of the war. Recent polling suggests that only about a quarter of Americans support the strikes on Iran, while a plurality oppose them. Democratic voters in particular have reacted with strong skepticism, and several leading Democratic politicians – including Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris – have been cautious or openly critical.
And yet American Jewish opinion does not map neatly onto that landscape.
A recent survey conducted by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that a majority of what it calls “connected” American Jews support the strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, even though this same group had overwhelmingly supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. That support reflects a longstanding perception within the community that Iran represents a serious threat to Israel and regional stability.
Still, American Jewish support for the war remains far lower than the near consensus in Israel.
Recent polling shows that roughly 93 percent of Jewish Israelis support the military operation against Iran. The support cuts across Israel’s political spectrum. Notably, opposition leader Yair Lapid, one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s fiercest critics, wrote last week that “on the issue of Iran, there is no opposition.”
Even figures on the Israeli left have taken similar positions. Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and leader of Israel’s left-wing Democratic Party, has publicly backed the campaign against Iran.
Golan’s position is particularly significant because, on many domestic issues, he stands well to the left of the political mainstream in the United States.
But on the question of Iran, he has been unequivocal.
Israelis often assume that organizations like J Street represent something like Israel’s moderate left. In fact, on security issues, J Street frequently stands to the left of opposition figures such as Yair Golan or Lapid, and opposed the current military campaign against Iran.
The contrast becomes clearer when compared with the war in Gaza, where American public opinion followed a very different trajectory.
In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacre, roughly half of Americans supported Israel’s military operation in Gaza. Over time, that support declined sharply; recent polling shows only about one-third of Americans now approve of Israel’s conduct in the war, while a majority say Israel’s response has gone too far.
American Jewish opinion moved differently. Surveys show that most American Jews blamed Hamas for the war and supported Israel’s right to defend itself, even while expressing increasing criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
In Iran, however, the alignment shifts.
Compared with the broader Democratic electorate, American Jews appear somewhat more receptive to the strategic argument for military action against Iran. Yet compared with Israelis – including Israelis on the political left – they remain far more cautious.
American Jews, like other Jews in the diaspora, are also aware that Iran and its proxies have repeatedly targeted Jewish institutions abroad. For many American Jews, the question of Iran is therefore not simply a distant geopolitical dispute but part of a broader concern about Jewish security.
At the same time, they are wary of joining what some commentators have dubbed “Trump’s War”. For many American Jews, that association created an uncomfortable dilemma. Supporting the case for the war meant, in effect, aligning with a policy closely identified with a Republican administration.
Inevitably, such support is also watched closely by critics eager to revive an old accusation: that Jews place the interests of Israel above those of their own countries, a claim that has found new life in both parties.
And so American Jews once again find themselves where they have often been before – somewhere between Israel and America, navigating the distance between the two.
In the end, many appear to have reached the same conclusion as Israelis across the political spectrum: whatever their reservations about the politics surrounding the war, Iran represents a threat too serious to ignore.
The writer is a research fellow in the INSS–ISGAP Program and a historian of contemporary antisemitism and Jewish political identity.