Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met on Monday with American Jewish leaders in New York, speaking with the group at a moment when tensions between Diaspora Jews and Israel’s leaders over the conduct of the war seem to be growing. 

The meeting was organized by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and most of its members — representing the Reform, Orthodox and Conservative movements, as well as major national organizations including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Jewish Federations of North America — were present in the room. 

Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff said the 90-minute meeting was “positive and wide-ranging.”

“We spoke about the war, the plight of the hostages, and the challenges facing Israel, with a clear focus on strengthening U.S.-Israel relations,” Daroff told Jewish Insider. “The exchange underscored our unity, our partnership with Israel and our shared commitment to the Jewish future.” 

Two attendees, who requested anonymity, described the meeting as antagonistic, saying Sa’ar took an argumentative tone against Jewish leaders in America who have raised concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. 

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told JI after the meeting that she sees a growing distance between Israeli leaders and Jews in the United States.

“I think there is deep concern among many American Jews that this government’s quadrupling down on its approach is only going to widen the gap between the diaspora and Israel, when the vast majority of American and, frankly, Israeli Jews have made clear that they believe the war must end, the hostages must be released and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza needs to be addressed,” Spitalnick said.

That sentiment was echoed by Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch, CEO of Women of Reform Judaism. 

“I said I was there representing two million Reform Jews. We’re the largest denomination in North America, and we are proud Zionists. We’re lovers and defenders of Israel, even as there are broad views within our movement,” Hirsch told JI on Monday. “The frame that this government is offering — and this is something I would say not just in this meeting, but publicly — is widening the breach between the North American community, between the full movement that I represent, and Israel.” 

A spokesperson for the Israeli consulate in New York declined to comment. Sa’ar will also travel to Washington this week, where he is expected to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday. It will be Sa’ar’s first official visit to Washington since he was appointed Israel’s foreign minister last November.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar will meet with American Jewish leaders in New York on Tuesday morning, Jewish Insider has learned.

Sa’ar is in New York to attend a special session of the United Nations Security Council, which he initiated to discuss the situation of the remaining hostages in Gaza, days after the release of videos of two hostages — Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski — by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, showing the two men looking haggard and emaciated. 

William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said in a statement to JI, “We look forward to this important meeting with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, continuing a long-standing relationship grounded in mutual respect and shared priorities. It is always beneficial when American Jewish leaders and Israel’s foreign minister engage directly on the key issues of the day.” 

“As Minister Sa’ar prepares to address the United Nations Security Council on the ongoing plight of the hostages,” he continued, “it is critical that their suffering not be swept aside by the international community. Their release must remain a global moral imperative.”

The meeting comes a day after reports indicated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to ask the Security Cabinet to back expanding Israel’s military efforts in Gaza.

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told a gathering of American Jewish leaders on Wednesday that the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz had “destroyed” the sites.

Leiter also laid out the timeline of U.S. and Israeli coordination on the strikes, which he said stretched back to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington in February, though he said it only became clear in the days before Israel began its strikes in Iran that the U.S. was likely to participate. And he argued that any deal with Iran must include, as a precondition, that Iran no longer seek the elimination of the Jewish state.

“There’s this little debate out there, you get into the etymology of the English language,” Leiter quipped, addressing ongoing questions about the extent of the success of U.S. operations and by how long they had delayed Iran’s nuclear program. “What is the difference between ‘elimination’ and ‘obliteration,’ ‘setting them back for years’ [and] ‘destruction.’”

Leiter did not delve into specifics of his assessment or what it was based on.

The comments, at a gathering organized by the Jewish Federations of North America and Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, came after the leak of a preliminary, reportedly low-confidence Defense Intelligence Agency assessment indicating that the strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a matter of months. Other reports indicated that some of Iran’s nuclear material and centrifuges may have survived the operations.

The Trump administration forcefully denounced the DIA assessment, insisted that the nuclear program has been fully destroyed and published an Israeli assessment indicating that the Iranian program had been set back further.

Leiter addressed the Senate Republican Conference over lunch on Wednesday, and delivered a similar assessment.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told Jewish Insider that Leiter said the attacks had been “very successful.” 

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) told reporters that Leiter said the operations had set Iran’s nuclear program back by “years.”

Leiter also told the audience of Jewish leaders that Netanyahu had presented Israeli plans to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office during his first visit in February. Subsequent reports had indicated that Trump vetoed the plan, at the time.

The Israeli envoy said, “We laid out in front of the administration what the possibilities were. We did not ask for a green light. We made it very clear that this is existential, that this is 1938. The only difference is that in 1938, we were dependent. We were helpless.”

Leiter said Israeli officials had presented Israel’s capabilities and plans, and the potential options for working with the U.S.

“We moved ahead, first with minimal planning together, then with extensive planning together,” Leiter said. “It wasn’t until a few days before we launched Operation Rising Lion that it was clear that the president was moving in the direction of making sure that this strike to eliminate the annihilationist threat to the State of Israel was something the United States would participate in, in full.”

The Israeli ambassador also said that Israel was at the “cusp of the possibility of taking out the Iranian regime” but said, “we’re not in the business of regime change. Regime change has to come bottom-up, not top-down. We can’t force it.”

He said that, if the U.S. and Iran agree to a deal going forward, there should be “an elemental demand that Iran first say it is not going to pursue the annihilation of the State of Israel, the Jewish people.”

Leiter said he would also be meeting on Wednesday with a group of six Democrats who had supported efforts to withhold arms from Israel.

“I tell them, ‘Look, I’ll go into the lion’s den. Just invite me. You want to talk? I’ll talk,’” Leiter explained. “I know that I’m going in front of the firing squad. But that’s my job. I’m going to make the case because I know that our case is the most justified case in the annals of human history.”

Looking at the Middle East broadly, Leiter said Israel has “changed history” after Oct. 7, 2023, having degraded Hamas and Hezbollah and helped to bring about the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.

“We have someone now [in Syria] who’s at least saying the right things, who’s playing the right music,” Leiter said, a notable turn from the Israeli government’s initial skepticism and hostility toward the government led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former jihadist. “We don’t know where it’s going to go, we have to be cautious, but it’s moving in the right direction.”

Addressing the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers at the Capital Jewish Museum, Leiter emphasized the intrinsic ties between the Jewish people and Israel, and said, “at the core of this murderous, annihilationist antisemitism is the rejection of the very right of the Jewish people to have a right to sovereignty. You cannot fight antisemitism without fighting anti-Zionism.”

He said that the Jewish community cannot let antisemites — “Candace Owens or somebody from the other side, whatever it is” — dictate to them what Judaism is or “disembowel Judaism from Zionism.” 

“Don’t go down the slippery slope. Don’t go down. We are not an apartheid state. We are not genocidal murderers,” Leiter said. “My son would be alive today if what they’re accusing us of doing, we do. We don’t starve people and we don’t do ethnic cleansing, and we’ve lost countless soldiers because of the approach we take to warfare.”

Leiter’s son died in combat in Gaza.