With all of the living hostages released from Gaza and an end (at least for the time being) of Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory, the coming months could offer the mainstream Jewish community something of a breather to assess the changed political landscape. 

In the war’s final months, the anti-Israel far left gained a foothold in Democratic Party politics, most prominently in the New York City mayoral race with Zohran Mamdani, but also in urban contests ranging from Seattle to Somerville, Mass. The antisemitic forces on the far right have been less of a political force, but have gained strength on podcasts and among younger right-wingers, and have been embraced to a greater extent by a few populist lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). 

With the return of the living hostages, Israel’s success in degrading Hamas and additional enemies, and the apparent end of the Gaza war, Jewish optimists can plausibly argue that some degree of normalcy could creep back in the political sphere. Israel should become a less salient issue for low-information scrollers, with the war’s end reducing the constant anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda being fed on so many screens. 

With a ceasefire finally achieved, the anti-Israel forces have been remarkably silent, and have been exposed for the Hamas-sympathizing extremists that they always have been. That faction of the anti-Israel Democratic left is as politically exposed as it’s been since the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023.

There’s also the possibility that, with Israeli elections being held next year, a new Israeli prime minister would get elected, bringing with him or her a new Israeli government that may not be as polarizing to liberal critics of Israel back in the U.S. 

Jewish pessimists also have a plausible case to make. Support for Israel has declined in the past year, with the most significant slippage coming from Democratic Party voters and some independents. It’s hard to imagine it will rebound anytime soon. The youngest Gen Z voters are the most hostile towards Israel and have been even before Oct. 7. It’s reasonable to expect their future growth in the electorate will only grow the pool of anti-Israel voters.  

Furthermore, the rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment isn’t happening in isolation; it’s a symptom of the rise of larger illiberal and extreme forces within both parties. The fact that polls show an upward tick in the toleration of political violence, growing antipathy to capitalism on the left, and growing sympathy for authoritarianism on the right is the broader context of the growing hostility Jews are facing, and it’s not showing any signs of abatement.

In the coming year, it will be important to track whether the political outlook for Jews is getting better or whether the trends we’ve seen worsen in the last couple years are accelerating. 

We’ll be debuting an election scorecard next week, examining the most meaningful elections in the coming year that will test the influence of the political mainstream against the extremes. Stay tuned: it will be worth bookmarking and tracking as we approach Election Day this November, and in the runup to next year’s congressional primaries.

Historian Pamela Nadell is very familiar with the rituals of publishing a book, as she has written nine of them: Secure a release date, present at academic conferences, maybe headline a handful of general-public events. Although she is at the forefront of her field at American University — chair in Women’s and Gender History, director of the Jewish studies program and past president of the Association of Jewish Studies — Nadell knows that success in academia does not often translate to strong book sales. 

Things appear to be different for her latest book, Antisemitism: An American Tradition. 

Nadell began to understand how much interest a book on antisemitism would generate when her publisher assigned a full-time publicist to promote the book, which will be published on Oct. 14. Nadell is booked at speaking engagements across the country into 2027, starting with an event at the Washington bookstore Politics and Prose this week. 

The book that she began researching six years ago will now appear on bookshelves at a time when antisemitism has reached record levels since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking data in 1979.

“I had hoped, frankly, that the subject would be seen as a historic subject by the time [the book] came out into the world,” Nadell told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “And that’s absolutely not the case.” 

Nadell argues in her book that antisemitism is not an aberration in the United States. Instead, she writes, it is intricately woven into the American experience — as American as, say, apple pie. 

Jews came from Europe seeking freedom from religious persecution, and while they escaped the pogroms that had haunted them overseas, they did not arrive in a world magically free from antisemitism. She traced the history of anti-Jewish sentiment in America from colonial days to the present, identifying the aftermath of the Civil War as the moment it really gained a foothold in American society. 

“America is different [from Europe] in that we never had state sponsored violence against American Jews,” Nadell said. “But the roots of anti-Judaism in America start immediately … the roots of anti-Judaism in America rest on traditional Christian ideas about who the Jews are and what they did to Jesus.”

While antisemitism has always been present in America, the tenor and intensity of it has ebbed and flowed. “We’re in a moment,” she said, “where it’s really bad.” 

The reason she is most concerned about the state of antisemitism in America is not just the frequency of antisemitic incidents or the toll of violent attacks on Jews. According to a study published this week by the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federations of North America, more than half of American Jews now say antisemitism is a normal part of the Jewish experience. 

It’s that doors are once again closing to Jews in a way that reminds her of the quotas, housing covenants and employment restrictions that were baked into American life until the 1950s and 1960s. 

“The perception that [antisemitism] was over was because of how much American Jews ascended into American life as those structural barriers fell,” Nadell said. “The doors to corporations opened up, the doors to the colleges opened up. But antisemitism — it’s like it was a nagging factor.” 

America is now experiencing another period “where Jewish life once again seems to be constricting,” Nadell argued. “Not in exactly the same ways that it did in those years between World War I and World War II, when there were so many structural limitations. But the closing off of spaces to Jews today is happening once again.” 

She pointed to boycotts of Jewish and Zionist writers in the publishing industry, and antisemitic litmus tests appearing in unexpected places like the mental health profession. 

“Being told that you have to denounce Israel in order to join a student club? Those students are going to carry those memories forward into their future,” said Nadell. 

In recent years, and particularly following the wave of antisemitism that was unleashed after the Oct. 7 attacks two years ago, several Jewish thinkers have posited that the American Jewish community’s best days are behind it. Franklin Foer wrote an Atlantic cover story under the alarming headline, “The Golden Age of American Jews is ending.”

Nadell argues that the notion that there ever was a “golden age” is a myth. “The idea that there was a golden age of Jews in Spain actually emerges during the Dreyfus Affair [in 1894], when things are so terrible in Europe,” she noted. Similarly, Nadell argues that the supposedly now-over golden age for American Jews after the end of quotas and de jure discrimination is not really so straightforward. 

“By the time we get to the late ‘60s and on in the 20th century, American Jews feel really secure. The places that used to be closed to us have now opened, and that’s what leads to the perception of the golden age,” said Nadell. “The problem … is the assumption that antisemitism disappeared, but it didn’t.”

Still, Nadell considers herself an optimist. Antisemitism is part of the American fabric. And while that might be a demoralizing conclusion, she views it the other way: Jews have thrived in this country despite antisemitism, and they will continue to do so. 

“The reality is that it is part of the normative Jewish experience to experience antisemitism,” said Nadell. “But I think ultimately, American Jews will be okay in the United States.”

In the aftermath of the deadly Oct. 7 attacks two years ago, American Jews were pulled off the sidelines and got much more involved in Jewish life — a trend, dubbed “the surge,” that has continued into a second year, according to a survey released this spring. 

But a further breakdown of that survey data, shared this week by the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), shows that the impact of “the surge” is waning more quickly among Jews from minority populations, including LGBTQ Jews, Jews of color, Jews with disabilities and financially vulnerable Jews, than it is among the broader Jewish community. 

The survey found that 31% of Jewish respondents said this year that they are engaging more with the Jewish community now than before Oct. 7, down from 43% last year — still significant post-Oct. 7 growth, but slightly down from the immediate aftermath. But among historically marginalized populations, that decrease was even more pronounced. 

“We’re sad and disheartened to see that these marginalized groups are engaging so much less than they were at this time last year,” JFNA’s chief impact and growth officer, Mimi Kravetz, told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “It’s still higher than baseline. There’s still people showing up more. But there has been a more significant drop among these most marginalized groups.” 

Roughly one-fifth of people with an LGBTQ+ member of their household say they are now engaging more with the Jewish community in 2025, down from 49% from the year before. Among Jews who are not white and Ashkenazi, 30% of people are “surging” this year, a decrease from 57% the year before. Thirty-two percent of financially vulnerable Jews are “surging” now, compared to 49% a year earlier. 

Across these different populations, there is no single answer as to why there was a sharper decline in engagement than among the broader Jewish community. The Jewish leaders analyzing this data have not yet identified what they think accounts for the disparity, but they have some ideas — and suspect that some of the differential can be explained by simmering tensions over Israel.

Overall, the JFNA survey found that roughly one-third of American Jews believe conversations about the war in Gaza are “negatively impacting community engagement and belonging,” according to a presentation for Jewish community stakeholders hosted by JFNA on Tuesday. Thirty-five percent feel that if they shared their views on Israel, they wouldn’t be welcome in the Jewish community. 

But just because people are sometimes afraid to voice their opinion, that doesn’t mean they are all in alignment. Similar percentages of American Jews feel the community is too hard-line in its support for Israel (39%) and feel that it is not outspoken enough in its support for Israel (34%). 

Among LGBTQ Jews, or those who live with someone LGBTQ, “we do see a slightly lower sense of pride and emotional attachment to Israel, and we do see that they are more likely to believe that the community is too hard-line in its support of Israel,” Kravetz offered as one possible explanation for why the community is now “surging” less. 

That’s different from financially vulnerable Jews, who are “more likely to feel pride in an emotional attachment to Israel than the general Jewish public,” Kravetz said on the webinar. One challenge for them may be a sense of feeling uninformed compared to others in the community. 

“They’re actually far less likely to say that this issue of the community and Israel is affecting their sense of engagement and belonging,” she added. “They are much more likely, though, to say that they don’t know enough to participate in the conversation.” 

But the Israel hypothesis falls short when looking at why Jews of color are “surging” less than a year ago. “Their views actually mirror the general population,” said Kravetz. But part of that may account for diversity within the broad “Jews of color” umbrella — which encompasses Mizrahi Jews, Black Jews, Latinos and more. 

The data is particularly concerning for Jewish leaders who had invested in understanding diverse segments of the community and helping them feel more included. But the same barriers that existed before Oct. 7 are still present.

“What’s really affecting their sense of surge and engagement and belonging are the same things that affected them prior to Oct. 7, and those are that they need to see a reflection of themselves in leaders and other participants,” said Kravetz. “They need space to show up as their whole self, whatever that looks like for them. They need to see visible evidence of diversity and inclusion policies and practice, and that those policies will be followed, and they need to know before they enter.” 

The FBI reported on Tuesday that the American Jewish community remains the most targeted religious group, accounting for nearly 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes in 2024, even as overall hate crimes in the country have decreased. 

Hate crimes targeting Jews had plateaued following a sharp increase immediately after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack. 

In 2024, 1,938 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported to the FBI’s data collection program out of 3,096 reported religiously motivated hate crimes. The year 2024 saw the highest number of anti-Jewish hate crimes ever recorded by the bureau since it began collecting data in 1991 — and an increase compared to 1,832 incidents the year prior, which accounted for 67% of all religiously motivated hate crimes that year. 

Some of that increase could be attributed to improvement in data collection, according to the FBI. That increase comes as hate crime incidents across the country slightly decreased from 11,862 in 2023 to 11,679 in 2024. 

Fifty percent of hate crime incidents across the country in 2024 were motivated by bias based on race, ethnicity or national origin, with reported anti-Black hate crimes comprising the single largest portion of those incidents (51% of 7,043 reported offenses). 

The FBI also reported that the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes (228) and anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes (2,390) were slightly down compared to 2023. 

Jewish organizations responsible for tracking threats to the Jewish community expressed concern over the findings, which come months after two deadly antisemitic attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo. 

Michael Masters, national director and CEO of the Secure Community Network, said that the current threat environment for American Jews is “unlike anything in modern memory.”  

“We have documented individuals echoing the rhetoric of designated foreign terrorist organizations and plotting heinous attacks on our houses of worship, schools, and centers of Jewish life,” Masters said in a statement. “This reality demands accurate, timely reporting so law enforcement and Jewish security partners can respond swiftly.” 

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement, “Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Jewish Americans have not had a moment of respite and have experienced antisemitism at K-12 school, on college campuses, in the public square, at work and Jewish institutions. Our government and leaders must take these numbers seriously and enact adequate measures to protect all Americans from the scourge of hate crimes.”

Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, called for “leaders of every kind — teachers, law enforcement officers, government officials, business owners [and] university presidents [to] confront antisemitism head-on” in response to the FBI data. 

“Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events,” Deutch said. “With the added climate of rising polarization and fading trust in democracy, American Jews are facing a perfect storm of hate. Whether walking to synagogue, dropping their kids off at school, sitting in restaurants, or on college campuses, Jews are facing a climate where fear of antisemitism is part of daily life.”

“This is unacceptable — the targeting of Jews is not a Jewish problem, it is a society-wide issue that demands a society-wide response.”

One of the biggest challenges in our modern media ecosystem is breaking out of the echo chambers that so many are locked into. 

Ezra Klein’s New York Times column this week, headlined “Why American Jews No Longer Understand Each Other,” is a worthwhile example of how even the best-intentioned columnists can struggle to understand the world outside their own social and informational bubble.  

The column portrays a vocal minority of anti-Zionist sentiment within the Jewish community as much larger than it actually is. The characterization of a roughly even divide within the Jewish community between Zionists and anti-Israel Jews is at odds with numerous reputable polls tracking Jewish public opinion. 

Public polling serves as a useful reality check to much of the framing in the column, and underscores the breadth of Jewish support towards Israel. An April 2025 Pew Research Center survey found 72% of Jewish Americans held a favorable view towards Israel. A fall 2024 poll of Jewish voters commissioned by the conservative Manhattan Institute found 86% of Jews considering themselves “a supporter of Israel.” A spring 2024 survey of Jewish voters commissioned by the Democrat-affiliated Jewish Electoral Institute (JEI) found 81% of Jewish respondents were emotionally attached to Israel.

This doesn’t paint the portrait of a community that is meaningfully divided over Israel — even amid the wave of negative, if not hostile, coverage towards the Jewish state in recent months. 

Klein’s column interviews four Jewish voices — from anti-Israel polemicist Peter Beinart to the publisher of the anti-Zionist Jewish Currents publication to the rabbi of a deeply progressive Park Slope synagogue to self-proclaimed “progressive Zionist” Brad Lander — while just one (former Biden antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt) reflects the mainstream Jewish majority.

The other canard advanced in the column is that younger Jews, in particular, have become hostile towards Israel. And while Gen Z Jews’ level of support for the Jewish state is not as high as their older counterparts, the degree of support towards Israel among the younger Jewish generation is still significant — especially when compared to their non-Jewish counterparts on campuses. 

A November 2023 poll commissioned by the American Jewish Committee asked: “Thinking about what being Jewish means to you, how important is caring about Israel?” Two-thirds of Jewish respondents between the ages of 18-29 said it was important — with 40% saying it was “very important.” (Over four-fifths of Jews older than 30 responded in the affirmative.)

A February 2024 Pew Research Center study found a 52% majority of Jews ages 18-34 considered Israel’s conduct in its war against Hamas to be acceptable, while 42% disagreed. By a 61-26% margin in the same poll, Gen Z Jews also favored the U.S. continuing to provide military aid to Israel to help it defeat Hamas. 

In a thorough study and survey of Jewish student public opinion in the summer of 2024, Tufts University political scientist Eitan Hersh flagged that the source of anti-Israel Jewish student opinion is almost entirely concentrated among the “very liberal” faction of Jewish students on campus, which make up 18% of the Jewish population. That closely matches the 22% of Jewish students who said they feel no connection to Israel at all.

By comparison, an outright 54% majority of Jewish college students said they “feel their own well-being is connected to what happens to Jews in Israel.” 

“We see that the gaps between liberals and very liberals (the former more moderate, the latter further left) are enormous. In fact, they vastly exceed the gaps between conservatives and liberals,” Hersh concluded. 

Indeed, the biggest disconnect on college campuses these days is between Jewish students, who still largely support Israel, and their non-Jewish counterparts, who have become downright hostile towards the Jewish state — or, among elements of the right, have become more apathetic towards Israel. 

For example, Hersh’s survey found that 51% of Jewish college students blamed Hamas for the conflict in Gaza, while 18% blamed Israel. But among non-Jewish college students, more blamed Israel (35%) than Hamas (18%) for the current war. Nearly one-third (30%) said both, in a sign of apathy and exhaustion towards the conflict. 

Those findings are consistent with a new analysis from political science professor Eric Kaufmann in Tablet, which found that far from becoming more critical of Israel, liberal Jews on campus have instead become more isolated from their non-Jewish peers while moving more towards the political center. 

“Ivy League Jews went from being well to the left of the median Ivy League student to leaning right of the average,” Kaufmann concluded. “In the Ivy League, Jews now self-censor more than conservatives do.”