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The Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI) is a Democratic-leaning poll which regularly measures American Jewish views on critical political issues. Though the poll questions clearly skew Democratic and highlight findings favorable to the Party, the results (click through slideshow graphs above) highlight important trends in the thinking of American Jews.
The latest poll shows that:
- Only 7% of Jews say Israel is their top priority among issues facing America. This finding places Israel 10th out of 11 priorities.
- When asked whether right-wing or left-wing anti-Semitism was more dangerous, 61% said right-wing anti-Semitism was more dangerous and 24% said left-wing anti-Semitism was more dangerous
- 39% say they have either little or no emotional attachment to Israel
- Of those who said Israel was not their biggest priority 73% said “other issues affect my life more directly.”
- 68% support renewing the Iran nuclear deal
The low priority Jews attach to Israel flies in the face of the agenda of the Israel Lobby. It gives the lie to its claim to represent American Jewry in any real sense. It indicates how completely out of touch the Lobby, powerful though it is, is from rank-and-file Jews. It is a creature funded by right-wing wealthy male Jews who have no clue what the average Jew thinks, nor do they care. It’s important to remember that their agenda is not ours.
Concerning the Iran nuclear deal: this represents yet another radical disconnect between American Jews and the Israel Lobby. The latter is doing Israel’s bidding because it vehemently opposes an agreement. The Lobby claims proudly that there is no distinction between being pro-Israel and pro-American. But indeed there is a huge distinction. If you oppose the JCPOA, you oppose American Jews. Thus, the Lobby is inimical to American Jewish interests, precisely because it places Israeli interests higher.
Regarding anti-Semitism, studies and media reporting confirm that right-wing anti-Semitism is both more dangerous and lethal than left-wing anti-Semitism. The notion that left-wing anti-Semitism poses any danger to Jews is an invention of the Israel Lobby and Israel itself. It is part of an effort to link criticism of Israel, often identified with the left, with anti-Semitism. The campaign to impose the IHRA faux-definition of anti-Semitism on the world is part of parcel of this phenomenon. Those who, in the poll, said left-wing anti-Semitism is more dangerous have bought into the Lobby’s agenda.
The campaign to eliminate “anti-Semitism”
An aside: this poll consistently uses the term “antisemitism” rather than the traditional “anti-Semitism.” The Israel Lobby and figures like Deborah Lipstadt have championed this, because they seek to sever any connection between Jews and “Semites,” that is, Arabs and Muslims. Her argument reeks of Islamophobia:
“Why do I spell antisemitism without a hyphen?” she asked. “Because anti-Semitism is not hatred of Semitism or Semites – people who speak Semitic languages.
Noted Holocaust historian, Yehuda Bauer, went one step further and implicitly denied any connection between Jews and other Semitic peoples:
“Anti-Semitism is altogether an absurd construction, since there is no such thing as ‘Semitism’ to which it might be opposed.”
In fact, Semitism is an extension of the term Semitic. Any attempt to argue otherwise contradicts the actual historical record. Jews are Semites. Their language is directly related to other Semitic langauges. Ancient Israel itself existed within a region of fellow Semitic peoples. Jews are not unique in this sense. Nor is anti-Semitism unique. Many other peoples have faced genocides similar to the one Jews faced. Many others experience hatred and violence similar to what Jews continue to face. We are not alone. We are part of the Semitic peoples and the human race.
There certainly is room to seprate terms used denoting hatred of Jews from those used to denote hatred of other specific peoples or religions (i.e. Islamophia, Christophobia, xenophobia, etc.). But not the way they are going about it.
The IHRA itself also argues that the term anti-Semitism reeks of Nazism:
The IHRA explains in its position statement that “the hyphenated spelling allows for the possibility of something called ‘Semitism,’ which not only legitimizes a form of pseudo-scientific racial classification that was thoroughly discredited by association with Nazi ideology
This argument ignores the fact that a German anti-Semite devised the term to begin with. Thus, if you truly want to sever the term from its past, you should invent an entirely new term or break out an old one, such as Jew-hatred. But these advocates know that ‘anti-Semitism’ is a word in such common usage that any attempt to banish it would fail. So instead, they attempt a sleight of hand, based on ridiculous claims that it will somehow set Jew-hatred on a more correct path.
Lipstadt and IHRA adherents seek to deny that other Semitic peoples face the same discrimination and oppression as Jews. Further, they seek to singularize anti-Semitism as uniquely Jewish; and to further the claim that Jews face more virulent hate than other groups, especially Muslims and Arabs. Even more ludicrous is the view that eliminating the hyphen, while maintaining the word “Semitism” in the term, will somehow elide or disguise the fact that Jews are Semites.
Many major media outlets like the NY Times, AP and others have adopted the invented term. I reject it because it plays into a pro-Israel agenda.
Growing minority believes Israel is apartheid state, commits genocide
Past JEI polls found that 58% of Jews believe the US should give the same amount of aid to Palestinians that it gives to Israel. This flies in the face of efforts by the Israel Lobby both to increase funding for Israel and block funding for Palestinians. Again, it indicates that the Lobby is deeply out of touch with Amerian Jewish attidues. American Jews may be sympathetic to Israel, but they are also sympathetic to Palestinians and want parity in those funding priorities. This would also mean a massive increase in aid to Palestine, and a radical shift in current funding priorities. Bernie Sanders, who has advocated cutting US aid to Israel for settlements, should also incorporate these new findings into his political message.
20% support a one-state solution. Though I have not examined past polls on this question, this is a significant number and will rise over time as Jews increasingly realize the two-state solution is a dead letter.
22% believe Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. Despite this being a minority, it is an astonishing figure. It shows that an increasing number of Jews have adopted the hitherto radical notion that Israel’s longstanding policies of violence, murder, and theft fit the definition of genocide (I’ve written about this here). It also indicates this view is gaining traction.
25% believe Israel is an apartheid state (I wrote about this for Jacobin Magazine). This number has undoubtedly been influenced by the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and B’Tselem reports, that find Israel is an apartheid state from “the river to the sea” (both Israel itself and the Occupied Territories). This number too will surely climb as Israel’s policies reinforce this connection.
Intermarriage, and the rejection of Jewish religious orthodoxy, has brought about the demise of American Jewry.
So is it any surprise that the Jews in this poll don’t feel a strong attachment to Israel?
@ Engelsdorf: The notion that Jews cannot survive unless they are Zionist Torah Jews is not just wrong, it flies in the face of historic Jewish reality. For hundreds of years we have had a secular Jewish component of world Jewry. It has not only not harmed the vibrancy and health of Jews overall, it has made an overwhelmingly positive contribution to that vibrancy. I not only object to your false characterization, I am insulted by it.
As is clear from what I wrote (which you ignored), the decline in attachment to Israel is solely due to Israel itself. It has driven Jews away by its heinous, anti-Jewish policies. That’s why. You may be a JUdeo-fascist embracing them. But the rest of us Jews aren’t going to jump off the cliff with you.
@richard
“For hundreds of years we have had a secular Jewish component of world Jewry”
Road apples!
At the end of the 19th century, Eastern European Jews, more than 90% of world Jewry, were decidedly unacculturated
In the 1897 census, 97% of Jews in the Russian Empire declared Yiddish as their first language, while 1.3% named Russian as their mother tongue, and only about 30% of Jewish men and 16% of Jewish women claimed the/some ability to deal with a Russian text.
file:///Users/www1/Downloads/_book_edcoll_9789004359543_B9789004359543_020-preview.pdf
Even in cosmopolitan Warsaw, the bulk of the Jewish community was Yiddish-speaking (83.7% in 1897) and Orthodox.
https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/warsaw
@ Bertrand: That was your last comment in this thread.
There were far more than Eastern European Jews in the world. You’re ignoring the Jews of western Europe who had been liberated by the Enlightenment. Frumeh Yiden are not the only Jews, nor the only kosher Jews.
Yiddish is not a magical language which guarantees Jewish authenticity. Though I love Yiddish and have studied it, speaking it does not guarantee you are a kosher Jew. Nor does learning a language other than Yiddish or Hebrew indicate one is less Jewish or lost to the Jewish faith.
“You’re ignoring the Jews of western Europe who had been liberated by the Enlightenment”
You are ignoring that the Jews of western Europe, German, Hungarian and French, liberated by the Enlightenment, were reduced to ash during the Holocaust.
Richard said: ” Yiddish is not a magical language which guarantees Jewish authenticity”.
Not now, but a hundred years ago, if a Jew spoke yiddish and lived in a Jewish community, he most certainly would be Orthodox as well.
“..the bulk of the Jewish community was Yiddish-speaking (83.7% in 1897) and Orthodox”. (See, above).
So, the events of the 20th century have shown that Jews, what ever their piety, were subject to anti-Semitism so long as they lived among gentiles, leaving the Jew only two alternatives, to intermarry and hide his Jewishness, or to make aliyah and forge a State in Eretz Yisroel.
Shana Tovah.
@ Braintree: It’s quite astonishing how little you know about actual Jewish history; and how confident you are in expressing your false opinions.
Jews throughout Europe (not just in eastern Europe as you claim) were reduced to ash. In fact, far more were killed there than in the west. And they were Orthodox and secular. Again conflicting with your claim.
And no, many Jews in western Europe were not affected at all. Nor can the Holocaust wipe out the effects of the Enlightenment, which offered liberation to Jews. Its impact is still felt to this day throughout the Jewish world. And despite the Holocaust, Jewish communities thrive in Europe and outside Israel. I know that contradicts your uber-Zioninst world view. bBut nonetheless, it is true. And these thriving communities succeed in spite of Israel, not because of it. Israel is not only an impediment to Diaspora Jews, it often has a toxic impact. As we see with Muslims whose grievance is with Israel, confusing Jews with Israelis in their terror attacks. As I wrote, this is in large part because Israel has deliberately conflated the two.
You know absolutely nothing about the role of Yiddish in Jewish life. IN fact, Secular Jews and secular Yiddishists were a vital part of Jewish art and culture in Eastern Europe. Your claim that Yiddish was restricted to the Orthodox is false.
A significant portion of Jews living in the Diaspora were not, and are not subjected to anti-Semitism. And the fact is, that Israel is a far more dangerous place for a Jew than the Diaspora. Israel is not a haven, not a refuge. It is a danger zone in large part because of Israeli Jewish hatred of its Arab and Muslim neighbors.
So Israel has become its own version of the Jewish Master Race. Judeo-fascism posits that Jews are not only superior, but have the right to plunder and murder non-Jews; and that they invoke Judaism to support this abominable claim.
Only a hopelessly out of touch Zionist would claim that intermarriage is destroying the Jewish Diaspora. That secular Diaspora, whose you deride, has existed for 200 years. It is doing fine and doesn’t need Israel as a haven or otherwise.
to that i say horse, look at the bezillions given by the wealthy jews to the coffers of the reagans and trumps. they sowed, watered and cared for these cactuses so no we shall all suffer. money talks and the way it talked in the past is our future. let the gates/ bezos/ and others reddress democracy, our votes can go so far, but when we’re stomped on by the boots that are made for walking then as we all say. money talks
Hi Richard,
I’ve argued with a number of leftists that anti-Semitism is the correct usage. I’ve always argued against the use of the term ‘Semites’ simply because Semitic applies to languages not people but I can see your point that Semites are people who speak Semitic languages.
It is ironic that the Zionists claim that Jews are ‘returning’ to Israel whilst denying their connection to the peoples who live there.
[comment deleted: The fake name you’ve assumed is deliberately intended to deceive someone into thinking you are Jewish. You are not. You are an anti-Semitic fraud. You will not comment here.
What frightens me from your article is that more than 80% of American Jews consider anti-semitism lethal and dangerous irrespective of from which side of the political spectrum it comes.
Was there no ‘I have no experience of anti-semitism’ question? Is anti-semitism so rife in the USA that the majority of Jews feel it so strongly?
@ Shai: When you have repeated terror attacks by white supremacists mass murdering Jews (Poway, Tree of Life, and far too many others) then yes, American Jews ‘feel it strongly.’ Perhaps not in our everyday lives. But we know Jew hatred is out there and that we are in danger from it.
That being said, our “leaders” use the threat of anti-SEmitism to gin up fear and maintain their own grip on power and funding. Nor do they identify the real anti-Semitism. They create goblins and monsters, but largely ignore the really dangerous killers.
Here is a story that informs the current state of anti-Semitism in America.
Two secular Jewish students, who helped to create an on-campus sexual assault awareness group, were marginalized and forced out of that group because they were Zionists.
@ Clancy: As with almost all such protestations of anti-Semitism, this one too is almost certainly distorted by the Anti-Semitism Lobby. The fact that it was promoted by the Brandeis Center and Kenneth Marcus tells us all we need to know. Believe anything out of his mouth at your peril. BTW, he was the anti-Semitism czar at the Dept of Educaton till he was forced out during the Biden administration. He’s known for filing pointless consistenly losing official complaints alleging anti-Semitism at multiple campuses.
“Only 7% of Jews say Israel is their top priority among issues facing America”
In an ideal world, isn’t this as it should be?
Irish or Italians in Americans feel affinity to their old country because their ancestors have come from those countries.
In my opinion why should Jews, whose families arrived to America from say, Eastern Europe, put a country most of them have never set a foot in, as a first priority?
Just because of some connection to a יהוה who in my mind does not even exist?
@ Eli: I would agree with you, except that Israel itself has encouraged this “emotional attachment” in ways other nations do not, regarding their diasporas. Israel has suggested that Jews have an obligation, moral, financial and otherwise to support Israel. My argument is that despite this intense campaign over many decades, Diaspora Jews are voting with their feet against it. And they are doing so because they want nothing to do with this twisted version of Judaism offered by Israel. Even Bibi Netanyahu and far right Israelis have given up on us. That’s why they’ve cultivated relations with right-wing evangelicals. Because they know they have to replace us here in America with someone and something in order to maintain their sway over Congress regarding Israeli interests.
@Richard
My poll is big (4,700 Jews), your poll is tiny (800 Jews).
Size does matter.
A large majority of U.S. Jews (82%) say caring about Israel is either “essential” or “important” to what being Jewish means to them. About six-in-ten (58%) say they are at least somewhat attached to Israel, and those who have been to Israel are especially likely to feel this way (79%). But there are sharp partisan differences in attitudes toward Israel. At the time of the survey – conducted during the final 14 months of President Donald Trump’s administration – Jewish Democrats and Democratic leaners were much more likely than Jewish Republicans and GOP leaners to say the U.S. was too supportive of Israel (29% vs. 5%).
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/11/10-key-findings-about-jewish-americans/
@ Clancy: If you actually knew anything about polling, you’d know that the quality of poll results has little to do with sample size. Differnt polls may have different sample sizes and be equally accurate. But then again, if you knew anything on the subject, you’d know that.
As for the question asked in the Pew poll, it is quite differnt than the question asked in the JEI poll. The latter asked about “emotional attachment” to Israel. First, “caring about Israel” is an incredibly vague term. For example, I “care aobut Israel.” But do I have an emotional attachment to it? Especially given its current condition? No. “Emotional attachment” is more precise term and measure of this issue.
my belly aches, for years aipac has gone where the money was, which was vote rep to lower tax rates and removes all barriers to wealth grabbing. do tell me how many millions from jewish donors went to trump. they kknew what trump is, they knew what bibi is.
and yet they keep piling on and now that tthe smotriches and the bengvirs of usa and israel are close enough to the helms we hear the old poor us who will defend us.
how many millions did the adelsons and alike pour into trump.
they ran from the ocasios and others that dared to utter a few truths. so no
AIPAC BOUGHT THE REAGANS THE GINGRICHES THEN LET THEM SLEEP TOGETHER.
we will all suffer indeed, but then the pains of the many will be the result of the sins of the few