[ Less than half of US Jews had positive feelings for Mr.
Netanyahu, according to a Pew Research Center study last year. Younger
Jews, may not feel much connection with Israel at all - 27 percent
between 18 and 29 said Israel was not important .....]
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NETANYAHU’S COMEBACK WIDENS DIVIDE OVER ISRAEL AMONG AMERICAN JEWS
 
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Liam Stack
November 20, 2022
New York Times
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_ Less than half of US Jews had positive feelings for Mr. Netanyahu,
according to a Pew Research Center study last year. Younger Jews, may
not feel much connection with Israel at all - 27 percent between 18
and 29 said Israel was not important ..... _

Rabbi Rachel Timoner at Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope
expressed her concern over the election victory of Benjamin Netanyahu
at recent services., Credit: Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

 

Rabbi Rachel Timoner of Brooklyn had always cherished Israel as a
haven where Jews could aspire to their highest ideals. But after
Benjamin Netanyahu won a sixth term as prime minister with the help of
two far-right parties this month, she was shaken.

The Israeli elections “have brought in the most racist and
farthest-right leadership Israel has ever seen,” Rabbi Timoner told
worshipers at a recent Shabbat service at Congregation Beth Elohim in
Park Slope. “Periodically, a kind of authoritarian, nationalist,
fascist insanity grips many countries in the world simultaneously,”
she added, linking the Israeli election results to far-right politics
in the United States, Italy and Hungary.

Not long ago, it might have been a shock for a pulpit rabbi in a
fashionable Brooklyn neighborhood to speak so strongly against
Israel’s leaders. But with Mr. Netanyahu’s return, a sense of
unease toward Israel’s government has grown among many American
Jews.

Some American Jews welcomed the victory by Mr. Netanyahu and his
coalition partners — especially conservatives, a growing political
bloc, and the Orthodox, the fastest-growing segment of the American
Jewish population.

Liel Leibovitz and Tony Badran, writing in Tablet, a right-leaning
Jewish magazine, dismissed the concerns of liberal Jews as
“squawking about the end of democracy and the brink of war” in an
essay
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the results were announced. Using a nickname for Mr. Netanyahu, they
wrote: “Bibi remains the only adult in the room.”

The Orthodox Union, the biggest umbrella organization of Orthodox
Jewish groups in the United States, released a statement
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Mr. Netanyahu and urging “the international community, as well as
those across the global Jewish community,” to do the same.

For more progressive Jews, that is not a simple request. For many,
including followers of the Reform and Conservative movements, the
sense of discomfort with Israel’s direction has perhaps never been
more keenly felt than since the victory of Mr. Netanyahu, who is on
trial for corruption
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could face several years in prison.

Mr. Netanyahu has governed Israel longer than any other leader, and
his victory was not a shock to Israeli pundits. The source of deepest
alarm for some in Israel, and many in the United States, has been his
partnership with the Religious Zionism Party, led by Bezalel Smotrich
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and with Jewish Power, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir.

 

Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at an election-night event in Jerusalem
this month. Mr. Netanyahu nears a return to power thanks to a
far-right coalition that has stirred concern among some American
Jews.  (Credit:  Amit Elkayam for The New York Times)
Mr. Netanyahu has always been a right-leaning leader. But in his
earlier terms as prime minister, he almost always governed in
coalition with centrist parties that limited how far right his
government could be.

Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right partners now both have a history of
hostility toward Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up roughly
one-fifth of its population.

The eventual goal of Mr. Smotrich is to impose Israeli sovereignty
over the West Bank and for Israel to be governed by the laws of the
Torah.

In its platform, the ultranationalist Jewish Power
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for disbanding the Palestinian Authority, annexing the West Bank and
expelling those “disloyal to Israel.”

Mr. Ben-Gvir has also been a source of alarm
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He has expressed admiration for Meir Kahane, a politician who called
for expelling Israel’s Arab citizens and banning sex between Jews
and non-Jews, as well as for Baruch Goldstein, a West Bank settler who
killed 29 Palestinians and wounded 125 more when he attacked a mosque
in 1994. More recently, Mr. Ben-Gvir has called for a law barring
converts to non-Orthodox Judaism from claiming Israeli citizenship.
[[link removed]] Reform
and Conservative religious groups denounced the proposal.

Israel held its fifth election since 2019 
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Nov. 1. Mr. Netanyahu completed his comeback and won office only a
year after being driven from the prime minister post, pursued by
charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. His alliance captured
64 seats, giving him a clear majority in the 120-seat Parliament. On
Nov. 13, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, invited Mr. Netanyahu to
begin the weekslong process of forming a government.

At B’nai Jeshurun [[link removed]], a synagogue on the Upper
West Side, Rabbi Rolando Matalon also used a recent sermon to express
dismay at the election results. He told worshipers that Jewish Power
was a “racist, Jewish-supremacist” party that promoted “hateful
and violent ideas.”

“My most dominant emotion is fear,” said Rabbi Matalon in an
interview. “I’m afraid about the erosion of what was a liberal
democracy, democratic values, of the judicial system.”

Mr. Netanyahu has denied all the criminal charges against him, and has
said he will not interfere with the ongoing corruption trial. But some
of his coalition partners have expressed support for forcing the
judiciary to end the trial entirely.

Affection for Israel is widespread among American Jews. Roughly 80
percent said Israel is an essential or important part of what being
Jewish means to them, and roughly 60 percent said they felt an
emotional attachment to it, according to a Pew Research Center study
published last year
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But fewer than half of American Jews held positive feelings for Mr.
Netanyahu, according to Pew.

Others, especially younger Jews, may not feel much connection with
Israel at all. The Pew study found 27 percent of American Jews between
the ages of 18 and 29 said Israel was not an important part of what
being Jewish meant to them, a view shared by only 8 percent of those
over 65. Fifty-one percent said they felt little or no connection with
Israel.

That sense of anguish over Israel was evident at Shabbat services on a
recent Friday night at Congregation Beth Elohim, one of the largest
Reform synagogues in Brooklyn.

Irvin Schonfeld, 75, bristled at the mention of Mr. Netanyahu, whom he
accused of interfering in the 2016 elections by criticizing the Obama
administration.

 

Irvin Schonfeld, left, at Friday Shabbat Services at Congregation Beth
Elohim in Park Slope. Mr. Schonfeld bristled at the mention of
Benjamin Netanyahu.  (Credit:  Benjamin Norman for The New York
Times)
“I do not like these far right parties because there is an element
of racism in them,” Mr. Schonfeld said. “I feel very strongly that
there is no place for that in politics.”

For Rachel Sternlicht, 27, the ambivalence runs deeper. “I don’t
feel like I have a claim to that land and that space,” she said.
“I feel like the Palestinians have more of a claim to that land than
I do, but they cannot move as freely as I could when I was there.”

Those feelings deepened last year after a visit to Israel, she said.
She expected to feel connected to Israel, but instead came away
feeling more alienated from it. “I had never felt more American in
my life,” Ms. Sternlicht said. “I think Israel should exist, but I
genuinely think as it currently stands there are enormous, vast
inequities and I find them morally repugnant.”

 

Rachel Sternlicht feels ambivalent about Israel and its policies
toward Palestinians.  (Credit:  Benjamin Norman for The New York
Times)
Jewish groups in the United States have been divided in their response
to Mr. Netanyahu’s re-election. Many, including the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee
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Jewish Federations of North America
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muted approach, celebrating Israel’s democracy or congratulating him
on his victory.

Others have expressed concern. The Union for Reform Judaism said in a
statement
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including Mr. Ben-Gvir and Mr. Smotrich in the government would “be
painful for Jews worldwide who will not see the Israel they love and
believe in reflected in these leaders, nor in the policies they
pursue.”

The Anti-Defamation League 
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it was “greatly concerned” about the results and warned that Mr.
Netanyahu’s coalition partners “have a long history of engaging in
racist, anti-Arab, homophobic and other hateful behavior.”

It said including them in the next Israeli government would “impact
its standing, even among its strongest supporters.”

But some who view themselves as fierce backers of Israel have been
pleased with the results.

Rabbi Pesach Lerner, an Orthodox leader in Queens and the chairman of
the Eretz HaKodesh party in the World Zionist Organization, said many
in his community saw a vote for Netanyahu as a vote for religious
freedom and public safety. He balked at the idea that Mr. Ben-Gvir
might be racist against Arabs.

“Yes, he wants to round up people who he believes don’t belong
here,” Rabbi Lerner said. “He doesn’t say every Arab. He says
the Arabs who hate Israel, who are out to destroy Israel, who are
associated with terrorists — they don’t belong here. If you follow
the rules, welcome.”

Others agree the anxiety over Mr. Netanyahu is overblown.

Nathan J. Diament, the executive director for the Orthodox Union
Advocacy Center, said Mr. Netanyahu’s election was first and
foremost a victory for democracy at a time when many Western
democracies seem under threat.

He said it was premature to worry about Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition
partners or potential policies. At any rate, he said, “the
electorate knows what they voted for.”

_Anne Barnard and Patrick Kingsley contributed reporting._

_[LIAM STACK is a religion correspondent on the Metro desk, covering
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. He was previously a political
reporter based in New York and a Middle East correspondent based in
Cairo. @liamstack [[link removed]]]_

* Jews
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* Jewish community
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* American Jewish community
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* American Jews
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* Israel
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* zionism
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* religion
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* Religion and Politics
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* Palestine
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* democracy
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* Right-wing politics
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* Nationalism
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* Fascism
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