Dear American Jews,
We’ve all got a whole lot of healing to do. On a two-week book tour that began shortly after Election Day, I had a roller-coaster split-screen experience. I went from speaking to friends and groups despairing over Trump’s triumph, to friends and groups celebrating it.
Beyond the hostility between those two groups, many anti-Trumpers feel betrayed by “the Israelis” – two-thirds of whom wanted Trump to win. In America, the tensions will only intensify as the fights about Trump’s appointees, policies, and rhetoric escalate.
As Jews, therefore, we must ask – how do we go forward? How do we heal the American Jewish community – and preserve the unity binding the Jewish world with Israel since October 7?
To raise the stakes higher, both sides feel betrayed. Anti-Trump Jews wonder: “How dare Jews who cherish Jewish values support that monster?” – and yes, that’s the rhetoric I encountered, post-election.
Modern polarization obscures two key facts
Meanwhile, many Israelis and pro-Israel Trumpers wonder: “How dare Jews who cherish the Jewish state support Kamala Harris? She seemed increasingly disdainful of Israel and its efforts to defend itself – even calling the admittedly unfortunate deaths of innocent Palestinians ‘unconscionable’ – a word meaning ‘shockingly unfair or unjust... excessive, unreasonable... unscrupulous.’”
I know my inveterate optimism annoys both sides. My Democratic friends are thinking apocalyptically – ignoring everything that their party did politically, culturally, and temperamentally to bring this “disaster” upon themselves. My Trumpian buddies are too exuberant to acknowledge any worries about Trump, validate any anti-Trumpers, or even see that if Trump is as catastrophic a choice that certain pro-Israel voters believe he is, hurting America could harm Israel.
NEVERTHELESS, today’s polarization obscures two fundamental facts that should temper the hysteria all around. First, the fundamentals of the US-Israel relationship are sound. They would have survived a Harris administration and will survive, even if Trump sours on Benjamin Netanyahu. And second, on a certain level, the fundamentals of US governance aren’t at existential risk – the increasing chaos and sclerosis in America’s political class and vast, resistant bureaucracy prevent any president from steering the ship of state too wildly off course.
While acknowledging the worries that Joe Biden may be the Democrats’ last Zionist president, and while wincing as Bash Israel Firsters try blaming Democrats’ defeat on the Gaza War, the US-Israel friendship remains solid. Most polls still show most Americans supporting Israel – especially when asked directly if they support Israel over Hamas or Hezbollah. Moreover, Israel has again proven its value to America and the West, while America has supported Israel generously throughout the war.
The combined effort that repelled the Iranian rockets, along with the fact that the Houthis and Iranian proxies targeted America and Israel, reinforced the alliance. And the treasure trove of weapons seized in Hezbollah’s tunnels that came from the world’s Injustice League of Horrific Dictators, along with Israel’s mastery of urban warfare and other military tactics, have again proven to the Pentagon how valuable a partner Israel is.
Similarly, even in a mass-media universe obsessed with presidential power, the American government is more like a vast aircraft carrier than a speedboat. Power is fragmented. Even if the Republicans control the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House, America’s checks and balances restrain the president.
Vast bureaucracies like the Department of Health and Human Services have most actions dictated by laws that cannot be overrun, while bureaucracies like the Pentagon have strong traditions that can counter presidential overreach. Plus, the Republican Party is itself divided – the Republican Congressional Caucus is famously dysfunctional.
In short, expect Trumpians to be more frustrated than they hope and Democrats to be less impotent than they fear.
Still, flash points remain. The president remains relevant. And hysterical headlines will rile citizens up from controversy to controversy.
In this toxic political environment, Americans must figure out how to start crossing the aisle, cooperate with rivals, and try to understand how half the country could be so wrong.
Even greater pressure is on American Jews because the stakes are so high. The longer Israel’s wars drag on, the more some American Jews blame Israel itself for wars it did not start, did not seek, and spent far too much time avoiding. And no matter what’s going on in Washington DC, the Academic Intifada continues to wreak havoc on campus – and beyond – with Jew-hatred continuing to surge.
Perhaps these two negatives can be turned into positives. American Jews, Left and Right, need to continue to fight Jew-hatred, on campus and more broadly. The stories I hear from too many students and professors remain chilling – and we need a coalition from Right to Left fighting Jew-hatred and all forms of bigotry.
Similarly, the ongoing Israel emergency, no matter what one thinks of Netanyahu’s war strategy, should keep a focus on defending Israel’s right to exist and defeating its evil foes.
These two overlapping crises, however, should be launching pads to broader conversations about what being Jewish means to us and how Zionism provides a peoplehood platform transcending religious and political divisions. If more leaders, teachers, and rabbis focus on developing positive unifying touchstones rather than getting mired in division, we will reaffirm our common visions and values, and our intertwined fates and futures, thereby containing the growing Trump divide by putting it in context.
Let’s all take deep breaths. Let’s step back from the bitter partisan fights. Remember: presidents and their controversies come and go, but our 3,500-year-old Jewish journey has sustained us and propelled us past far worse days to better and better ones.
The writer, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, is an American presidential historian. His latest book, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream, was just published.