America's politically divided Jewish community braces for Israel's elections

NEW YORK (AP) — Jewish Americans feel they have a lot at stake in this month's contentious elections in Israel as three years of Mideast conflicts rile up emotions across the United States, from street protests to the midterm races.

But they are sharply divided along political, religious and often generational lines on the preferred outcome in a vote that’s perceived as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and held against the backdrop of the enduring trauma of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, which triggered the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s supporters, especially among Orthodox Jews, believe he’s protecting a country they love as central to their identity. Many liberal and younger Jewish Americans believe his policies have harmed Israel’s global standing, engendering widespread anger that threatens them in the U.S., too.

The moment is particularly fraught as antisemitism and antisemitic violence grow. Even harsh critics of Netanyahu’s actions, whether over Gaza or Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank, argue that blame for attacks against Jews can’t solely be laid at his feet.

“A lot of American Jews are really torn. They want to shout from the rooftops, ‘Stop the pogroms in the West Bank,’ but also yell at everybody, ‘Stop with allegations of genocide and double standards against Israel,’” said Rabbi Dan Levin of Temple Beth El in Boca Raton, Florida.

Levin’s large Reform synagogue is one of many across the U.S. hosting educational programs this fall because congregants feel “deeply emotionally invested” in the Israeli elections, even if, as non-citizens, they can’t vote.

Under Israel’s complex, multiparty political system, the Oct. 27 election outcome is impossible to forecast. Polls suggest a tight race between a Netanyahu-led bloc and an alliance of rivals for control of the government.

Many Jewish Americans have Israeli friends and family. More broadly, support for Israel is a key component of the religious identity of many U.S. Jewish adults ages 45 and older, particularly those who identify as religiously Jewish, according to a recent AP-NORC poll.

The largest Jewish denomination in the United States is Reform, which emphasizes progressive values. Many Reform Jews see no contradiction between their liberalism and their Zionism — understood as the Jewish people’s aspiration “to live as a free people in our land,” said Rabbi Josh Weinberg of the Union for Reform Judaism, an umbrella group for more than 800 Reform synagogues in North America.

But they worry about the growing power of the ultra-Orthodox in Israel’s political and religious life, as well as settlement policies and the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank, that they perceive as contrary to their values, Weinberg added.

“If Netanyahu wins, I worry very much about the young generation of American Jews who may continue to be, I’ll put it nicely, disenchanted, and who might just say ‘OK, that’s it. I’m giving up on Israel,’” he said.

Only about 4 in 10 religious Jewish adults under 45 in the United States say that supporting Israel is “extremely” or “very” important for their Jewish identity, prioritizing instead other forms of connection, like celebrating Jewish holidays, according to the AP-NORC poll.

In the same poll, a majority of Jewish adults said prejudice against Jewish people is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in the United States today.

As the Israeli elections approach, many communities are worrying about their effects on antisemitism.

“Some American Jews believe a different style of prime minister, one more similar to earlier ones who constantly talked about the desire for peace, will change the way American Jews themselves are viewed,” said Jonathan Sarna, professor emeritus of American Jewish History at Brandeis University.

Even Netanyahu critics, however, don't believe antisemitic acts would stop if Israel changes its government, especially when outrage at his administration’s actions toward Palestinians is used to incite violence against all Jews regardless of nationality or political leanings.

“‘There is only one solution, intifada revolution’ — we hear that as a call to rise up and use violence against Jews,” Weinberg said of a popular protest chant referring to the violent Palestinian uprising. “So when someone says that in Ramallah, that’s one thing. When someone says that in Minneapolis, what exactly are they calling for? That seems pretty clearly to us antisemitic.”

But some think different Israeli policies would help stem the tide.

“Somebody who decides that they’re going to drive a car into a synagogue or attack Jews on the street, that is their responsibility. You can’t blame that on Israel’s actions,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah, a rabbinic human rights organization. “But … I think that it’s going to be a very scary time for Jews around the world if there’s another Netanyahu government and if it continues on its policy of expanding occupation, ethnic cleansing, and forever war.”

Stanley Weinstein, an Orthodox Jew from Florida, rejects much of the criticism of the Israeli military and policymaking, especially given the threats the state faces from militant groups like Hamas in Gaza as well as in other conflicts that keep simmering despite tenuous ceasefires, including in Lebanon and with Iran.

Weinstein sees Israel’s security as crucial, especially given the rise in anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric among left- and right-wing American political figures that he has observed even from his home in the diverse and vibrant Jewish community of Miami Beach.

“I am appalled as an American. I am appalled as a Jew. And I say, thank God there is an Israel,” he said.

For Jewish Americans, Israel also looms large in the U.S. midterms — when voters decide who controls Congress for the next two years. The Nov. 3 elections come a week after Israelis go to their polls.

From New York City to Michigan and beyond, support for Palestinians, and withdrawal of U.S. aid to Israel, are rising issues among Democratic voters.

Both the Israeli and U.S. elections could affect the two countries' longstanding alliance. It has been particularly close — though not without recent strains, especially over the joint Iran war — under the Trump and Netanyahu administrations.

Even as some Israeli policies have become controversial in the United States, among American Jews there is still substantial support for the state of Israel, said Jason Isaacson, chief policy officer for the American Jewish Committee, a prominent advocacy group that strives to broadly represent Jews in the U.S. and abroad.

“There is strong support for the continuation of the U.S.-Israel relationship and for the necessity of Israel’s survival,” he said.

Regardless of their faith and politics, some Jewish Americans are most concerned about the prospect of further divisions driven by Israel's elections.

“This may be the most consequential election in modern Israeli history, because the nature of the current administration is so fraught with division that it’s ripping the people apart,” said Levin, the Reform rabbi in Boca Raton.

Weinstein, the Orthodox congregant in Miami Beach, believes Netanyahu has been doing “a terrific job.” But he shares the same worry for the future.

“The biggest issue in Israel today, which doesn’t exist, is unity. To me, that is what is at stake,” he said. “Is there a way to unify the country, unify the people?”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

FILE - Orthodox Jews hold signs during a pro-Palestinian demonstration, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, File)

FILE - Rabbi Shmuley Boteach confronts pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside United Nations headquarters, Friday, Sept. 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah, File)

FILE - Protesters block traffic during a pro-Palestinian demonstration demanding a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, near the home of Sen. Chuck Schumer in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki, File)

FILE - Pro-Israel supporters attend the Republican convention in Dallas on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

Few mass shootings in the U.S. end like the deadly attack on an Oregon elementary school: with an armed civilian opening fire on the gunman.

President Donald Trump joined others Friday in praising a father of two girls who confronted a teenage gunman during the attack at Silver Rail Elementary School, which killed three students and a teacher. Kenda Freeman said her son, Kaylub Giamanco, intervened by firing his own weapon after the shooting began at his daughters' school in the town of Bend.

“It’s a terrible thing, but thank goodness for a man that had a gun and knew how to use it,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Giamanco, a 36-year-old carpenter who had a .40-caliber pistol legally stored in his vehicle, entered the school, heard shots and fired his gun after seeing a teacher fighting with the shooter, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said.

Cases like the Oregon intervention remain rare, according to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center at Texas State University.

The ALERRT center tracked what it calls “active attack” incidents where the perpetrator used firearms, blades or vehicles from 2000 to 2025.

Out of 634 cases studied, 374 ended before police arrived. Among those, 29 ended when armed civilians shot the attacker. In another 31 incidents, civilians subdued the attacker by some other method, such as wrestling them to the ground or removing the weapon.

“They recognize they may be the only way to stop it before law enforcement arrives,” said James Keith, a spokesperson for the center.

The heroic “good guy with a gun” who can stop an attack even before law enforcement can arrive has long been a rallying cry by gun rights advocates, arguing that armed citizens can act as a first line of self-defense and public protection. In some cases, the person who intervenes has had law enforcement or military training. Other times they are just people who reacted in a moment of chaos.

In some states, lawmakers have sought to put armed citizens in position to head off an attack as soon as possible in some public spaces.

Texas created a school marshal program in 2013 to allow trained teachers and staff to carry concealed firearms on campus. It expanded safety programs and requirements for armed security and personnel at schools after mass shootings at a high school near Houston in 2018, and at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde in 2022.

Texas has some of the least restrictive gun control laws in the country, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The group rates Oregon among the strongest.

Some prominent examples of armed citizens who confronted gunmen to help stop mass shootings:

A gunman killed three people and wounded seven more at an In-N-Out Burger on Aug. 3. Law enforcement authorities said the gunman may have killed more if not for an off-duty officer who was a customer at the restaurant, and an armed civilian who exchanged fire with the gunman.

Jordan Salinas said he didn't hesitate to grab his gun and confront the gunman when he saw people fleeing the restaurant and heard gunfire. Under return fire, the gunman retreated and ultimately killed himself.

“He did not like it when bullets started flying both ways,” Salinas told the Idaho Statesman. “There's a task that needs to be done, and we're the ones who need to do it.”

In December 2019, a man wearing a disguise and a trench coat pulled out a shotgun and killed two people during a Sunday service at West Freeway Church of Christ before he was killed by Jack Wilson, a 71-year-old firearms instructor who had also been a reserve sheriff's deputy.

Wilson stayed calm as worshippers scrambled for cover.

“The only clear shot I had was his head because I still had people in the pews that were not all the way down as low as they could. That was my one shot,” Wilson said in 2019.

A gunman killed 26 people at a small-town church in 2017. Stephen Willeford, a former National Rifle Association instructor who lived across the street, grabbed his rifle and ran in his bare feet to open fire at the attacker, wounding him.

The gunman fled and Willeford flagged down a passing driver. The two men chased after the gunman, who eventually killed himself.

“I kept hearing the shots: pop, pop, pop” when the gunfire started at the church, Willeford said in 2017. “And I knew every one of those shots represented someone, that it was aimed at someone.”

Police caution tape surrounds Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Ore., Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, a day after a deadly shooting. (AP Photo/Joe Kline)

Flowers are placed beside a sign at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Ore., on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, a day after a deadly shooting. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)

Flowers and candles are seen at a makeshift memorial outside Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Ore., Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, a day after a deadly shooting. (AP Photo/Joe Kline)