By Trent Spoolstra
JCRC Director
Trent Spoolstra, Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council
For as long as I can remember, I have been a supporter of Israel. My love for Israel has only grown as I have visited our people’s homeland three times and anticipate many more such visits throughout my life. It is because of this that October 7 will forever be a day I will remember where I was, similar to 9/11 or the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like most Saturdays, I had slept in but remember checking my phone when I woke up to see a startling email from Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. We as ADL staff never received emails on Shabbat so I realized instantly this was serious. I turned on the television to see what happened and ended up spending the entire day on my couch watching the terrible news unfold. Throughout the day, a couple of my non-Jewish friends reached out to me asking how I was doing, and in turn I spent the day checking in with my friends in Israel to see if they were safe. I did not appreciate at the time how much life was going to change, not just for Israeli Jews, but for Jews in the United States.
The sharp rise in antisemitism across America following the October 7 terrorist attack was hard enough to confront. But what many (including myself) did not realize was that we as American Jews were also going to face an issue that had been building for some time: the widening generational gap among American Jews when it comes to support for Israel.
For decades following the establishment of Israel after World War II and the Holocaust, American Jewish support for the nascent state was a given. In the often-used analogy of David versus Goliath – an underdog going up against a formidable foe – American Jews viewed Israel as the David fighting for its very existence against the surrounding Goliath Arab countries seeking its destruction. The storyline began changing for some as the conflict gradually became less about the fight between Arabs and Israelis, and more specifically between Palestinians and Israelis. Fast forward to today and many American Jews (especially from the younger Millennial and Gen Z cohorts) now see Israel as the Goliath fighting the Palestinian David.
The Pew Research Center published a poll in April on how U.S. Jews were experiencing the latest Israel-Hamas war. The vast majority of American Jews agreed that what occurred on October 7 was horrible and that discrimination against Jews had risen since the terrorist attack. However, one can see revealing divides when asked specific follow-up questions. For example, when asked if Israel is conducting the war against Hamas acceptably, 69 percent of Jews aged 50-64 agreed compared to just over half of those between 18-34 years old. When asked if Hamas’ reasons for fighting Israel were justified, only 11 percent of Jews over the age of 50 agreed while a stunning 31 percent of Jews 18-34 agreed. Finally, when asked if they have a favorable view of the Israeli government, 64 percent of those aged 50-64 held a favorable view with just 45 percent of those 18-34 years old agreeing to the same.
This growing intrafamilial and intergenerational divide on Israel among American Jews has been known and sidestepped for years, but October 7 and the events of the last 12 months have brought the issue to an inevitable forefront. Jewish families across America were understandably distressed to see the rise of anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian activity at K-12 schools and on college campuses. A small percentage were both bewildered and shocked to discover that their own Jewish children and grandchildren were participating in said activities. Conversations have taken place around some Shabbat and holiday dinner tables on the topic of the war, in which older generations have heard their younger family members use alarming words like genocide and apartheid to describe Israel’s past and present actions. It was only a matter of time before American Jews were going to have to confront the realization that many of their younger Jewish kin did not share their opinions on Israel – opinions they had thought were a given across the mainstream community.
As of this writing, the war in Gaza continues to rage on, there is a serious chance all-out war with Hezbollah will break out, and there is a continual threat from the Houthis and Iran. Eventually, the war will come to an end, news about Israel will recede from daily headlines, the protests on America’s streets and college campuses will subside, and Jewish life will return to some kind of normalcy. Yet the world Jews knew on October 6, 2023 is never coming back – both for our brethren in Israel and for us here back home.
Several questions should be asked and some kind of understanding should be reached between different generations in the days ahead:
What does it mean for an American Jew to support Israel?
Where should Israel fit into one’s Jewish identity?
What is the acceptable range of opinions regarding Israel inside the American Jewish community, and when do one’s views become objectionable?
How do Jewish friends and loved ones who share equally passionate yet opposite opinions about Israel reconcile and find common ground?
These are questions I ponder myself given my strong support for Israel as well as my fear of seeing Jews separate on this topic. Time will tell how we as a diverse community answer these questions. It will not be an easy conversation, but for the sake of future American Jewry and our relationship with Israel it is one we must have.
Trent Spoolstra is Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Louisville and the Trager Family JCC.