Today is Yom Kippur. To all of our Jewish readers, listeners, family, and friends: g’mar chatima tovah. I hope those of you observing have an easy and meaningful fast.
A word about where I’m coming from. I’m a Christian and a scholar who studies religion, and I’m a guest in this conversation, not a participant in intra-Jewish argument. But I want to talk about the complexities of what it means to be Jewish right now, because I think many non-Jews don’t grasp how heavy this moment is.
The Numbers Behind the Moment
Start with some context. The global Jewish population is around 16 million, which is smaller than the Los Angeles metropolitan area, where I’m from. It is a small community.
Israel now holds roughly 45 to 46 percent of the world’s Jews, and some projections suggest it could cross 50 percent within a decade. The United States is the second great center of Jewish life, with somewhere between 6.3 and 7.5 million Jews depending on the survey. That’s about 40 percent of the world total.
Put those together and roughly 85 percent of Jews on Earth live in one of two countries. One is at war and facing increasing international sanction. The other is the United States, a country that is 62 percent Christian and is seeing rising antisemitism.
And even now, the global Jewish population remains below the 17 million counted in 1939. The Shoah still looms over the Jewish experience.
Israel, Five Weeks Before an Election
Israel is in a messy and complicated position. Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in the 2022 election at the head of an ultranationalist coalition, often very far right, with some extreme voices inside it. That government has pushed to overhaul the judiciary. Underneath it all runs a constant thread: Netanyahu’s own ongoing corruption prosecution.
Then came October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack. The war in Gaza that followed has been labeled a genocide by many outside observers, including many American and Israeli Jews. It reached a ceasefire in October 2025, but Gaza remains in a kind of limited war, with Israel’s military occupying about 60 percent of the territory. According to counts from within Gaza, more than 70,000 people have been killed, and over two-thirds of buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
Almost immediately after that came the war with Iran, with the U.S. and Israel attacking beginning at the end of February. In the midst of it, Israel opened another war with Lebanon. That front is also now in ceasefire, but Israeli troops still occupy much of southern Lebanon. Tensions in the West Bank continue as well. On September 8, twelve countries, including the UK, France, and Canada, announced new trade restrictions on goods from Israeli settlements, accusing Israel’s government of undermining a two-state solution.
All of this leads to Israel’s October 27 election, the first since October 7 and the wars that followed. Who will win is genuinely unclear.
Two Stories Roiling Israeli Politics
Two stories broke this month that are shaking both Israeli politics and the lives of American Jews.
The first is a documentary called NAZA. It’s directed by two Israeli filmmakers, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who previously co-directed No Other Land, the film that won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2025. These are not obscure filmmakers. NAZA is a British production, produced by The Guardian and executive produced by Jonathan Glazer, the director of The Zone of Interest. It premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival on September 10. The film examines the use of AI and automated surveillance in Israel’s targeting of Gaza. Its title is IDF slang for “collateral damage,” and it includes interviews with soldiers and intelligence personnel, all anonymous, describing their own war practices.
The response from Israel’s right has been fierce. Legislators have called the film a blood libel. The IDF says it is false and criticizes its reliance on anonymous sources. Netanyahu has announced Knesset bills aimed at the directors, including the possibility of stripping them of their citizenship. The film has no Israeli distributor and no public screenings in Israel. Activists have protested outside the family home of co-director Rachel Szor. Many of the loudest denouncers have no intention of ever watching it.
What matters here is that these are not outsiders indicting Israel. These are Israeli Jews, speaking Hebrew, and the people they interviewed are active military personnel and veterans. And the state’s response is to threaten the directors’ citizenship. That is an authoritarian reflex, and it isn’t unlike the pressures on press freedom we see here in the United States.
The second story comes from Haaretz. On September 8, the left-leaning Israeli paper published a report by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, drawn from their forthcoming book. It says UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, warned Netanyahu, in a 45-minute call about ten days before October 7, that Hamas was planning a major operation. According to the report, Netanyahu never mentioned the warning in security briefings, and former military and intelligence leaders told Haaretz they were never informed.
Netanyahu denies the report and says he will sue Haaretz and its authors. But for three years he has defended his conduct by insisting there was no warning and no indication. Five weeks before an election, that claim is under direct assault, and old debates are reigniting.
American Jews Stuck in the Muddle
All of this has left the American Jewish community deeply divided. A June AP-NORC survey found a stark generational split: 37 percent of American Jews under 45 say Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, compared with 23 percent of those 45 and older. This isn’t just ideology. It’s about how people consume media and which sources they trust.
The relational cost is enormous. About four in ten American Jews have unfollowed or blocked a family member over Israel. Fifty-five percent say they’ve been offended by someone’s comments about Israel. Three in ten say they’ve stopped talking to someone over it. Almost a third of American Jews have lost relationships in the last few years because of this one issue.
There are strong factions at both ends, some fiercely pro-Israel and some fiercely anti-Israel, but most American Jews are in the muddle in between. Today, on Yom Kippur, they’re sitting in the same pew and at the same breakfast table as people they disagree with and don’t know how to reconcile with.
Antisemitism Doesn’t Discriminate
All of this is happening amid a surge in antisemitism. Because of its far-right government’s conduct, Israel is increasingly an international pariah, and more nations and international bodies are threatening consequences.
Criticism of Israel is not, in itself, antisemitic. We must be able to challenge governments, especially those that claim to be democratic. But many critics do cross the line from criticizing a state into stereotyping and dehumanizing all Jews. Some of that comes from the political left. From where I stand, though, the vast majority comes from the American far right, inside Trump’s own coalition and the America First breakaway faction. We keep seeing Republican staffers exposed as outright Nazis. We’ve discussed Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, all of it deeply antisemitic and electrifying parts of the American right.
Even legitimate backlash against Israel’s government endangers American Jews, a vulnerable religious minority. When antisemitism surges, it doesn’t distinguish between supporters and critics of Israel, or between Zionists and non-Zionists. Antisemites attack Jews.
What the Rest of Us Can Do Today
Most of my Jewish friends and listeners are probably preoccupied Today, so I want to speak to the rest of us, the Gentiles.
Today is a good day to check in with your Jewish friends. Text them, email them, reach out. Don’t write a position paper. Write a sentence. Acknowledge that you don’t understand everything that’s happening and don’t know how to resolve it. Say: I’m glad you’re my friend.
And don’t use that check-in to litigate Israel. American Jews are already litigating Israel constantly, with each other and inside their own families. The point is to be a good neighbor, and to recognize that our Jewish colleagues and friends are living through an extremely complicated politics, in a community riven by real arguments and real pain.
Our society is better off because of our Jewish friends and neighbors. Today is a good day to tell them so.
