The Complicated Relationship between American Jews and Israel

Roughly 90% of the world’s Jews now live in Israel and North America. American and Israeli Jews are bonded by shared history, ethnicity, and religion, but also experience various tensions and hurt feelings. Many attribute American Jews’ growing alienation and frustration with Israel to changes that Israel has undergone since the beginning of “the occupation” in 1967. There is good reason to doubt this diagnosis. American Jews’ discomfort with Israel is not a product of Israeli foreign or domestic policy, but of changes that American Jewry has been undergoing since World War II.