Are six decades of solidarity giving way to generational strain?
For much of the last half-century, support for Israel was a defining pillar of American Jewish life. It shaped institutions, philanthropy, politics and identity. The consensus wasn’t always quiet — but it was broad.
Today, that consensus is under strain.
Younger American Jews — many raised in synagogues, camps and on birthright trips — are expressing a different relationship to Israel than their parents and grandparents. Some are building alternative communities. Some are challenging legacy organizations. Some are questioning whether Israel should remain the organizing center of American Jewish life at all.
Meanwhile, established institutions are responding with urgency — and anxiety — warning of rising antisemitism, political danger and fractures that could reshape the community for decades.
This tension didn’t begin on Oct. 7. But Oct. 7 — and the war that followed — has intensified it. Religion reporter Yonat Shimron joins us to trace the full arc: from postwar American Jewish flourishing, to decades of near-consensus, to the generational and institutional rupture unfolding now.
What changed? Who gets to define Jewish responsibility? And what happens next?
This transcript was generated using AI tools and may contain minor transcription errors.
Amanda Henderson
For much of the last half-century, support for Israel functioned as a kind of organizing principle in American Jewish life It shaped institutions, philanthropy, politics, even identity itself. The consensus was broad. But that consensus is now under visible strain.
Younger American Jews, many of them raised in synagogues, summer camps, and on birthright trips. are expressing a different relationship to Israel than their parent …