Poll: When it comes to Trump, Israeli Jews = Venus, US Jews = Mars

Israeli and American Jews are walking way out of step with regard to attitudes toward President Donald Trump, with recent polls showing that while most American Jews have an unfavorable view of the president, most of their co-religionists in Israel hold him in high regard.

According to a University of Maryland/Politico poll published on Monday in Politico, 59% of Jewish Israelis have a favorable opinion of the US president, and only 19% have an unfavorable view.

This poll was conducted on May 6-9, just before Monday’s US Embassy move, and while Trump was announcing the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal: two steps highly popular with the Israeli public.

The haredim see the president in the most favorable light (78%), followed by the National Religious (69%). Even those who define themselves as secular have a more favorable than unfavorable view of the president: 45% vs 30%.

The situation in the US, however, is flipped, with a New York Times poll in January showing that Trump only had a 26% favorability rate among Jews, and this even after his decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the embassy, but before he decided to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

An American Jewish Committee poll conducted last August found that only 18% of American Jews voted for Trump in the 2016 election, and 64% voted for Hillary Clinton.

Polls have also found a wide gap between how Israeli and American Jews view the president’s decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem.

According to the University of Maryland poll, a whopping 73% of Israeli Jews support both the decision to move the embassy and the timing, while in the AJC poll last August – taken albeit before Trump announced his move – 44% opposed a move, and only 16 supported it taking place immediately. Another 36% said that it should be moved at a later date in conjunction with progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

The University of Maryland poll was conducted among a representative sample of 650 Israeli Jews, and had a +/3.92% margin of error. The AJC polls was conducted by phone over 18 days last August and had a +/-3.71% margin of error.