DAWN OF THE DONALD SEVEN PAGE SPECIAL
Jewish supporters of the dovish Israel policy group J Street as “kapos”. Yet even these groups have picked their battles.
Others are more cautious. Those focused on building support for Israel are loath to alienate an incoming administration that is seen as friendly by the Israeli government. Those focused on providing social services are generally disinclined to pick fights.
But establishment groups — many of which in recent decades have become more distant from the grassroots, more responsive to wealthy donors, and more Israel-focused — face a challenge from an insurgent Jewish left uninterested in carrying water for the Israeli government.
Throngs of young Jews have taken to the streets against Mr Trump in demonstrations organised by IfNotNow, an activist outfit that had previously protested at established Jewish groups’ offices to advance its “demand for American Jewish institutions to end their support for the occupation”.
Young Jewish progressives, who see opposition to Mr Trump as a moral imperative, will accept no excuses from the establishment. Jewish groups that confronted President
Barack Obama over Israel and the Iran deal will have a hard time justifying a cautious response to Mr Trump’s domestic agenda. (And an Israel that embraces Mr Trump risks further damaging its already declining standing among liberals.)
But the Jewish left is not the only insurgent force in American Jewish politics. Remember, nearly a quarter of American Jews voted for Mr Trump. While some prominent neoconservatives maintain their antipathy toward the president-elect, many other Jewish Republicans have fallen into line, and others were in line from the start.
The Jewish community is a house divided, with a liberal-leaning majority and an assertive conservative minority that includes many Orthodox Jews as well as leading communal donors.
The split over Mr Trump shows that the American Jewish divide has widened to the point of mutual incomprehension, mirroring fissures within American society at large.
In the era of President Trump, American Jewry’s divisions can no longer be papered over. Straddling the intra-communal divide will become increasingly difficult, as American Jews demand of the organizations that purport to represent them: Which side are you on?
Daniel Treiman is a former managing editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and a former opinion editor of the