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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026

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There is no strong Jewish identity outside Zionism other than in actual Haredi Judaism, which is mostly apathetic on this question but which really has nothing to do with the political left and sees the entire secular world, Jewish and gentile, as corrupt and degenerate.

Most liberal American Jews will and are abandoning Zionism. They are doing it perhaps slower than the left would like, but faster than one might have anticipated given half these people literally went on birthright. In the end it’s a relatively small price to pay, because Western Jews never sacrificed or lost anything for supporting Israel. There was never any cost to it, it’s on the other side of the world from America, and America is too racially, religiously and culturally diverse for extreme, violent antisemitism to become likely as state policy.

What, an unholy alliance of hotep black nationalists, 74% indigenous Mexican Catholics, Arabs, trans leftists and racist Irish and Italian Ellis Island people are going to commit some kind of inquisition against Jewish-Americans for supporting Israel? That seems about the least stable political coalition of all time and one that probably wouldn’t agree on anything except that one issue. Antisemitism is rising, and will probably continue to from the nadir of the 1990s (although I don’t think we’re close to mid-century levels yet, let alone something that would imply actual physical risk), but there are a lot of other kinds of medium sized ethnic animosity in America.

My guess is that two thirds of American Jews, already secularizing fast, will abandon any remaining Zionist aspect of their identities and remain generic progressive libs. The remaining third will be split into the fast growing Haredi populations which with the exception of Chabad might swear neutrality in the even of any serious state anti-Israel sentiment, but probably will just stay out of it, and the Modern Orthodox / Religious Zionist / maybe some more right wing conservative Jews, who will remain Zionist, and who will increasingly just come to be seen as the ‘Israeli diaspora’.

I think it depends, a lot of the current zeitgeist on the left is absolutely hostile to Judaism, even if right now they’re still pretending that it’s all about Palestinians. The alliance was basically one of parasitism— other ethnic minorities who are part of the DNC alliance had very little wealthy people to donate to the cause, so they needed the Jews to bankroll the party. But the same minorities, especially with the growing Arab population, don’t like Jews and they’re increasingly given microphones with which to speak their minds.