How would Israeli Jews vote in a US election and how would US Jews vote in Israel? - opinion

My principal conclusion is that Israeli Jews would vote considerably to the Right of Center in a US election, while American Jews would vote substantially to the Left of Center in an Israeli election.

Israeli Jews voting in America would likely produce a strongly Right/Center leaning office holder, from the most conservative to the most liberal on the Right side of the spectrum. American Jews voting in Israel would likely produce a broadly Zionist, centrist, and Center-Left coalition.

Both communities would be heavily influenced by their different sociological environments, political cultures, and geographic circumstances. I recognize that neither Israeli Jews nor American Jews are monolithic entities, but multiple distinct communities.

For the purpose of this exercise, I define the two populations principally by where they live, with the caveats noted below.

By and large, Israelis participate in a highly fluid political system. New parties emerge, disappear, and merge, and unforeseen events can substantially influence voter preferences.

The American political party system is more stable, perhaps even fossilized, dominated by personalities and coalitions within two large parties rather than by parties temporarily rising, falling, disappearing, or bursting onto the scene.

American Jews and Israeli Jews constantly have governmental institutions and political leaders pawing at each other for more power and control of budgetary allocations.

Voting Center and Center-Right in the US, Israeli views would be shaped by Israel’s political culture.

Possessing a collective political identity, they aspire to live in a democracy that is tied to compulsory civic duties, inhabiting a sovereign Jewish state, obliged (with some exceptions) to mandatory military service, pay heavy national taxation, run their lives on a Jewish calendar, have 24/7 security concerns, and experience fierce, unending, and unyielding political debates, remain starkly polarized between ultra-Orthodox and a majority secular population.

When American Jews are placed in the Israeli political system, perhaps 65% to 70% of American Jewish voters would support parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, yet many of those votes would be centrist, security-minded, Zionist, and institutionally liberal rather than anti-Zionist.

Orthodox American Jews would strongly support Likud, the Religious Zionist Party, and Shas or United Torah Judaism, while Reform, Conservative, and unaffiliated Jews would heavily favor Yashar, the Democrats, and centrist opposition parties.

The resulting government, with American Jews voting in Israel, might therefore resemble a coalition of Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, the Democrats, and Avigdor Liberman, perhaps totaling 85 to 90 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. It would be a broad Zionist coalition excluding both Netanyahu’s harder Right and the anti-Zionist Left.

It is difficult to assume, however, that American Jews supporting a Center or Center-Left coalition in Israel could readily persuade a new Israeli government toward territorial compromise.

Geopolitical realities in both populations matter: security concerns for someone living in Kfar Saba, Nir Oz, or Hanita generated enormous concern for those who live in Dallas, Denver, or Delray Beach.

This exercise is meant to be instructive, not authoritative. We did not conduct an independent survey or apply rigorous statistical methods to original polling. We used survey and polling data assembled by others in Israel and the United States from June through August 15, 2026, then applied several questions to those findings.

On August 18, using past Israeli polling data, we calculated the nine major issues motivating Israeli voters as they prepare for the October 27 Knesset election at our Center for Israel Education.

Naturally, no analysis conducted in August – or polling data collected before then – can incorporate subsequent events, statements, crises, or political developments that occur before October 27.

I also divided each community into four broad categories of religious practice: haredi (ultra-Orthodox), Modern Orthodox, centrist/conservative practicing Jewish, and secular/not practicing.

These categories require considerable caution. Some are imposed on the project and do not correspond precisely with categories used in individual surveys or polls. Political and religious categories also do not align exactly between Israeli and American Jews.

The broad conclusions are clear. Israeli Jews are roughly two-thirds Right, one-seventh Center and one-fifth Left. American Jews are roughly one-sixth Right/conservative, one-third Center/moderate and one-half Left/liberal.

These categories are even more approximate than the political categories. “Conservative” Jewish religious practice, for example, has a very different meaning in American Judaism compared with the way religious traditionalism is described in Israel.

Israeli Jews are, proportionately, more religiously practicing than American Jews. Both populations have become more internally polarized, while Israeli Jewish society is moving increasingly toward the religious end of the spectrum. Many Israelis on all sides of either the political or religious spectrum hold multiple outlooks and preferences simultaneously.

American Jews would bring a basket-full of liberal political instincts into an Israeli party system that prioritizes security, religion-state relations and coalition politics.

If American Jews voted in Israeli elections and lived in Kfar Saba, Nir Oz, or Hanita, would their voting preferences change with their geographic setting, with news on the hour? What would it take for American and Israeli Jews to be less critical and more patient with the other?

There are 16 million Jews in the world, with seven-eighths of them living in the US and Israel. The last time there were 16 million Jews in the world was in 1939.