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| Conservative Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove - exposing a rift (Jewish Journal) |
Speaking at the American Zionist Movement’s Biennial last week, Rabbi Cosgrove addressed the generational rift in how American Jews relate to Israel. A divide that has been growing for years. He pointed to the recent New York mayoral election, where roughly 33 percent of Jewish voters cast ballots for mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani...
He also cited data from JPPI’s 2025 Annual Assessment, which found that 43 percent of American Jewish millennials say Israel is not important to their Jewish identity—nearly triple the 16 percent found among American Jews overall in Pew’s 2020 survey. That gap has only widened since October 7, with non-Orthodox Jews under 30 reporting the sharpest declines in attachment to Israel.
Rabbi Cosgrove then offered his explanation for why this
divide exists. He seems to attribute it to the long-standing assumption that
traditional support for Israel requires never criticizing it - or the decisions
made by its leaders. Regardless of whether one agrees with those policies or not. Any such criticism feeds the anti-Israel narrative promoted by Israel’s
mortal enemies and their supporters in academia - and even in Congress.
According to Rabbi Cosgrove, the erosion of support among
young Jews is directly related to their frustration at feeling that their
legitimate criticism is being ignored or silenced, motivating them to walk away
entirely from any connection to the Jewish state.
To a certain extent, that is true. But I believe there is a deeper underlying cause that Rabbi Cosgrove does not address...
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