The Economist: Jews find uneasy allies on the right amid rising tensions

Key topics.Rising Jewish gun ownership due to security fears and rising antisemitism.Deepening divisions within Jewish communities over Israel's actions in Gaza.Shifting political alliances as Jews navigate left-right ideological challenges..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here..If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..From The Economist, published under licence. The original article can be found on www.economist.com.© 2025 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved..The Economist ___STEADY_PAYWALL___.They have found uneasy alliances with their new protectors on the right.Nailed to the entrance of the Gun For Hire shooting range in Woodland Park, New Jersey, is a large mezuzah, the prayer-scroll that Jews attach to their doors. In the gift-shop are kippot (head-coverings) embroidered with guns. The range advertises in local Jewish newspapers and trains synagogue security teams. "We get full minyanim [Jewish prayer quorums of at least ten] who come to shoot here," says Phil Stern, one of the managers.."There's been growing demand for guns and training among Jews for years," says Tzvi Waldman, founder of the New York State Jewish Gun Club. Now an increasing number of liberal Jews go to him for advice about gun ownership, says Mr Waldman, an ultra-Orthodox Hasid and a Republican party activist. He puts this down to feelings of general insecurity after the George Floyd riots and fears of white nationalism. But he also thinks that many feel that the threat levels since October 7th have gone "way up"..On that day more Jews were murdered than on any other since the end of the Holocaust. It shattered the confidence of Israelis in their army and intelligence services. For the diaspora, it called into question the core reason for Israel's existence: to be a haven for a long-persecuted nation..The shock-waves reverberated beyond Israel's borders. There was fear for Israel, where many Jews have relatives and friends. But there was also distress at non-Jewish friends' and neighbours' ambivalence about, and even justification of, the atrocity they faced at home. The Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental Israeli organisation, reports that between 2022 and 2024, the number of antisemitic incidents rose by 340% globally, largely driven by protests (violent assaults declined). The Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group in America, says that 83% of Jewish students there have experienced antisemitism on campus since the war began..Growing distances.Israel's increasingly devastating war in Gaza brought an additional sense of alienation. Even some of those Jews who initially backed Israel's response wavered as it killed tens of thousands of Gazans, many of them civilians. For some, it challenged their own Jewish identity, though for others it allowed the exploration of a new version tied less to Israel. And so with calamity in Israel, estrangement in the diaspora and divisions within and between the two, what had seemed to be a golden age for the Jews looked as if it might end..At the turn of the 21st century, after nearly two millennia of almost relentless persecution and banishments, culminating in the industrial slaughter of the Holocaust in which over a third of the world's Jews were killed, they had achieved two almost unimaginable successes. Israel and America were home to nearly 90% of all Jews. In the first, the Jews had a powerful and prosperous nation-state. The wars and instability of Israel's early decades had given way to a grudging if tacit acceptance by countries in the region. Israel's military might and tech-fuelled economy guaranteed its survival. It made a formal peace with at least some of its Arab neighbours..In the second place, America, they had become a successful and secure minority, fully integrated into the world's sole superpower. The largest Jewish diaspora in history defined much of American culture, from Hollywood to Wall Street. They secured not only equality, but also outsize visibility and success, given their share of the population—2%—and a political influence that let them rally support for Jews elsewhere, especially in Israel and the former Soviet Union..After the fall of the Soviet empire and the emigration from there of around 2m Jews, most of them found themselves in liberal democracies, protected from the bigotry and discrimination they had experienced for so many centuries. Antisemitism had not disappeared, but it had become unacceptable in public and in some countries illegal..Yet there were still some clouds on the horizon. Sergio DellaPergola, an expert on Jewish demography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, estimates there were 16.5m Jews in the world on the eve of the second world war. At 15.7m, the current numbers still falls short, 80 years later. In the same period the world's global population has roughly quadrupled..Assimilation in the West began to blur Jewish identity outside Israel, and with it intermarriage and lower birth-rates, especially among liberal Jews in the diaspora. As a result, two groups have grown as a share of the Jewish population: Israelis, who are now nearly half of all Jews; and the ultra-Orthodox Haredim, whose members largely live, educate and raise their children in isolated environments and who now number around 15% of all Jews..These demographic shifts mean that in many places organised Jewish life is increasingly dominated by a fast-growing Orthodox minority who reject many of the liberal values that most Jews see as the bedrock of their security. Greater religiosity has also translated into greater support for Israel, which itself has been becoming more nationalistic and less liberal..Politically, many diaspora Jews have felt increasingly homeless. The left, consumed by identity politics, often included them in the "white" majority and expected them to denounce any affiliation with Israel as proof of their ideological reliability. On the right, populist-nationalist parties, evolved from movements that were once openly hostile towards Jews, were ascendant. And so the indifference to the suffering of Jews exhibited by parts of the left, the uptick in antisemitic attacks and the despair of many Jews over Israel's war in Gaza, all came together to create a sense that that brief golden age was over..Not quite so clear.But nearly a year and a half since the war in Gaza began, a more nuanced reality has emerged. The wave of anti-Israel attacks has been met by a tough response from governments and police forces, which has increased the protection of Jewish communities in the diaspora. And while many Jews are appalled at Israel's military tactics, especially in Gaza, they have held countless solidarity events for Israel. Jewish groups also say they have seen rising attendance at communal meetings, as their members have sought to reassert their identity in the face of antisemitic attacks..There is also a renewed interest in Jewish life. "Since October 7th people are returning to the community and feel the need to be part of it. Services are full, including places outside Paris where barely anyone used to turn up," says Mr Laurence Hauguenauer, a civil servant and president of a progressive Jewish organisation in Paris. Some progressive Jewish communities that used to criticise Israel now say prayers for Israeli soldiers "and all the civilian victims" (though others also pray for Palestinian prisoners and Gaza's dead)..Donald Trump has ratcheted up support for Israel and Jewish-American communities. The president removed the limited restrictions placed by the previous administration on arms sales to Israel. He made it clear he would tolerate no international criticism of Israel, imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court in The Hague for issuing a warrant to arrest Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister. Mr Trump signed an executive order "to marshal all federal resources to combat the explosion of antisemitism on our campuses and in our streets." The government cut $400m of federal funding for Columbia University, which saw some of the fiercest anti-Israel protests. Students accused of leading the protests have been arrested and threatened with deportation..Protests against Israel in America and other Western countries go on, as does international condemnation of Israel's conduct. But the actions of Mr Trump and his administration have lessened to a large degree the siege atmosphere many Jews feel..Some of America's Jews had already shifted their political loyalties. For decades the overwhelming majority voted Democratic in presidential elections. Last year was no exception. But some exit polls showed Mr Trump winning more of the Jewish vote, close to a third, than any Republican since 1988. Surveys show that Mr Trump's voters tended to be more religious and pro-Israel than those who supported Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate.."There's no doubt Haredim feel at home with Trump," says Yossi Gestetner, a Hasidic political consultant. "We're a conservative community who don't want liberals interfering in our schools and other religious affairs. And we have a lot of relatives in Israel. But also on a personal level, we felt Trump was much more open to us." As few as two-thirds of American Jews may have voted for Ms Harris. Among them, feelings are mixed. Is a president whose supporters include antisemitic white supremacists a welcome protector?.Similar dilemmas exist in other countries, where parties which were once openly antisemitic are now offering themselves as allies to Israel and the Jews. In France Jews feel much less welcome on the left than they once did. They see Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who aspires to be president, as exploiting resentments among France's Muslims against its Jews. Meanwhile, on the hard right, another potential contender for France's presidency, Marine Le Pen, has made a great show of purging the older antisemitic members, including her own father (before he died this year) from her party. But many French Jews still mistrust her..Never be complacent.These are risky alliances. Mr Trump is fickle. Presidents change. For Jews on the right, especially those more religious and less committed to liberal values, the shifts seem appealing. After all, they argue, we are all in the same camp against Muslim fundamentalism and the anti-Zionist left..But as voting patterns in America still show, most Jews have yet to be persuaded of these new alliances. So have many elsewhere. The decision of an Israeli minister to invite members of Europe's hard right, including a close ally of Ms Le Pen, Jordan Bardella, to a conference on combating antisemitism, prompted other guests, including Britain's chief rabbi, to boycott it. Their invitation was "stabbing Jews in the back", said Ariel Muzicant, president of the European Jewish Congress..Open criticism of Israeli policies is increasingly common among many diaspora Jews. That is particularly true for the younger generation. According to a poll by the Pew Research Centre, 33% of American Jews thought Israel's response to the Hamas attack was "unacceptable", but among the 18-34-year-olds it was 42%. At pro-Palestinian protests in America and Britain, groups of young Jewish students proclaimed that the carnage in Gaza was not in their name..Yet the number of young diaspora Jews volunteering to join and fight in the Israel Defence Forces (idf) has swollen. The number of new recruits meant the idf's Hebrew course had to open a fourth company of soldiers last year. Most also intend to emigrate to Israel, but the number of Jewish volunteers who simply arrived to serve, without formally becoming Israeli citizens, jumped from 268 in 2023 to 362 last year. "I felt like a fish out of water in college, surrounded by people hating Israel," says one Seattle-born recruit, taking a brief break from training. "I don't think I'll live in Israel in the future. I have a lot of criticism of Israel. But I didn't want the convenient relationship of a diaspora Jew commenting from the sidelines. I wanted some skin in the game.".Even for Jews who reject the notion of an ethno-national Jewish state, their Jewish identity is largely apophatic. "It's hard to find an alternative for Jewish activity which is not around Israel," says Daniel May, publisher of Jewish Currents, a New York-based magazine that is a platform for Jews on the left who seek to distance themselves from Israel..Jews in Israel and the diaspora share a conundrum. Restoring Israeli deterrence and ensuring safety for the diaspora involves awkward trade-offs between democratic principles and security priorities, especially when the politicians making them, such as Mr Netanyahu, seem to be in the process of undermining the democratic institutions on which Israelis and Jews have relied. If Jews everywhere fail to articulate shared liberal values and if Israel further erodes its fragile democracy, that truly will spell the end of the golden age. Despite the persistence of antisemitism and threats to Israel, the real challenges to a Jewish future come from hardliners within. Yet perhaps the best development for the Jews is that for once in their long history, their fate is largely in their own hands..Read also:.🔒 Isreal-Hamas hostage dispute delays Gaza return, strains truce🔒 Ceasefire begins in Gaza amid delayed hostage swap🔒 The Economist: Israel's pursuit of regional dominance risks internal unity and global ties

The Economist: Jews find uneasy allies on the right amid rising tensions

Related Stories

‘Binface’ candidate who could sink Farage — and Musk's old grudge resurfaces

Max Hastings: Dreadnought moment - Why drones, not aircraft carriers, now decide wars

Why Africa's entrepreneurs are buying Caribbean citizenship

From Manchester to No. 10: Andy Burnham's devolution revolution — First the UK, then SA?