By Nick Stamatakis
For years, Americans have been lectured that opposing AIPAC-backed candidates, criticizing Israeli government policies, or questioning unconditional American support for Israel risks crossing the line into antisemitism.
But if that is the standard, what are we to make of American Jewish voters themselves?
Consider Michigan’s extraordinary 2026 Senate election.
Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim American who openly advocated ending U.S. military aid to Israel, defeated Republican Mike Rogers. Despite fierce opposition from prominent pro-Israel organizations, El-Sayed won approximately 57% of Jewish early voters, according to a survey commissioned by The Jewish Majority. An analysis of heavily Jewish precincts also suggested roughly 60% support.
To be clear, El-Sayed performed less well among Jewish voters than other Michigan Democrats. Some Jewish voters expressed serious concerns about his positions on Israel. Nevertheless, a majority of those surveyed voted for him.
Are these Jewish Americans antisemitic for supporting a politician who rejects policies championed by AIPAC?
Michigan is hardly an isolated case.
According to a November 2026 national poll conducted by GBAO Strategies, 72% of Jewish Americans voted Democratic, compared with just 24% Republican. Pew Research Center has documented this longstanding preference for decades. American Jews remain among the country’s most reliably liberal constituencies.
Indeed, Jewish participation in progressive politics has deep historical roots.
Karl Marx came from a Jewish family. Prominent early Bolshevik leaders included Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev. Much of the Frankfurt School’s intellectual leadership—including Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm—also came from Jewish backgrounds.
This does not make socialism a Jewish ideology, nor were most Bolsheviks Jewish. But the substantial Jewish contribution to modern socialist and progressive thought is an undeniable historical fact.
Perhaps the most fascinating example is Israel’s own kibbutz movement, one of the world’s longest-lasting experiments in voluntary communal socialism. For generations, kibbutzim organized productive agricultural communities around collective ownership, shared labor, and egalitarian ideals. Although many later adopted market reforms, their achievements remain a remarkable chapter in cooperative economics.
Against this historical backdrop, the persistent identification of Jewish political interests with conservative, interventionist, pro-Netanyahu policies becomes particularly questionable.
And contemporary polling exposes the contradiction.
A September 2026 Jewish Electorate Institute survey, conducted by the Mellman Group, found that:
-52% of Jewish voters supported reducing or eliminating American aid to Israel.
-61% viewed Benjamin Netanyahu unfavorably.
-60% wanted Netanyahu replaced.
Yet 86% still described themselves as pro-Israel.
Two additional polls conducted in March 2026 found that 55% to 60% of Jewish Americans opposed the U.S. war against Iran.
Apparently, rejecting a war promoted by influential pro-Israel commentators was the majority position among Jewish Americans themselves!
But the most devastating figures concern AIPAC directly.
In the November 2026 GBAO survey, 66% of Jewish voters said AIPAC’s campaign spending against critics of Israel increased antisemitism in America.
Another 60% believed that some Jewish organizations were exploiting accusations of antisemitism to defend unpopular Israeli government policies.
Furthermore, 39% said support from an AIPAC super PAC made them less likely to vote for a candidate, compared with just 13% who said it made them more likely.
These are extraordinary findings.
AIPAC is a political lobby, not the voice of American Jewry. Its policies are open to debate, its candidates to defeat, and its influence to scrutiny—like any other interest group.
Real antisemitism deserves unequivocal condemnation. But disagreement with AIPAC or criticism of Israeli government policy is not, by itself, antisemitism.
If opposing AIPAC’s agenda makes one antisemitic, what does that make the millions of Jewish Americans who oppose it themselves?
The answer is obvious.
Voting against AIPAC is not voting against Jews. It is democracy—not antisemitism.
Source: helleniscope.com
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