Caught in the middle: Who are our friends?

Call it a form of mild Jewish bi-polarism. Politically speaking.

As a reflection of the current social and political climate, in which we are torn between a) accepting the views of people who seem to have deserted the Jewish community, or b) rejecting these people and advocating our narrow interests to the exclusion of all others, many of us face mood swings and choices that apparently are at odds with each other: Do we embrace the actions of people who – temporarily, it seems – favor our communal interests? Or do we exclude them, because their overall pattern of behavior works against our established beliefs?

In our precarious era of extremism, and of increasing anti-Jewish/anti-Israel sentiments, we are often of two minds. We find it hard to discern who is with us, who is against us, or to discern which issues are our top priorities, and which ones are less vital. We ask ourselves, must we embrace, or push away, some people if we become at odds over the issues that now define us? Can we afford to lose friends or allies? Is total un-adulteration from positions that do not align with ours a necessity? Do we wish to isolate ourselves more than we already are?

In other words, can we demand total conformity from people in the non-Jewish world, and, to a distressing degree in the last two years, from fellow Jews?

Answers to these questions have seemed more urgent since October 7.

In mid-2025, a few months from the second anniversary of the horrendous Hamas attacks that came out of Gaza, we, as a Jewish community, face many questions:

• How do you react if you are a proud, identified, politically aware Jew, an unapologetic Zionist and defender of Israel … and some of the most-prominent men and women who appear to vociferously take your side on some critical Jewish issues are people, especially politicians, with whom you otherwise vehemently disagree on many other social and current-events issues? Whose views and behavior you find, in general, unacceptable? Individuals with whom you, in most circumstances, would be loath to associate?
• Do you expect 100% compliance with your point of view?
• Does the slightest deviance from your positions cause you to strike someone from your life?

This is the situation in which I, and many like-minded members of my Jewish circles, often find ourselves nowadays.

First, full disclosure: I am a registered-independent voter. Not a member of any party, major or minor. I often agree with some positions of the Democrats, and of the Republicans. And I just as often disagree with them, to varying degrees; sometimes I don’t fully support or oppose a party’s – or leader’s or candidate’s — position on any issue, finding either stance un-nuanced, un-compromising, un-realistic. I am not doctrinaire — on some issues I come down on the liberal side of the spectrum; on others, on the conservative side. In other words, I judge every issue on its merits, and am not beholden to any simplistic, reflexive form of self-identity or group affiliation.

On one issue I am uncompromising – Jewish survival.

My approach puts more demands on me – if you adopt the “intersectionality” mindset, as many people on the Left and Right have done, you surrender your thinking ability and your rights to be taken seriously. Thinking takes effort.

Ditto for the people in my Orthodox circles with whom I normally socialize. Moderates, middle-of-the-roaders all, in matters political and religious. We find commonality with politicians and other public figures on some issues, and strongly part company on others. My friends and I don’t necessarily agree with each other on everything. No litmus tests. No expectation of intellectual lock-stepping.

Which is why I was particularly distressed by a controversy involving Rep. Elise Stefanik.

Stefanik, of course, is the Republican member of the House of Representatives – briefly nominated by President Trump to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations – who in House hearings famously confronted the presidents of three prestigious U.S. universities over their schools’ First Amendment acquiescence to rabid “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators during a growing climate of anti-Semitism on their campuses.

She challenged their acceptance, citing First Amendment protection, of hostile calls for violence and threats against Jews.

In the end, two of the three presidents are now former university presidents, and other U.S. universities have adopted policies that are more protective of Jews.

Bravo, Ms. Stefanik!

As Jews, we applaud her public position in defense of the Jewish community. But as citizens of the United States who adopt a centrist position on many other areas of concern, we strenuously part company – there, she does not speak for many of us.

Representative of New York’s 21^st upstate congressional district, she previously was a fierce critic of Donald Trump, attacking candidates who made “untruthful statements.” But once in Congress, she quickly had an apparent change of heart, becoming one of the President’s most-zealous, most-outspoken, most-loyal advocates, defending him against impeachment charges, and repeating Trump’s unsubstantiated charge that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election.

As someone very wary of the excesses of the current presidential administration, I find her radical switch of allegiance intolerable.

Now do we consider her friend or foe? Does one good step – admittedly, a giant step against anti-Semitism –outweigh the rest of her record? Do we close our eyes to the latter because of the former? Do we ignore the benefits she has reaped from her high-visibility confrontation with the university leaders – “she raked in more than $7 million during the first quarter of the year,” and “her political star is one the rise,” according to journalist-author Emily Tamkin in a yahoo.com essay – because of her outspoken rejection of anti-Jewish bias?

These are the choices we face, the questions we ask. But it goes beyond Stefanik; she is just one example. Now we face such choices every day. And the consequences are not merely hypothetical – they’re existential when the security of Israel or of Jewish students on campus are at stake. And they determine how we see ourselves.

Stefanik is, no pun intended, representative of a wider identity-and-identification issue that seems to be growing more widespread and more upsetting for people in the Jewish community. There is no need to name names; we know who are the public figures—including authors and artists and actors — who have staked out positions that are unrepresentative of Jewish sensitivities.

Which puts us in a bind. Many of us find ourselves forced – by our consciences, at least, and by our sense of propriety – to choose whom we endorse, whom we tolerate, and whom we condemn. Whom we authentically consider our personal friends or our community’s friends.

This issue became more public, more contentious again recently. Some 50 faculty members of Yeshiva University took a public stand against the school honoring Stefanik at its commencement ceremonies. In a protest letter, the signees declared that “to award Stefanik the presidential medallion is, effectively, to endorse dishonesty” and accused Stefanik of gaining prominence “by advancing extremist positions,” including her description of the people arrested at the Jan. 6, 2021 riot in the Capitol building as “hostages.”

The letter reflects my distress, which centers around the ill will and inflexibility of both sides (the repugnant extremes, as I see them) of the political, and religious, spectrums. We cannot give a pass to someone who stands up for us in one vital area, but in many other areas opposes our standards. I feel as uncomfortable with the MAGA world as with the “progressive” faction of politics.

Stefanik is on the Right. Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish climate-warming activist, is on the Left. I applaud her work for a safer environment, but am repelled by her “intersectionality”-inspired participation in the recent “selfie yacht” flotilla that tried to sail to Gaza, flouting Israeli wishes. Like others who would describe themselves as progressive, she has consistently taken her alleged concern for the welfare of Palestinian Arabs into positions that clearly mark her as anti-Israel and anti-Zionist.

How are we supposed to relate to the Stefaniks and the Thunbergs of the world? Do we ignore or overlook or rationalize their missteps in order to accept their allegiance? Or do we put their support aside, and reject them based on the larger arc of their actions? Do we make common cause with the MAGA movement, which has denounced anti-Semitism at the leadership level while fostering anti-Semitism among its ranks? Do we – most Jews in the U.S. continue to identify as Democrats – close a blind eye to the progressives who are gaining strength in the party, who distance themselves from Israel and the anti-Israel issue while advocating social causes that many Jews in this country support?

Do I have the right to demand 100% spiritual purity on those matters closest to my heart? Do we have to question the motives – eschatological fantasies for “Christian Zionists,” transactional goals like garnering votes or eliminating “woke” influences at universities for taking a stand against anti-Semitism – of people who putatively stand with us? Do we fall into the all-or-nothing trap of believing, as the expression goes, that an enemy agrees with us (only) 90 percent of the time. Can we maintain civility with people whose views on fundamental issues differ significantly from ours? Are we willing to be co-opted by people who show (or feign) support for the matters important to us?

These are not easy questions. I’m not alone in asking them. Or in discovering that there are more questions than answers.

Another example in this vein: the House of Representatives recently voted on a bi-partisan resolution condemning anti-Semitism. Two House members of the House notably voted “present,” instead of voting for (or, G-d-forbid, against) the resolution: Georgia’s far-right Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Michigan’s far-left Rashida Tlaib. The former, a professing Christian; the latter, a practicing Muslim. They offered differing reasons for their votes …

• Greene: “Anti-Semitic hate crimes are wrong, but so are all hate crimes. Yet Congress never votes on hate crimes committed against white people, Christians, men, the homeless, or countless others. Prioritizing one group of Americans and/or one foreign country above our own people” – our own people! – “is fueling resentment and actually driving more division, including anti-Semitism.”
• Tlaib: The resolution, and a second, related one are “Republican-led attempts to cynically politicize tragic acts of violence … to demonize immigrant communities, praise ICE, and pave the way for the further repression of our constitutional rights to free speech and protest in support of Palestinian lives and human rights.”

… but, bottom line, converged on their indifference to the safety of the Jewish community. And both managed to plead for the safety of their own religious group, while down playing the significance of the threat to Jews.

People like that clearly suffer from tunnel vision – and Jews are not inside their tunnels. If we share their views, and votes, on some political issues, can we afford to overlook their indifference to us?

Our decision-making responsibility isn’t just personal or political. It’s both. The political has become personal. And vice versa. This “who are my friends?” conundrum affects both my personal relationships (i.e., the friendships I begin to find untenable) and my political choices (the candidates I support on some issues but find unacceptable on others.)

At one time, before we – in the United States and in Israel – became so divided and so polarized, it was easy to decide in whose circles of belief we belonged. If we self-identified as [name your priority issue], most of our friends, and most of the influential decision makers we supported, shared our values – there was little disagreement, little divergence on important matters.

Usually we pick our friends, or the candidates for whom we cast our votes or campaign, on the basis of many criteria, many issues. Someone who could share our preferences, or oppose them, on a wide range of divisive topics – immigration, birthright citizenship, abortion, gun rights, gay rights, yeshiva students being drafted into the IDF, women being ordained as rabbis, the “two state solution,” etc. – and still maintain mutual respect.

Now that civility is in the past.

Now there is little unanimity of thought.

Now times, and the political climate, have changed. Now we have to draw a line. Now, for many of us, a single issue increasingly predominates. Especially since October 7. If you don’t support Israel’s right – or necessity – to take any steps it needs to protect its citizens and prevent the Hamas atrocities from recurring, how can you be my friend? How can you be my candidate?

These choices are painful. If one issue becomes a priority, others – with which we share common ground with acquaintances or politicians — must fall by the wayside.

Now there is a chasm. Now, folks who were on board with us have been unfriended from Facebook, erased from our phonebooks, consigned to ”were” status in our minds. If Israel, anti-Semitism and the personal safety of Jews are not at the top of other people’s priority lists, what need do we have for them? But, what about people like Stefanik, who voice support for our top issues, but stake out other positions we find very objectionable?

Being in the position of accepting opinions with which we disagree –of friends, or of public figures – is not a new phenomenon. It’s as old as friendships. And as politics.

But now – since the last few presidential election cycles, and especially since October 7 – it is more pronounced, more evident, more stressful. Now we feel forced to choose sides. Or to choose – or re-evaluate – friendships. How can I remain friends with someone who supports [take your pick of issues or candidates]? How can I vote for some who supports [a candidate or political position with which I vehemently disagree?

October 7 has brought a paradigm shift for many Jews – at least those, like me, who draw a line when our existential safety and survival are at stake.

What does this all mean?

That we have to cut ties with people with whom we shared friendships? That we have to disassociate from alliances we once considered integral and un-questioned? By their silence after October, our one-time allies indicated that our support was not mutual.

We have no choice but to put our community’s interests first.

Their silence is intolerable. We have no choice – goodbye!

The cost of making these choices. Isolation. Scorn. Criticism.

Which we can accept – because survival trumps everything else.

So we are forced to accept the support of people with whom we otherwise disagree.

Are all these men and women our true friends? Or are they saying the right words because of political expediency?

Does it matter? Can we afford to be choosy?

As – like Bilaam called the Jewish people – “a nation that dwells alone,” we need friends. Or people who, in limited situations, seem like friends – people, who increasingly, are rightwing national leaders who traditionally were hostile to Jews.

For our own sakes, we have to accept the diagnosis of political bi-polarism.

Do we accept the premise of author Marc Neugroschel’s essay in the Jerusalem Post, whose headline was “Sometimes false friends are better than none”?

History will show who are friends are, and aren’t.

Which raises another question – is losing the “friendship” of a fair-weather ally really a loss?