Should Israelis Living Abroad Return to Vote?

Co-authored by Anna Abramzon and Karen Klein

To vote, or not to vote, that is the question. Never mind that it might cost us thousands.

With Israel’s national election just days away, Israeli citizens living abroad face a question of our own: Just because we have the legal right to return to Israel and vote, should we? It is a question the two of us have been debating for weeks. We met through our respective writing in The Times of Israel, and after going back and forth privately ad nauseam, decided it was time to do the most Israeli-Jewish thing possible: take this argument public.

We have much in common, both with each other and with many Israelis who live between countries and identities. We both grew up in the Diaspora, spent formative years living in Israel, and today we live in Los Angeles while remaining deeply connected to Israel personally, culturally and professionally. That back-and-forth, dual lived experience is familiar to many Israeli dual nationals: building a life abroad without feeling that Israel has ceased to be home. 

Neither of us questions our commitment to the State of Israel or the importance of this particular election. What we disagree on is what Israeli citizenship means when a citizen lives somewhere else. Does citizenship itself give an Israeli abroad a legitimate voice in choosing the country’s government? Or does living outside Israel create an ethical responsibility to defer to those who will experience that government’s decisions most directly?

Which brings us back to our central question: Should we get on a plane and go to Israel to vote?

Karen says yes. Anna is not so sure.

For Karen, the answer begins with a distinction between citizenship and residency.

I support Israeli citizens living abroad participating in elections because citizenship and residency are not the same thing. Living outside Israel does not erase my citizenship, my responsibility to the country, or my stake in its future. Residency describes where I live at a given moment. Citizenship reflects an ongoing political relationship with the state.

I recognize that Israelis living in the country experience the consequences of their government’s decisions more directly than I do. That deserves serious consideration when I vote. But I do not believe that living with different consequences makes my participation illegitimate. The government determines foreign policy, national security and Israel’s relationship with the United States. It also makes decisions involving religion and state, personal status, marriage, divorce and conversion that can remain relevant to Israeli citizens wherever we live.

Nor does living abroad necessarily mean permanently leaving Israel. In my own case, amid a worsening climate of hostility toward Jews and Israelis in the United States, the question of whether to remain here or return to Israel is ongoing. I ask myself regularly whether I should stay or go back. Sometimes I am not sure where I will want to live next week. The government elected now could be the government I return to live under.

Yet my claim to a voice does not depend on plans to return. I follow Israeli politics, maintain family and community ties, and remain personally and professionally invested in the country’s future. Voting is one way I fulfill the responsibilities of a citizenship I continue to hold and value.

The cost of participating also matters. Returning to vote requires airfare, time away from work and, for some, childcare. Those expenses determine who can exercise the same right that Anna and I are debating whether to use. I do not believe a citizen’s ability to participate should depend on the price of a plane ticket. I have the right to vote, and perhaps this is the American in me speaking, but I also feel a responsibility to use it.

For Anna, the answer begins with a different question: who should have the greatest say over a government whose consequences they will live with every day?

I find Karen’s argument that voting is a responsibility compelling. And yet, my feeling is that choosing not to vote, as counter intuitive as it feels, is more of a service to Israel than imposing my own views when I won’t be living with the biggest of the consequences. Citizenship alone does not erase the distinction between living in Israel and living elsewhere. The fact that Israeli law permits me to return for an election doesn’t necessarily mean that doing so is the right thing to do.

As important as Israel is to me, I can’t be certain that my priorities as a Jew in the Diaspora align with the priorities of those Israelis who live in the country. I don’t experience Israeli healthcare, education, taxation, housing, transportation, or security policy as the person who lives there does. My kids have not spent their childhoods running to bomb shelters. Those realities inevitably shape political priorities. I can’t presume that my perspective should have equal weight in determining how a society I don’t currently live in should be governed.

I understand the argument that what happens in Israeli elections affects Jews everywhere. This is undoubtedly true. Nevertheless, Jews who are not Israeli citizens can’t vote in Israeli elections. If Diaspora Jews, who happen to have Israeli citizenship, but no imminent plans to live there, can vote and shape the immediate future of the country, why aren’t all Jews allowed to vote? After all, they too will be affected by the election’s outcome.  Do we extend voting rights to every Jew in the world? What distinguishes an Israeli citizen living abroad from a non-Israeli Jew who has an equally profound emotional and familial connection to Israel? The answer can’t simply be “an Israeli passport.” That establishes citizenship, but it doesn’t resolve the question of whether citizenship alone should determine political participation when someone has permanently relocated their life elsewhere. 

Where we agree:

Our conversation revealed a difference beyond our views on voting: how we each imagine our future relationship with Israel. For Karen, returning is an open and recurring possibility. For Anna, there are no imminent plans to move back. That difference helps explain why one of us sees voting as taking responsibility for a future she may live in, while the other questions shaping a future whose daily consequences she does not expect to share.

We agree that Israeli citizenship carries responsibilities wherever we live, and that our connection to the country calls for continued involvement and care. What we disagree on is whether that responsibility should bring us to the ballot box. As the election approaches, we each have to decide what our commitment to Israel asks of us, knowing that the same commitment can lead to different choices.