The Comfortable Zionism of American Jewry Has Failed Us—Again

The name of every Jew is a Jewish name.

Even mine—Houston Mack.

It doesn’t sound like Goldstein or Cohen or Levi, but it’s a Jewish name because I have borne it in war, in grief, in covenant. I wore it in uniform while defending Israel, and I carry it now as a writer, because someone has to say what so many are too afraid to:

American Jewish leadership is failing. Again.

On April 15, a coalition of ten major Jewish organizations released a joint statement condemning the federal government’s move to revoke visas from international students who protested Israel’s war in Gaza. These were not random protesters. Some openly supported Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Some celebrated October 7th. Some called for intifada. The federal response? Visa revocation and deportation proceedings. In other words: the bare minimum.

But according to the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and their coalition of mainstream partners—including the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, HIAS, and multiple rabbinical councils—these actions “make Jews less safe.” They claim such policies pit communities against each other and exploit “our community’s real concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms.”

It’s a beautifully worded document. It’s also a profound betrayal.

Which Jewish Values?

The JCPA insists they are rejecting a “false choice” between fighting antisemitism and defending democracy. But here’s the question they never answer: What Jewish values are they actually upholding?

Is it the value of protecting the Jewish people, even when it’s unpopular?
Is it the value of truth over comfort?
Or is it the value of respectability—of securing a seat at America’s liberal table at any cost?

Because from where I stand, this isn’t the Zionism of Herzl or Jabotinsky or the youth who jumped off boats onto the beaches of pre-state British Mandatory Palestine. This is a Zionism of convenience—where support for Israel is conditional on comfort, and safety is outsourced to institutions that have failed us before.

The Privilege of Guest Status

Let’s be crystal clear: a student visa is not a human right.
It is a privilege extended to those who respect the laws and values of the host country. When foreign nationals in the U.S. openly call for Jewish death, glorify terrorist attacks, and march under slogans that deny Israel’s right to exist—that’s not peaceful protest. That’s incitement.

And when the government responds with deportation? That’s not fascism. That’s a country exercising its right to say: Not here. Not on our soil. Not on our dime.

False Choices, Real Consequences

In an NPR interview this week, Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the JCPA, warned against the “escalating use of our legitimate concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms and rights.” She cited the case of a Tufts University student arrested after co-authoring an op-ed. She claimed that due process is being denied, rights violated, democracy eroded.

But what democracy is she defending when Jewish students are afraid to wear a kippah on campus? When “Zionist” is used as a slur in classrooms? When people chant “intifada” and “river to the sea” and Jewish leadership says the real danger is the response?

Let’s stop pretending this is about free speech. This is about moral clarity.
And the truth is: too many of our institutions have none.

American Jewry: A History of Caution

This moment is not new. During the Holocaust, major American Jewish organizations delayed action, minimized outcry, and chose access over urgency. They feared being “too Jewish,” too loud, too disruptive. Meanwhile, Jews burned in Europe, and only fringe groups like the Bergsonites raised the alarm—leading to a grave rift between them and American Jewish leaders, as Yad Vashem later noted.

Today, their spiritual descendants are speaking again—and still telling us to be quiet.

They tell us the path to Jewish safety lies in universalism. In civil society. In academia. But Jewish safety has never come from universities or think tanks. It has come from sovereignty. From armed self-defense. From Zionism—not as a sticker on a laptop, but as a worldview.

We Are Not All Standing Behind You

When these organizations say they speak for “mainstream American Jewry,” they don’t speak for those who’ve worn the uniform, buried friends, or carried the burden of Jewish identity into actual fire. They don’t speak for the lone soldiers. The children of Sderot. The Mizrahi kids whose grandparents were expelled from Arab lands. They certainly don’t speak for me.

They speak for boardrooms. For donors. For American comfort dressed in Jewish language.

I speak for a different tradition. The one that remembers we are a people, not just a cause. That sometimes peace comes after strength, not before it. That Jewish survival requires discernment, not denial.

You Cannot Outsource Resolve

If the Jewish future is to mean anything, it must be built not on slogans or safety nets, but on courage. That includes the courage to say: some guests don’t get to stay. Some protests don’t deserve applause. And not everyone who calls themselves a Zionist truly is one.

Zionism is not about where you write checks. It’s about where you draw lines.

If that makes me “too intense,” so be it. Herzl was intense. Ben-Gurion fired on the Altalena. Begin held his fire and swallowed his grief. Our founders weren’t polite. They were urgent.

I don’t write this because I want to be controversial. I write it because I want the next Jewish child—whether in Tel Aviv or Tucson—to live in a world where they don’t have to apologize for surviving. And that world will not be built by those who always choose comfort.