The Price of Shrinking: Why American Jews Must Stop Hiding

For many American Jews, Israel has traditionally been viewed as a political cause, a family inheritance or a destination visited through organized trips. For Logan Levkoff, a New York based educator, media personality and Jewish advocate, Israel has become something far more personal. It is the place where she can finally remove the emotional armor she carries through daily life in the United States.

In an interview on my Israel Insider podcast, Levkoff explains why she has visited Israel fourteen times since October 7, how her public support for Israel has affected her professional life and why she believes American Jews must stop minimizing their identity in exchange for social acceptance.

She does not present her frequent visits as evidence that she is a better Jew or a more committed Zionist. Instead, she describes a physical and emotional pull toward Israel that has become impossible to ignore.

You do not realize how much you carry until you unload that armor from your body.

The armor Levkoff describes was not created on October 7. It developed over many years, as hostility toward Israel became increasingly normalized within American schools, universities, media organizations and progressive circles.

Long before the current war, Jewish students were already being expected to defend Israel in environments where history was reduced to ideological slogans. Zionism was increasingly presented not as the national movement of the Jewish people, but as racism, colonialism or oppression.

October 7 did not invent these ideas. It allowed them to move from the margins into the center of public life.

According to Levkoff, one of the most dangerous responses has been the willingness of some American Jews to become quieter. Many have attempted to preserve their professional and social standing by distancing themselves from Israel, avoiding public debate or presenting themselves as Jews who do not make others uncomfortable.

Levkoff refuses to participate in that process.

I am not going to shrink. People are going to have to contend with me, my feelings and my beliefs.

The word shrink captures more than fear. It describes a gradual form of self censorship.

Students stop challenging teachers. Professionals remain silent during hostile conversations about Israel. People remove visible Jewish symbols. Parents advise their children not to attract attention because speaking out could affect a grade, a recommendation or admission to a prestigious university.

Silence may provide temporary protection. But it also teaches the next generation that Jewish identity is something to conceal rather than carry with confidence.

For Levkoff, the issue became personal when her son encountered antisemitic and anti Zionist rhetoric at school years before October 7. At the age of fifteen, she says, he was called an ethnic cleanser and a genocidal maniac.

These accusations were not directed at an Israeli politician or military official. They were directed at a Jewish teenager in an American school.

When Levkoff encouraged other Jewish parents to become involved, some supported her privately but were unwilling to act publicly. Their children were focused on grades, recommendations and future opportunities. Creating controversy appeared too risky.

For Levkoff, this represented a failure of adult leadership.

We cannot ask young people to take risks that we are not willing to take ourselves.

Jewish institutions frequently encourage students to confront antisemitism and display pride in their identity. Yet those messages lose their meaning when adults withdraw as soon as there is a professional or social cost.

Young people notice the contradiction. They understand when courage is celebrated in theory but discouraged in practice.

Levkoff believes Jewish parents and community leaders must make two commitments. Young Jews must know that their community will support them when they defend their identity. They must also see adults accepting the same risks they expect young people to accept.

Levkoff has experienced those risks herself. As her public platform became more openly connected to Zionism and Jewish identity, she says her media career became quieter. Professional opportunities disappeared and institutions that had previously welcomed her became less interested in her voice.

Her response was not to become less visible, but more direct.

I need to be able to look in the mirror and know that I am doing the things I would want my children to do under the same circumstances.

Her criticism is also directed at the way Jewish identity has been taught in the United States.

For decades, much of organized Jewish life has focused on religious practice, synagogue membership, holidays and preparation for bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies. These elements are important, but Levkoff argues that they are not enough.

Judaism is also peoplehood, history, language, culture, collective memory and connection to a homeland.

When Jewish education is reduced mainly to religious practice, young people may grow up without the historical knowledge needed to understand Zionism or answer accusations against Israel. They may know how to participate in a ceremony, but not how to explain the origins of the Jewish people, the importance of Hebrew or the relationship between Jewish identity and Israel.

This weakness becomes more dangerous when American political categories are imposed on Jewish history. Within parts of the progressive world, Jews are increasingly described as white, privileged and powerful. Israel is then placed into a simplified framework in which one side must be the oppressor and the other the victim.

Jewish history does not fit neatly into that model. Jews are a diverse people with roots in the Middle East, centuries of exile and a long history of persecution across different political systems and continents.

Yet Levkoff believes some Jews accept this distorted framework because they fear exclusion from communities they consider morally important. They distance themselves from Zionism in order to remain accepted.

But acceptance that requires abandoning a central part of personal and collective history is not genuine inclusion.

Many American Jews believed that Israel needed us more than we needed Israel. October 7 showed that Jews are one family, regardless of where they live.

This helps explain why Levkoff feels different when she arrives in Israel.

In New York, she deliberately leads with her Jewish identity. She wears Jewish symbols, speaks openly about Israel and refuses to allow hostility to determine how she presents herself.

In Israel, that effort is unnecessary. Jewish identity is embedded in the language, calendar, history and public space.

In Israel, I feel whole.

Levkoff does not ignore Israel’s political disagreements or social challenges. She has visited during protests, war and intense polarization. What she values is the shared understanding that Israel matters and that its future is worth fighting for.

She is also frustrated by the narrow way Israel is presented internationally. Global audiences encounter the country mainly through war, military operations and political disputes. They rarely see its technology, culture, food, wine, scientific research, entrepreneurship and ordinary daily life.

During the Israel Insider interview, Levkoff emphasizes that the most effective way to challenge this distorted picture is to bring people to Israel.

Through Caravan for Democracy, a JNF USA program, she helps bring non Jewish student leaders from American campuses to the country. She also created Dor Chazak, a leadership initiative for Jewish parents and teenagers.

The idea behind both programs is simple: direct experience is more powerful than political messaging.

The only way to understand Israel is to show up. Speak with the people, experience the country and see it for yourself.

The debate surrounding antisemitism often focuses on what universities, governments and media organizations should do. Those institutions have clear responsibilities. They must protect Jewish students, enforce rules consistently and reject discrimination disguised as political activism.

But Levkoff’s argument on Israel Insider begins with the Jewish community itself.

Will Jewish institutions teach peoplehood and history alongside religious practice? Will parents support children who speak out? Will Jewish professionals continue remaining silent because visibility carries a price?

Most importantly, will American Jews continue seeking acceptance from communities that demand they abandon Zionism as the price of admission?

Levkoff has already made her choice.

I am not letting anyone make us hide who we are. It is simply not going to happen.