‘The feeling is, wow’: Orthodox attitude toward Biden shifts amid show of support for Israel
President Joe Biden hugs Hamas attack survivor on Oct. 18, 2023. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
By Louis Keene, Jacob KornbluhOctober 22, 2023
The scene might have been unfathomable at the start of the month: a delegation of Orthodox Jews hand-delivering thousands of thank-you notes to a Democratic president.
But when Rabbi Shay Schachter solicited messages of support for President Biden last week, letters from around the world flooded his mailbox. Schachter, head of the Young Israel in Woodmere, bussed some 40 students from nine New York-area Orthodox day schools to Washington on Wednesday to express their gratitude in person.
“Whether you voted for this president or not,” said Rabbi Schachter, “whether you believe in his foreign policies or not, right now, he is taking a courageous stance to defend Israel and the Jewish people.”
Since Hamas militants from Gaza rampaged through southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 and injuring thousands of others, and taking roughly 200 people hostage, Biden has fulfilled what Orthodox Jews — who for decades have leaned conservative — might describe as a wish list.
He ordered emergency military and financial aid to Israel. He froze funds on their way to Iran. He flew to Israel, a rare move for a president to visit a country at war when U.S. troops are not involved.
But it was not just what the president did. It is what he has said, and how forcefully he has said it. In both prepared and off-the-cuff remarks that crescendoed to an Oval Office address Thursday, Biden has thrown his weight behind Israel without qualification. He has echoed the shock, outrage and disgust at the attacks that Jewish people felt. He called Hamas terrorists from the outset, characterized its violence as antisemitic and likened Israel’s right to defend itself to a fight of good versus evil.
Orthodox Jews have long been a political photo negative of the three-quarters of American Jews who reliably vote for Democrats. Orthodox Jews turned out en masse for former President Donald Trump in 2020, and recent polls indicate they will repeat their vote for the Republican nominee in 2024.
But President Biden’s response to the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel has impressed many of his Orthodox critics. There’s a feeling that his support is sincere and — having overruled the more liberal flank of his party calling for a cease-fire — courageous, too.
It is unclear how long the moment will last, or whether it moves the needle with voters. But if it merely restores confidence in Democratic leadership, it may help reverse a decades-long trend of right-wing political entrenchment in the Orthodox community.
“There’s no question there’s a shift,” said Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Ami Magazine, a weekly publication that caters to the Orthodox community. “The feeling is, ‘Wow.’ He has to be thanked.”
Mending fences
In interviews, several Orthodox Jews described their reaction to Biden’s governing the past two weeks as one of pleasant surprise – despite Biden’s full-fledged support for Israel throughout his political career.
Biden has said that his appreciation for Israel dates back to his childhood, when he internalized the concept of “Never Again.” As a first-term senator in 1973, one of his initial overseas trips was to Israel on the eve of the Yom Kippur War. As the vice president under President Barack Obama, he helped advance an Israel foreign aid package of unprecedented size.
But Biden entered his presidency under a cloud of suspicion from many Orthodox Jews, who had grown suspicious of the Democratic party overall. The Obama administration’s approach to Middle East affairs was polarizing and, in general, the Orthodox community criticized it. President Obama shared a visibly frosty relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Obama’s hallmark foreign policy achievement — the Iran nuclear agreement — was seen as enabling Israel’s worst enemy.
Former President Trump fortified Republican support in the Orthodox community during his term. He put Orthodox Jews in senior positions — including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner and Ambassador to Israel David Friedman — and took hard-line stances on Israel, including the controversial decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem.
Yet the starkest contrast Biden may not be with his Oval Office predecessors, but with contemporary voices on the left — both in the government and on the ground — who are variously framing the Hamas attacks as a form of resistance, condemning Israel’s military response or demanding a cease-fire. Among them are university presidents, social justice groups, and sitting members of Congress.
Shlomo Schorr, associate director for Agudath Israel of New Jersey, a Haredi umbrella group, said many people in his community anticipated Biden to take a more even-handed position on the violence. Instead, Biden has refrained from publicly calling on Israel to back down.
“They understand where some of the Democratic Party is right now, and the pressure that the president could come under from people within his own party,” Schorr said. “I think that’s what they’re comparing it to.”
Schorr listed the warships sent to the Mediterranean Sea early in the war and the $14 billion aid package for Israel Biden requested. “I think all that combined is leaving people, like, ‘What more could he do as a U.S. president?’”
Friedman, the former ambassador to Israel under Trump, is now among the Orthodox Jews crediting Biden for his response.
“In Judaism there is an obligation of hakarat hatov — saying thank you to those who perform good deeds,” Friedman posted Oct. 12 on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “While I have been, and remain, deeply critical of the Biden administration, the moral, tactical, diplomatic and military support that it has provided Israel over the past few days has been exceptional.”
‘The walking kishka test’
One representative moment came during a special briefing Biden held for Jewish community leaders on Oct. 11, when Nathan Diament, policy director for the Orthodox Union, rose to thank the president for his “leadership and moral clarity.” Later, Diament went on Fox News to praise the president’s response.
A powerful moment from @NDiament during the roundtable with @POTUS today:
80 years ago this week, a group of 400 rabbis came to D.C. to meet with FDR about the Jews being persecuted in Europe. They were refused entry into the White House. pic.twitter.com/SjM99olcqe
In an interview with the Forward, Diament called Biden “the walking kishka test for being pro-Israel.”
“I’ve heard from people who I know did not vote for Joe Biden in the last presidential election that they’re really impressed and grateful for what Biden has done,” Diament said.
Sara Forman, founder of NY Solidarity Network, a group launched in 2022 to promote pro-Israel candidates, said she has also heard “a lot of praise from within the community, regardless of affiliation” for the president’s actions and words.
Approval for Biden’s response extended to Orthodox Jews. Nevertheless, many said they would still pick Trump over him in 2024.
Aaron Tobin Hess, 36, said that prior to the attack, he considered the president “a buffoon who pandered to the ultra-left.”
Tobin Hess, who identifies as modern Orthodox, gave the president only a B-minus for his response overall, citing Biden’s decision to release $100 million of humanitarian aid to Gaza and his engagement with Iran prior to the war. He was confident that Hamas would appropriate that aid to further its attacks.
But he conceded that Biden had shown himself to be “an ally to Israel on its darkest day.”
Dov Hikind, a former Democratic Assembly member who recently changed his registration to Republican “because the Democrats have turned their back on Jews and Israel,” sounded ecstatic when he spoke about Biden on Thursday. A “superstar” and “amazing,” he described the Democratic president on a phone call from Israel. “He really just knocked it out of the park.”
The positive attitude towards Biden could change within a moment, Hikind cautioned. “He could ruin it in one minute if he starts pressuring Israel the wrong way,” as the Israeli military proceeds in a ground invasion of Gaza, and Palestinian casualties mount.
Tobin Hess echoed that sentiment. “Never for a second do I think that it can’t flip,” he said. “He’s still the head of the party that includes Nancy Pelosi and the Squad.”
Changing Orthodox minds, but likely not ballots
It remains to be seen whether the last two weeks of policy decisions will affect electoral politics.
A recent survey of 800 registered Jewish voters in the U.S., conducted by the Jewish Electoral Institute, showed that Israel continues to rank low as an issue of concern, in line with previous surveys. But for Orthodox and Republican-leaning independent voters, it ranks high.
According to Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster and head of the Democratic Majority for Israel, Biden’s pro-Israel policies could play well in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, and also benefit down-ballot Democratic candidates in pivotal districts in Florida and New York with significant Orthodox populations.
The JEI poll showed Orthodox voters choosing Trump over Biden by a 75-13 percentage point margin. A similar survey of 2,481 Orthodox voters, conducted by Nishma Research, showed the group leaning heavily toward the Republican presidential candidate by a wide 74% to 26% margin.
“Israel is definitely at the forefront for Orthodox Jewish voters everywhere,” Schorr, of Agudath Israel, said. “We all have family there, we all visit. But when it comes to voting, or at least for the Haredi world, I don’t think that Israel is the No. 1 or even No. 2 or three. At the end of the day, like most Americans, we’re trying to afford to live, we’re trying to educate our children. There’s many more issues that affect day-to-day life for us that Haredi Jews will vote for.”
Instead, experts say the likeliest effect being that Biden is “setting the tone” in his party when it comes to Israel, while the left wing is being marginalized with no influence on policy, Forman said.
When Schachter asked the Biden administration whether it would appreciate hearing from the Orthodox community in person, he said they didn’t believe him. “I think they never in their wildest dreams imagined this would happen,” he said.
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who has taken a lead role in the administration’s outreach to Jewish Americans, emphasized the importance of the show of support, posting pictures of the gathering on social media. “It’s hard to describe how much these letters mean,” he said.
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