Trading Zionist access for Hasidic voting blocs

In the room at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, a Senate candidate is apologizing for his response to an attack on a local synagogue. One reading sees a sincere moment of grace that won back reluctant voters. Another sees a calculated political maneuver that completely ignores the candidate's core anti-Zionist platform.

I'm Tamar.

And I'm Eli. This is another episode of Tribe & State, a Daily Lion production, where we follow where Israel and the Jewish world are pulling together, and where they are pulling apart.

Secular flight into Jewish education is rewriting the American Jewish covenant while political alliances fracture at the extremes. Today on the show: Abdul El-Sayed apologizes to Jewish Democrats in a dead-heat Senate race, Donald Trump hosts rival Hasidic leaders, a grassroots Haredi push for integration, and the move to certify mohalim to prevent bans. And then, for our members, we go deep on the private enrollment influx and the battle for mission—asking whether these schools can absorb a massive secular migration without losing the religious identity they were built on.

The room at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus is where Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee, is standing to ask for forgiveness. Back in March, a Lebanese American man rammed his car into the West Bloomfield Reform synagogue. Because the attacker had lost family in Lebanon to Israeli airstrikes, El-Sayed put out a video at the time saying that 'hurt people hurt people'. Now, he's telling the caucus he made a mistake. In his words, 'If my statement caused pain, I’m sorry.'

He tells them that while he was trying to provide context, it was the wrong time. The phrase he uses is, 'Sometimes you can’t really see context in the moment of acuity or pain.' And for some people in that room, the apology works. The Forward quotes a delegate named Rebecca Kasen, who says it moved her from a reluctant voter to an enthusiastic one.

The reading from Jewish Insider treats the appearance entirely differently. They quote Michael Horowitz, a Jewish Democratic leader who's actually crossing party lines to vote Republican. He says El-Sayed is doing exactly what a skilled politician would do, which is saying exactly what he needs.

Beyond the apology for the synagogue comment, the actual policy differences are massive. When he was asked about a two-state solution, El-Sayed pivoted away from it, arguing that it's incoherent to start with a solution rather than a process for equal rights.

The anxiety here goes way beyond one policy answer. As we said last week, the streamer Hasan Piker's warning that Jews tied to Israel will face physical consequences has turned this Senate campaign into a physical safety issue for Jewish Democrats. El-Sayed campaigned with Piker during the primary.

Now, the strategy from El-Sayed and his surrogates is to aggressively ignore him to maintain party unity. At a recent town hall, Representative Debbie Dingell explicitly told the crowd, 'Don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker.'

But there are a few holdouts. Representative Hillary Scholten is one of the only Michigan Democrats refusing to endorse El-Sayed, specifically because of the Piker relationship. She told an audience, 'I do not support the comments of Hasan Piker. He has said some terrible things.'

That's a massive political risk for her. El-Sayed won her Kent County base in the primary. Her own staff have warned her about the potential consequences of the stand, but she views it as a fundamental moral line.

It's a risk other Jewish Democrats are navigating as well. Attorney General Dana Nessel skipped the convention entirely out of fear of antisemitic harassment, following an earlier convention where she was targeted by agitators. The state is home to an estimated one hundred thousand Jews, and Jewish caucus members are openly struggling with how to unify them behind this slate.

The argument from the right is that this is no longer about one surrogate or one apology. The case there is that the Democratic Party itself has normalized anti-Zionism. This reading argues that while the overwhelming majority of Republicans has rejected the extremism and antisemitism of Carlson, the left has elevated Piker to the exact same role.

For this reading, the apology changes nothing because anti-Zionism, which seeks to strip Jews of rights that no one thinks to wish away from any other group, has become completely mainstreamed within the party.

The critique is that El-Sayed can apologize for a clumsy phrase about a synagogue, but he fundamentally agrees with Piker that supporters of Israel have lost their moral compass. The accusation from the right is that vast numbers of Democratic officeholders have embraced false claims that Israel is committing genocide or imposed starvation there.

The immediate crisis over the Temple Israel comments has been smoothed over in that room. But the deeper fracture remains completely unresolved—whether a candidate who rejects a two-state solution in favor of a vague process for equal rights can actually hold a Jewish constituency that feels its physical safety is on the ballot.

The Oval Office hosted a very different kind of Jewish delegation ahead of Rosh Hashanah this week. President Donald Trump met with several Hasidic rabbis at the White House on Thursday. His office described the gathering as the first of its kind in nearly fifty years. And for the Haredi world, the headline from that room was actually a single handshake. The meeting produced a rare moment when the two Satmar Rebbes, brothers who've led rival factions for two decades without speaking, shook hands face-to-face.

It's a striking image. The delegation hailed from a range of leading Hasidic sects in New York, including Bobov, Vizhnitz, and Skver. Jared Kushner and Vice President JD Vance were in the room, along with Representative Mike Lawler. And the conversation was entirely domestic. They talked about housing shortages for large families, expanding tax benefits for families with more than three children, and prison reform.

Vance even joked with the rabbis that Hasidim are the only ones with families larger than his own. So one reading of this treats the meeting as a straightforward political transaction. These Hasidic enclaves provide Trump with massive electoral support, often voting almost as a single bloc. The White House is simply rewarding that loyalty with a historic photo op and a direct hearing on the issues they care about, right before the election.

You see that transactional nature in the specifics of the requests. Trump talked about pardoning Jewish prisoners, specifically mentioning Sholom Rubashkin, whose sentence he commuted back in 2017. And that ask was highly coordinated. Rabbis who serve Jewish inmates in federal prisons went to Williamsburg to ask the Satmar leader to raise the issue directly. In return, the Hasidic leaders thanked the president for all he'd done in combatting antisemitism and pushing for school choice.

According to Shlomo Schorr, the gathering was just a quick photo op. There were reports the Satmar leader might ask Trump to oppose the Israeli military draft, but a Satmar source insisted he didn't plan to bring it up. That source framed it as a mutual show of respect, since the president knows the community strongly supported him.

But that transaction comes with a severe cost on the right. Bringing the Satmar leadership into the Oval Office means giving a platform to a sect that opposes Zionism and the establishment of a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah. And a column in Ynet Judaism points out the backlash, noting that including these anti-Zionist rabbis drew criticism from some of Trump's own pro-Israel allies.

Laura Loomer was warning before the meeting even happened that giving a platform to these leaders was going to severely piss off the Jewish Republicans in the MAGA base. And a right-wing radio host echoed that exact objection, calling the invitation of the Satmar leader a massive mistake and arguing he had no right to be anywhere near the president.

That's the friction on the political right. The structural critique comes from a column in JPost Opinion, and it looks past the photo op to ask how this meeting was actually built. The argument there is that we're watching a fundamental shift in how Jewish access to power is brokered.

According to one source, the meeting was initiated by Martin Marks, the White House Jewish liaison. He made the calls himself and spent months on the arrangements. And the column points out that Marks is an entirely different kind of gatekeeper. He has an unconventional background for the role, and he didn't come up through a federation, a defense organization, or a denominational body. He's building a direct pipeline to these specific communities outside the mainstream Jewish establishment, entirely on his own terms.

The communities in that room plausibly account for two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand people directly. When an administration official was asked about the guest list, the defense was pure arithmetic: Trump has won close to a hundred percent of the vote in these enclaves. And the column concedes that organizing access around these growing communities might just reflect future demographics. Nine percent of Jewish adults badly underestimates the Orthodox share of Jewish children.

The column pushes back on the idea that this is just a reliable Republican alliance. These groups vote transactionally. The Satmar stronghold in Kiryas Joel is in New York's eighteenth district, represented by Democrat Pat Ryan. And historically, the Satmar sect has voted transactionally in local New York politics, backing Democrats like Pat Ryan and Kathy Hochul when it serves their local interests.

Which is exactly what makes them so valuable to a White House. The new approach to Jewish engagement filters access by religiosity and by votes that can be delivered, completely ignoring traditional inputs like peoplehood and Zionism.

And the column notes what happened when that shift took place. The Conference of Presidents, the ADL, and the AJC said nothing at all.

So the invitation list is the policy. A rebbe who can deliver a bloc gets the Oval Office, and the organizations that spent decades as the address get silence. Whether the ADL and the AJC ever get that seat back is the question this week's writing leaves sitting on the table.

The deputy mayor of Beit Shemesh, Moti Leitner, is trying to build a political party for Haredi men who want to work and serve in the military. A column in The Jewish Press covers the launch of this new movement, HaTzibbur HaCharedi. The platform's simple: if you aren't genuinely engaged in full-time Torah study, you should serve in the military or do national service.

That's a demand that usually comes from secular Israel. But this is an internal Chareidi movement. The argument is that existing Chareidi parties have spent decades ignoring poverty and employment, just focusing on preserving the current system and demanding more funding.

The poverty behind that system's real. Only fifty-four percent of Chareidi men are employed, with growth stalling over the past decade. An OECD report found that forty-seven percent of Chareidi children live in relative income poverty, made worse because parents lack the education for well-paying jobs.

That means the push has to come from the grassroots. The writer insists that the movement for working Chareidim must be built from the bottom up by ordinary citizens, because rabbis face severe intimidation for speaking out. The argument is that change can't start with famous rabbis signing on.

Extremists use violence and intimidation to silence dissent, protesting at the homes of rabbis and violently disrupting a January conference connected with the Chashmonaim Brigade. Channel 13 reports that elements associated with the Peleg Yerushalmi are even exploring a new party called Code Black to obstruct military police arresting Chareidi draft evaders.

Another reading from the right looks at that intimidation and says the people who privately support integration, work, and national service must stop fence-sitting. The Haredi establishment has reinforced the message that working to support a family is for losers and doesn't belong to the purer Torah of Israel. This argument says they need to publicly back the new movement instead.

That's the view from inside the community, reading this as a necessary rebellion. The view from the outside is pure frustration. A piece from the Religious Zionist camp demands a firm ideological break from Haredi draft evasion. The people making this case say Religious Zionist leaders offer only weak condemnations of Haredi rabbis who call soldiers criminals and murderers, instead of standing up proudly for their own values.

They cite Rabbi Akiva Karmi, who served as the rabbi of Kiryat Shmuel for sixty years, and his synagogue rule that anyone who didn't serve in the army is forbidden from receiving an Aliyah to the Torah.

For this camp, the Haredi sector treats the state merely as a utilitarian tool to extract funds and resources, while contributing no manpower to defend Israel's borders against its enemies. Their argument is that granting a sweeping exemption from arrest for draft dodgers is a spit in the face of the nation and everyone who's sacrificed for it.

But while the political and ideological fights happen, there's an actual reality on the ground. At the Tel Hashomer draft office, extremist Haredim protested and tried to block the path of five hundred new Haredi recruits.

The recruits went in anyway. About three hundred of them are headed for combat tracks — specifically the Hetz company, the Hashmonaim brigade, and the Netzah Yehuda battalion. The motivation for a lot of them is what they've seen over the last year. One recruit joining Netzah Yehuda, Itamar Reinhold, says he was inspired to enlist by his brother who fought in Gaza with that same battalion.

The all-Haredi Hetz company in the Paratroopers Brigade has taken part in offensive operations, including missions to recover the bodies of hostages held in Jabalia.

The military hits a structural wall here. Yaakov Meyuhas, the CEO of Haredim to the Army, writes that the IDF has been investing heavily in the Hashmonaim brigade and dedicated combat frameworks, recognizing that Haredi soldiers need environments that accommodate kashrut, Shabbat, modesty, and Torah study.

That investment's vital. But only about twenty-two point four percent of Haredi recruits who've completed their placement are actually assigned to combat roles. The vast majority of Haredi recruits are headed for technological roles, combat support, training, instruction, administration, and other rear-echelon positions.

Meyuhas argues it's illogical for the military to build a tailored model for combat troops while leaving the majority of Haredi soldiers to navigate unadapted frameworks alone. Every place a Haredi soldier serves must have a clear support system providing appropriate food, Shabbat observance, and modesty, preventing a daily struggle over their lifestyle.

The success of Haredi integration will ultimately be measured by whether soldiers can stay and advance in the system without being forced to gradually abandon their identity. That challenge extends out past their service and into civilian life. The argument from the center is that Israel's public debate focuses way too heavily on legislation, enlistment targets, and sanctions to bring Haredi men into the IDF, paying far too little attention to what happens after they leave.

In twenty twenty-five, eighteen hundred and thirty soldiers from Haredi backgrounds, including three hundred and thirty-six combat soldiers, were discharged. Many of these young men faced significant educational gaps, limited familiarity with academia, and no professional network.

For many of them, enlisting means breaking with their families. A commander in the IDF's Hashmonaim Brigade reports that roughly forty percent of his soldiers are lone soldiers.

The transition to civilian life has to begin before discharge, ensuring every Haredi soldier leaves the IDF with a personal plan, a mentor, and guidance toward education or employment. A discharged Haredi soldier who successfully builds a career and earns a dignified living becomes a role model.

That life, the argument goes, becomes Israel's most powerful untapped recruitment tool for his community.

Hundreds of men are walking through those gates while the protesters scream at them, and the numbers say that part is already happening. The harder question is the one nobody at the gate is asking: most of these recruits will serve in non-combat roles, and whether the army can hold onto their religious life in that kind of posting is what decides if the next hundred come.

Over in Europe, Jewish leadership is trying to build a medical firewall around the mohel. A column in The Jewish Chronicle reports that advocacy groups just opened a brand new certification program in Brussels, specifically to give ritual circumcisers advanced medical training. It's a direct response to a continent that's getting increasingly hostile to the practice.

The immediate trigger is an escalating legal crisis. In May, Belgian police actually raided the homes of three mohalim in Antwerp, and the state is now actively prosecuting them. Belgium hasn't banned the rite itself, but the law there demands that any surgical procedure be done by recognized medical personnel. And without formal clinical standing, a traditional mohel simply doesn't meet that statutory bar.

This is exactly the kind of pressure we've seen building across Europe for a while now. When it started, the initial response was to scramble and form a union, just to standardize the practice and protect the families who rely on it.

Right, and this new Brussels center is the community realizing that a basic union isn't enough anymore. The Hebrew coverage this week details exactly what this new curriculum looks like, and it's entirely clinical. We're talking about formal instruction in newborn medical assessment, infection control, treating hemorrhage, and infant CPR.

They even built it around a rigid four-step safety model: recognize, prevent, stop, and refer. The whole goal is to make absolutely sure that a mohel knows exactly when to delay a bris, or when to immediately refer a baby to a medical professional. It's about taking a deeply intimate, religious moment and proving that it can exist safely inside a modern medical framework.

Which marks a massive shift in how European Jewry argues for its own survival. Rabbi Menachem Margolin runs the European Jewish Association, and his argument here is that just defending religious freedom isn't enough. The default assumption in European capitals is that you have to choose between a child's welfare and an ancient tradition. He rejects that premise, arguing that raising professional standards is what actually strengthens the case for protecting the practice.

And what's striking is that the writers we read this week agree on that point. Nobody we looked at is arguing that advocates should just dig in their heels, claim divine right, and demand autonomy. If you want to keep the rite alive in modern Europe, you have to institutionalize medical standards and show the authorities your hygiene protocols.

But the actual test of that framework isn't going to happen in a classroom. It's going to happen in an Antwerp courtroom, where three men are still facing trial—and it's entirely unclear if a voluntary communal diploma will be enough to make a European prosecutor back down.