I appreciate Michael Barnett’s thought-provoking review of Trouble in the Tribe, and the important questions he raises about the implications of my analysis. Before responding to a couple of these questions, I must first clarify a central argument of my book that Barnett has misinterpreted. I argue that, in general, American Jews are becoming more ambivalent and more critical in their attitudes toward Israel, and that the pro-Israel consensus that once united them is eroding. But I do not claim that they have become less attached to Israel—the “distancing hypothesis” that Barnett mistakenly equates with my argument. In fact, I explicitly reject this common claim in my book. Abundant quantitative and qualitative data indicate that most American Jews remain emotionally attached to Israel, albeit to varying degrees. While I share Barnett’s reservations about the reliability of opinion surveys, it would be foolish to ignore or dismiss the findings of numerous rigorously conducted surveys over many years that clearly show that American Jewish attachment to Israel has not significantly declined (though it fluctuates). Moreover, not only do most American Jews still say that they care about Israel, but they also demonstrate this by visiting Israel in increasing numbers, by continuing to give huge sums of money to various causes in Israel, and even by vociferously arguing about Israel—after all, why argue so much about Israel if you do not care about it? In fact, over the past two decades, American Jews have actually become more actively engaged with Israel in many ways.

In Trouble in the Tribe, I argue that what is really changing in the American Jewish relationship with Israel is not that American Jews are disengaging from it but that they are critically engaging with Israel. They are now less willing to provide blanket support for Israel’s policies and actions, and more willing to publicly criticize them. This does not mean, however, that American Jewish support for Israel is simply weakening. Rather, the nature of this support, and the way it is expressed, is changing. It is no longer unconditional support—as American Jews now insist that Israel behave in ways that reflect their own values and beliefs—and it is no longer expressed by uncritically backing whatever Israeli governments do.

Although support for Israeli government policies is no longer automatic or axiomatic among American Jews, support for the State of Israel itself still is to a large extent. In his review (and in his book), Barnett asserts that American Jews are, once again, becoming skeptical about Jewish statehood. This may be true for a small minority of American Jews—mostly young, highly educated, politically progressive, and non-Orthodox—but the vast majority still overwhelmingly support Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state. Indeed, it is precisely in order to safeguard this that most American Jews favor a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and oppose Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, as they fear that Israel’s continued rule over millions of disenfranchised Palestinians jeopardizes its ability to be both Jewish and democratic. The reasons why American Jews are concerned about Jewish statehood today, therefore, are quite different from the reasons they were ambivalent about Jewish statehood before 1948.

While much of the angst that American Jews currently feel about Israel focuses on its treatment of Palestinians, I certainly do not believe that, as Barnett infers from my analysis, “everything would be fine if there emerged a two-state solution and Israel toned down its muscular foreign policy.” For one thing, there are other issues that also concern American Jews (such as the treatment of non-Orthodox Jews in Israel, and lately, the treatment of African asylum seekers). For another, I argue that American Jewish disillusionment with Israel is unavoidable, regardless of what Israel does. As American Jews view Israel through less rose-tinted lenses and get to know it better, certain aspects of Israeli life and politics will surely dismay them.

Going forward, tension and occasional acrimony is inevitable in the American Jewish relationship with Israel. Nevertheless, I do not think that the future will just be “more of the same.” Instead, I conclude my book by predicting that the growing numbers, confidence, and influence of Orthodox Jews in the United States is likely to reshape relations between American Jewry and Israel in the future. Indeed, this is already happening, as Orthodox American Jews are at the forefront of the Trump administration’s relationship with the Netanyahu government.