For decades, the core of American Jewish support for Israel lay in what was once the communal mainstream: upper-middle class, non-Orthodox Jews. But evidence suggests that this support is rapidly declining even as the numbers of non-Orthodox Jews are also shrinking. Taking into account demographic and opinion surveys, Owen Alterman argues that Israel should recalibrate its outreach to American Jews to appeal to two groups whose numbers are on the rise, and whose support for Israel is greater than often assumed. (Article begins at p. 43.)

While decades of intermarriage and assimilation have eroded the established core of American Jewry, they have also produced millions of Americans who do not self-identify as Jews but who have a familial or other affinity to Judaism. . . . The 2013 Pew study identifies and defines two distinct groups of Americans who themselves are not Jewish but who have a particular link to Judaism. The first is the “Jewish background” group: Americans with a Jewish parent who do not (or no longer) identify as Jews. The second is the “Jewish affinity” group: non-Jews without a Jewish parent who nonetheless see themselves as linked to Judaism in some way. The links to Judaism are varied, ranging from those citing that “Jesus was Jewish” to those citing a Jewish spouse or Jewish grandparents. . . .

Taken together, these “Jewish background” and “Jewish affinity” sectors are enormous, [and] show a reasonably strong connection to Judaism and Jewish institutions, which sets them apart from non-Jewish Americans. . . . The sectors also show a strong emotional connection to Israel. A large proportion . . . believes that the United States is “not supportive enough” of Israel. Significantly, [this proportion] is actually greater than [that of the non-Orthodox] communal core holding this belief.

Similarly, Alterman continues, the ultra-Orthodox are often assumed both to be unsupportive of Israel and to have limited financial resources, but neither assumption is true across the board.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.