When the Left Left the Jews - with Batya Ungar-Sargon

For generations, American Jews were among the Democratic Party's most loyal supporters, seeing liberal politics as a natural extension of Jewish values. Today, that relationship is under increasing strain.

Host Aviva Klompas sits down with columnist, television host, and author Batya Ungar-Sargon to discuss her new book, The Jews and the Left. Together, they examine how a century-long political alliance evolved—and why so many Jews now feel politically and culturally homeless.

They explore why Jews became Democrats in the first place, the ideological transformation of the modern Left, and how opposition to Israel became a defining issue within progressive politics. Batya explains why she believes October 7 exposed deep fault lines for many progressive Jews, addresses the debate over anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and discusses whether similar political shifts could emerge on the Republican right.

Whether you agree with Batya's conclusions or not, this conversation offers a thoughtful look at one of the most consequential political and cultural questions facing American Jews today.

Guest Bio

Batya Ungar-Sargon is the host of Batya! on NewsNation, where she is a weekend anchor. She is a frequent contributor to the New Yok Post and a columnist for the Free Press. An Orthodox Jew, she earned her PhD in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Having a college degree, which is where you learn this crap, had become a kind of gateway to the American dream because of neoliberal politics. So sort of all these things together lead inexorably to that moment on October 7th where so many Jews turned left, turned right, like looking for the allies that they had marched with at every single juncture and found themselves utterly abandoned because they had been put on the side of the oppressor.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Today is Wednesday, July 1st. This is Boundless Insights, and I'm Aviva Klampus. For generations, American Jews have been among the Democratic Party's most loyal supporters. They helped build the labor movement, stood at the forefront of the civil rights movement, and many saw liberal politics as an expression of deeply held Jewish values. But in recent years, the relationship has soured. Last week, three Democratic Socialist candidates backed by Zoran Mamdani won House primaries and will most likely take seats in Congress. More than any other issue, these candidates are united by their outspoken opposition to Israel. And that position is quickly becoming a litmus test for Democratic candidates across the country. A lot of American Jews are feeling politically homeless and wondering how a movement that once proudly made room for them became a place that feels unwelcome or even hostile. My guest today is Batya Anger Sargon, a columnist, television host, and the author of a new book called The Jews and the Left. We discuss why most American Jews became Democrats in the first place, how anti-Israel politics became a defining feature of the Democratic Party, and whether the Republican Party could follow the same path. Let's get into it. Batia, welcome to Boundless Insights.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Thank you so much for having me. What a pleasure and an honor.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

My honor. And congratulations on your new book, The Jews and the Left. And what a timely, timely period to be putting out your book. There's like nothing happening in American politics or with far-left Democrats. We have a lot to cover today, and I'm thrilled to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Thank you so much. Yeah, I know the news cycle is really uh it's playing ball. I mean, I it's it's terrible for the nation, but you know, for me personally, I don't know that I can complain too much.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

But yeah, before we talk about current events, can we actually just go back in time a little bit? And I'm actually quite curious to understand how is it that American Jews came to traditionally align with the Democratic Party?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, it's a long story. And it's funny because people assume that there's some sort of inherent connection there, and there isn't, because there was, you know, 300 years before the alliance between the Jews and the Democratic Party, and I cover a lot of that in the book. Um, that alliance really started at the turn of the 20th century because there were about a million to two million Jewish refugees from Russia. They were fleeing pogroms and malas and just horrific, brutal, violent anti-Semitism. And when they arrived here, they were just totally, totally destitute. And most of them found their way into the needle trades because you didn't have to speak English and because the bosses were mostly Jews. Um, you know, upward mobility in America is a real thing. And it really, really worked for the Jews. So they would come here, they'd be like utterly, utterly broke, they'd work 16-hour days in horrific conditions, be exploited by their bosses, and within five to 10 years, they would suddenly be running their own sweatshop. Um, this gave them a very, very deep desire to see labor reform because it impacted them very personally. And Jews really built the labor movement in America. But because they were so upwardly mobile and because the Jewish proletariat was really less than a single generation affair, um they also had a very healthy appreciation for capitalism and for the American dream and for everything that makes this country unique that they did not have access to in the old country. And they really found that combination of a respect for the dignity of labor, but also a very strong appreciation for capitalism in FDR's New Deal, which was the whole point of the New Deal. Um, and then they were really, really attached to the civil rights movement. This was something that was just spiritually extremely important and compelling to American Jews. They were wildly overrepresented in the civil rights movement. 70% of the lawyers working on civil rights case law were Jews. Over half of the freedom riders who risked their lives to register black citizens to vote in the South were Jewish. And so the Jews in the 60s and the 50s saw themselves as an oppressed minority too. And they thought that it was in their self-interest to help blacks because they were helping themselves too. Um, but I think it really was the absence of anti-Semitism in America, the absence of oppression of Jews in America that led Jews to attach themselves to the civil rights movement. So you're there, you have three things where it really makes a lot of sense why Jews stayed with the Democratic Party. You have the labor movement because they were working class, you had FDR because they were upwardly mobile and he fought Nazis, and then you have the civil rights movement because they felt their privilege as something they wanted to share with other minorities.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Just help us square one component of that. Because when we think back on that time period, a lot of us come to mind, you know, the golf clubs that said no Jews allowed, or other institutions where Jews were just not permitted. So when you say that America was a welcoming place for them, just explain how that squares.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, I don't want to say that there was never anti-Semitism. But, you know, if our great-great-grandparents saw us sitting around here moaning about the fact that there's a golf club we can't belong to, and this is the extent of our, you know, our oppression. We have to go to the second best university, you know, because like the best university wouldn't take us, they would have laughed in our faces.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

This is a classic Rabbi Wolpe story. He imagines speaking with his great-grandparents and telling them about anti-Semitism at Harvard, and they would be like, wait a second, they're Jews at Harvard. Let's fast forward to the present day. Is there a particular moment, maybe it's not the present day actually, when the relationship between Jews and the Democratic Party began to fundamentally change? Is there something that you can point to? 1967. Six-day war.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Six-day war, Israel's massive victory, the shift from Israelis being Auschwitz survivors with tattoos on their arms, hoeing the land in socialist farms to being people who can actually defend themselves from the next genocide. This was like a monumental shift. This was, by the way, when America first became interested in Israel. America did not give Israel weapons in 1948. It was actually the Russians through the Czechs who armed um the Chalutzim, who armed the young nation and helped Israel become a state. Harry Truman did recognize Israel after 11 minutes and the Jews loved him for it, but we didn't do much to help Israel until it suddenly emerged on the scene in 1967 as a formidable force in the Middle East in the fight against Russia. This was all part of like geopolitical Cold War politics. The Russians had sided with the Arabs. They had come up with this mythology that Zionism is racism as part of that fight. And so the Americans, seeing that Israel was an unbelievably powerful force, suddenly realized we could use Israel if we start giving it something in return in the fight against the Soviets. And it was actually Richard Nixon, an unrepentant anti-Semite. We used to give Israel $350 million a year, like we gave all the Arab states. And he was the first one who was advised to bring that number up to $2 billion. And they sort of pulled the number out of the air. The idea was just to send a message to the Soviets, like, we're serious, this is our outpost in the Middle East. It had nothing to do with Jews. It was just simply opportunistic. The idea that America's relationship with Israel has anything to do with Jews is kind of sort of silly. And again, Nixon hated Jews, he was an anti-Semite, everybody knew it. He was not embarrassed about it at all. Um, this was part of a much bigger geopolitical play. Um, so of course, that played into the left turning on Israel because it started to be seen as an ally of the United States. Militarism in general was very unpopular at the time because of the Vietnam War. But there were a few other things, I think, that really started to play out around that time. After Dr. King's assassination, the next iteration of the civil rights movement was the Black Power Movement, the Black Panthers, the Black Separatists. They didn't see themselves the way Dr. King did as part of a nation, one nation with white Americans. They saw themselves as part of a global post-colonial movement. And so they saw themselves as, you know, sharing a lot with the Palestinians. And they developed a very anti-white uh vocabulary. And because all the white people they knew were Jews, that anti-white vocabulary quickly became anti-Semitic. But there were a number of other sort of breaking points between the Jewish community specifically and black activists, but at the same time, the university was becoming infested with this French philosophical tradition, which is where what we today call wokeness, the oppressor-oppressed binary, started to infiltrate everything. And the idea was we're throwing away the Judeo-Christian values of right versus wrong. There's only power who has it, who doesn't have it. And of course, because in America we racialize everything, skin color was like grafted onto this. And every white person, any person with power, is inherently evil. And any person who is abject or powerless is inherently virtuous. And this became the lingua franca of the academy, humanities, social sciences remains so today. And then it started to really filter out through journalism, through the nonprofit worlds, through politics, because having a college degree, which is where you learn this crap, had become a kind of gateway to the American dream because of neoliberal politics. So sort of all these things together lead inexorably to that moment on October 7th where so many Jews turned left, turned right, like looking for the allies that they had marched with at every single juncture and found themselves utterly abandoned because they had been put on the side of the oppressor. Um, now, a lot of the organized Jewish community in America, like the ADL, their response was, no, no, no, no, no, you put us on the wrong side. We're also oppressed. Hey, hey, oppressed over here. Did you forget the Holocaust? We're oppressed, put us with the blacks, put us with the trans, protect us. We need the safety protections. And I just find that disgusting. Like it is, it is not just a betrayal of Jewish history, but it is a betrayal of American history and of the very Americans who had our back this whole time.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

You are pretty tough on the ADL and the organized Jewish community in the book. And I am gonna ask you about that. But before we do that, I do want to ask you about October 7th, because in your book, you call it a cosmic glitch in the matrix for many progressive Jews. Can you explain what you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Until then, many progressive Jews, not me, because I was canceled, but right.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

You need to explain. You had a whole transformation.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, I was very woke and I was on the left until I was canceled for telling Ilan Omar that it's anti-Semitic to say that Jews are controlling Congress with their money. And apparently you're not allowed to say that because she's black and Muslim. Okay, so this happened to me in 2019. The people who participated in canceling me today are tweeting the very things that they canceled me for saying seven years ago. Never mind. You know, they they were under the illusion that they could do what Brad Lander has done, which is to say, like, you know, that they could insist that there's no conflict between their liberalism and their Zionism amidst a world in which their Zionism had become anathema to everybody they knew, and which they would constantly be in the position of apologizing for because everybody they know think it's racist, right? Mom Dani thinks it's, you know, I revere the Jewish faith. It's just Israel I have a problem with, like garbage statements like that, right? And then you're sitting there justifying this crap that denies you your own humanity, right? Like it's pathetic, it's humiliating. Um, but they thought, you know, no, we'll convince them. You know, we have to keep this liberal Zionist lane open on a side that has completely moved on and has tried to smear Zionism as like the worst thing you can be. And in fact, now anti-Zionism, it's not just that it's like, you know, one of the things that they are on the left. It is the Sing Kwanan. It is the most important and the only thing that matters.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Absolutely no question. It is the litmus test. It matters more than affordability, more than health care, more than abortion, more than gun control, more than global warming, more than identity politics. All of those issues, which are traditionally democratic issues, take a backseat to hating Israel and demonizing AIPAC. So, how does it come to be that Israel becomes the litmus test for Democratic Party politics? You mentioned Brad, just for people that that aren't from America, that this is one of three Democratic Socialist candidates that won their primary last week and will presumably end up in Congress.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Um, and I'll go even further to say you can be Scott Wiener. You can have literally written the law protecting sex criminals if they're gay, but you'll get chased out if it took you a beat to bend the knee on the genocide libel. But meanwhile, if you are Tucker Carlson and you are right wing on everything except Israel, and you have decided that the Jews are the root of every problem, you will be welcomed with open arms, despite the fact that he is anti-gay, pro-life, presumably, you know, anti-immigration. He has a seat at the table because he hates Israel.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

So you bring up a good point. And there are a lot of people that will say that you are pointing exclusively at the anti-Semitism on the left. And what about the right? And are we just looking at the Democrats being a few years ahead of where the right appears to be moving? What do you say to that?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Well, let me ask you this. Why did Nick Fuentes come out as a Democrat uh two months ago? He made a video and said, I'm actually a Democrat. Why did Tucker Carlson two weeks ago come out and say, I'm no longer in the Republican Party? They're leftists.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

These are two very loud, very intolerable examples. If we look more broadly at what's happening amongst young conservatives in the country, I think that's what we want to be looking at. So there's a study by Morin Common called Beyond MAGA, and it found that 80% of older Trump voters consider anti-Semitism a serious problem in this country. But when you look at younger voters, it's 56%. If you look at a Manhattan Institute study, 26% of Republicans under 50 believed Jews received too much favorable treatment, and it's only 8% over 50. Recent first-time Republican voters are more likely to see Jewish Americans as having loyalty to another country. So when we look at the trends of what's happening amongst younger Republicans, I think that's where people start to be fearful.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I belong in the category of people who do not think anti-Semitism is a big problem in America. I know. Tell us, tell us more. So, you know, if you want to call that an anti-Semitic view, you're gonna have to call me an anti-Semit.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

I would never call it, but let's take somebody like Ted Ted Cruz, because I think he's a better person to point to in the Republican Party than somebody like Tucker Carlson. He's the one that came out that said, we are seeing a cancer on the right. It's rising anti-Semitism, and I've seen more anti-Semitism on the right over the last 18 months than at any other time in my life, and it's spreading like a cancer.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

First of all, um, I am allowed to disagree with Ted Cruz, which I do, but second of all, like, you know, those young people 20 years ago, on every other issue, they would have just been called leftists. It happens to be that because there has been a resurgence of like right-wing populism that has a cool factor associated with it. And meanwhile, the left has become completely, you know, uncool and lame. A lot of young people who otherwise would have been leftists in a previous generation are now on the right. What does that even mean? Like these podcasters who voted for Donald Trump, like what is right wing about them? Nothing. They're not pro-life. They're not against gay marriage. They probably support, you know, some form of open border, lacks immigration policy. You know, they probably hate tariffs.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Is is your argument that people that are anti-Semitic aren't actually conservatives in this country?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

I'm saying that young people tend to be on the left. And left people in America tend to have a problem with Jews.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Aaron Powell, even though they're identifying as Trump voters or young conservatives?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Um, I'm not sure that they are. Trump is extremely unpopular with people under the age of 26.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

This is the study on Beyond MAGATH. So this is self-reported from the conservative movement. So let me ask you instead about the vice president of the country, about J.D. Vance. What do you make of his comments on Israel?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Bad. I think he has I think he's very close with Tucker Carlson. Let's put it this way. He is unwilling to go on the record and distinguish his foreign policy from that of Tucker Carlson. And that to me, and to many Republicans who are not Jewish, is a massive deal breaker.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

And a huge concern, because this might be the nominee for the Republican Party.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

It is not a huge concern because to the extent that he cannot distinguish himself from Tucker Carlson is the extent to which he is not competitive either in a primary or in a general. You don't think that he's competitive? I've been saying that for two years.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I just wanted it on the record on my show. Because that's what actually counts people.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

I know a lot of Republicans who would never vote for J.D. Vance. And I know a lot of Democrats who would very happily vote for Marco Rubio.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

So tell me, is that who you think will be the Republican nominee, Marco Rubio?

SPEAKER_00 17:49

No, because I do not put it past the GOP to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. But it's just my view that J.D. Vance is extremely unpopular.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Are there any other candidates in the mix that you think we should be taking a closer look at?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

A lot of people think that it will be somebody who's not in the administration. We'll know more after the midterms because we'll know kind of, we'll get a vibe check on how Trump is doing. Um, I'm hoping it'll be Marco Rubio because I think he's really competitive. And I think if they go with somebody with less crossover appeal, you're gonna end up with like a, you know, President Gavin Newsome or President AOC. I will tell you, I have heard recently from not just one Republican that they would vote for AOC before they voted for JD Vance.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

I say it all the time that I wonder if we are looking at the last pro-Israel president in our lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

No, no, definitely not. And in fact, the Democrats are gonna do a hard shift to the center as well because they're gonna get a also a vibe check that this DSA stuff does not fly in Michigan. And, you know, Israel's very unpopular right now. And like some of it is due to anti-Semitism, some of it is due to choices that were made, you know, and like that that that will shift. If Saudi Arabia normalizes relations with Israel, you think we're gonna have these problems? You know, if Qatar normalizes relations, you think we're gonna have a problem with Al Jazeera feeding this bile to the Muslim world? And what happens? Trump's greatest achievement, something we don't talk about a lot, which is he kind of like destroyed the fiction that there's an Arab street out there, like waiting to like, you know, revolt on behalf of the Palestinians. Like it turns out that's not true. And we don't really know what the world is gonna look like when it's only the DSA and like, you know, Muslims in diaspora in the UK and in Canada who care about, you know, the Palestinian cause. And it's not the Arab street because it's obvious that like what they want is, you know, an economic future that involves normalized relations with Israel. They want good jobs, they want opportunities, you know. So I just feel like the world is shifting. You know, the fact that young Republicans don't want to give any more money to foreign aid is really not like a five-alarm fire that people are sort of like making it out to be. Yeah, online there is a lot of anti-Semitism, but that's because the internet is available globally. And Megan Kelly herself said Tucker Carlson's new audience is coming from Muslims. So I think people are really overreacting about a lot of this.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

Well, I hope that you are right and that everything turns out a lot better than it looks at the moment. I did promise you that for the last question we would come back to this. You have been pretty tough on Jewish organizations in your book, including the ADL. What do you think it is that the organized Jewish community should be doing in this moment?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

People keep asking me, like, how do we fight anti-Semitism? And I just keep saying the same thing, which is like, stop fighting anti-Semitism and start keeping Shabbos. It's all about Jewish education. We have a very, very rich history. We need to lean into the things that make us Jews, that make us Americans. Um, our loyalty belongs not to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, but to the United States of America, which has always been an incredible home for the Jews. And that's really what I think we should be focusing on rather than leaning into the woke binaries and begging people who hate us for scraps of approval.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

But I want to thank you. You're an independent thinker. You're a proud, outspoken Orthodox Jew. I'm so honored to have you on. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and for this lovely conversation. That's a wrap on today's episode of Boundless Insights. Whether you've been with us from the start or are just discovering our show, we're so glad you're here. If today's conversation sparked a question, challenged your thinking, or made you shake your head, I want to hear from you. Email me at podcast at boundlessisrael.org. Your feedback gives us ideas for new topics and new guests. And if you believe these conversations matter, there are three ways to support the show. First, hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. Second, help us spread the word. Share an episode with friends and family, post about it, or mention it in a group chat. It really does make a difference. And third, consider supporting our work. Boundless is a nonprofit and we rely on donors to keep the show going. You can make a gift at boundlessisrael.org slash donate. Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and keep the conversation going.