The Associated Press-NORC poll released on Monday found that 42 percent of American Jews under 45 years old say support for the Israeli regime is important to their religious identity, while 53 percent of Jewish Americans 45 years and older say supporting Israel is important to them, The Hill reported.
But 50 percent of older Jewish adults say that celebrating Jewish holidays is important to their identity, while 72 percent of younger American Jews who say that celebrating Jewish holidays is important to their identity.
Celebrating or marking Shabbat, avoiding foods like pork and shellfish and wearing clothes or accessories that are distinctively Jewish are all more important to younger Jewish Americans than they are to older adults, at 39 percent, 34 percent and 29 percent, respectively.
Pollsters also found that 37 percent of Jewish adults under 45 view Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza amount to a genocide, while 23 percent of those 45 and older hold that view.
The same pollster found last week that most Jewish Americans say they do not feel well-represented by either the Democratic and Republican parties, nor by President Donald Trump. Fifteen percent say the Democratic Party supports them and 16 percent say the same about the GOP, while 50 percent say Trump does not support them.
Israel has seen its international support wane since it started its genocidal war in Gaza. Last month, an independent team of experts commissioned by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council determined that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Former US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, during a speech at Tel Aviv University last week, warned Israelis that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has led the regime to a “dead end”.
The AP-NORC survey was conducted June 11-17 and included 3,040 respondents, including 1,022 Jewish adults. The overall margin of error is 2.8 percentage points and the margin of error for Jewish adults is 5 percentage points.