ISRAEL

of U.S. Jewish voters concerned about erosions of democracy in both countries.

“This is our fight too – and the vast majority of American Jews believe in a Jewish, democratic Israel that lives up to its founding values of equality, freedom, and justice for all,” said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a national public policy group, in a statement on July 24.

The Israel Policy Forum, a group with deep roots in the American Jewish establishment that advocates for a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said the changes in the law risk alienating the Diaspora.

approved last month.

“What’s unreasonable to one is reasonable to another,” said Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization America, in a statement praising the new law. “This is an absurd basis and power the Supreme Court has arrogated to itself, which is nothing short of judicial tyranny and judicial dictatorship.”

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations maintains under its umbrella groups as diverse as ZOA and the Reform movement. It sounded alarm without weighing in on the specifics of the legislation.

“We must remember the dangers that discord and division can pose to the Jewish people,” the group said in a statement. “We call on Israel’s leaders to seek compromise and unity. Responsible political actors must ease tensions that have run dangerously high.”

“This move is particularly dismaying to many American Jews, who support Israeli democracy and will now have a more difficult time identifying with Israel and defending it from those who seek to demonize it, leaving Israel today more of a state exclusively for Israeli Jews and less of a state for Jews around the world,” it said.

Liberal American Jews, who have taken the lead in the past in protecting the rights of women and the LGBTQ community, have raised alarms about pledges by some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners to diminish the rights of both sectors.

“The Israeli LGBTQ community has been protesting these proposals for months because it is the Supreme Court that has helped to safeguard the civil rights of all Israelis, including the LGBTQ community,” said a fundraising appeal emailed after the vote from A Wider Bridge, a group that has advocated for Israel in the American LGBTQ community.

Not all U.S. Jewish groups expressed dismay. Some groups on the right praised the enactment into law of the “reasonableness” bill, the piece of the legislation

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee declined to comment on the legislation. Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel advocacy group within the Democratic Party that often reflects policies close to those of AIPAC, took a cautious approach.

“While we believe it was a serious mistake for this government to ignore the pleading of the majority of its citizens, as well as its president, and pass this bill without significant compromise, it was done democratically,” it said in a statement.

“As in any democracy, including the United States, governments are empowered to make decisions however disappointing or unwise we may believe them to be.”

Nathan Diament, who directs the Washington office of the Orthodox Union, told the New York Times that his community generally favored the legislation, but feared the repercussions of its passage.

“There are many people in the American Orthodox community whose view on the substance is sympathetic or supportive to the reforms,” he said, “but nonetheless are worried about the divisiveness that the process has caused.”