Are 95% of Jews Really Zionists?
Tablet—her first piece of writing since her resignation from the
New York Times opinion section—in which she complained that the left had become hostile to American Jews. To support her point, she noted that “95% of Jews . . . support the Jewish state.” This statistic is commonly repeated in Jewish and mainstream media: This year, it’s been cited in severalopinionpieces and in a peer-reviewed academic article. Last year, among variousotherappearances, it showed up in a
The statistic originates from an August 2019 article by Gallup Senior Scientist Frank Newport. In response to Donald Trump’s controversial comments that American Jewish Democrats were being “disloyal” to Israel, Newport set out to examine Jews’ political views. Drawing on polling data from Gallup and other organizations, he contended that Jews generally have more favorable views of Israel than the broader American public, but nonetheless concluded that “Trump’s actions in support of Israel to date have done little to shift Jews’ [largely Democratic] political allegiance.” To support the former point, he included an estimate that “95% of Jews have favorable views of Israel.”