Election season hits overdrive for thousands of Israeli Americans

Dual citizens of the U.S. and Israel are staring down two consequential elections in the coming days, with thousands preparing to hop on planes to have their voices heard in both countries.

While the U.S. allows absentee voting, Israel requires voting in person. And an estimated 67,000 Israelis worldwide are expected to travel back to the country to vote in the Oct. 27 contest.

The vote in Israel is largely viewed as a referendum on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, between those who view him as responsible for the atrocities of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and the country’s global isolation, and those who believe Netanyahu is the only leader strong enough to defeat Israel’s many enemies.

Israeli expats represent a small percentage of the more than seven million Israelis eligible to vote. But election experts say that about 40,000 votes translate into at least one seat in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset. For the dozens of competing parties, one seat can mean crucial leverage in coalition negotiations.

“I don’t usually vote in a country I don’t live in, it’s not my day-to-day life and I won’t feel the effects of that vote in the same way that my family who live there will,” said Solomon, 30, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and self-described progressive. He asked to be identified only by his first name to protect his privacy.

“This election is so consequential that I believe I have a duty to act and to have my voice heard — especially when so many voices impacted by this government may not be.”

He is flying from his home in Washington, D.C., to Israel to vote, and then coming back to the U.S. to canvass in Michigan.

In Israel, he’s trying to use his vote to unseat Netanyahu, concerned over the prime minister’s ultranationalist and religious policies, and actions toward Arab citizens and Palestinians. He’s also weighing how those policies contribute to Israel’s global isolation and put a target on Jewish communities abroad.

“I’m trying to figure out if a shift in the Israeli election can kind of shift the narrative in the U.S.,” he said.

Israel is a lightning rod in American politics, and the future of U.S.-Israel relations has risen in priority for the Nov. 3 elections. Voters are increasingly concerned about how the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran is leading to greater insecurity at home, while American views of the Israeli government and Israeli people have grown increasingly negative across the political spectrum.

In Michigan, Solomon will be canvassing for a pro-Israel, Jewish Democrat. And while he’s attracted to Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s progressive bona fides, Solomon is concerned about anti-Israel sentiment in the Democratic Party pushing the boundaries of antisemitism, particularly on the far left.

“There’s some things I don’t love, and I’m moderately concerned about. But at the same time, this is a progressive wave that I want to see,” he said.

Solomon is traveling with his mother, also Israeli, back to Israel to vote, paying about $1,600 each for flights from the U.S. to Portugal, and then a charter flight to Israel.

The charter flight was arranged by AID Coalition, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that is helping Israelis abroad travel back to vote. Jonathan Barsade, president of AID Coalition, said the group organized a charter flight from Lisbon after flight cancellations left Israelis trying to transit through the country without a flight to Israel.

It’s part of the organization’s “Fly & Vote” campaign to encourage Israelis abroad to vote. The group doesn’t provide direct financial assistance or incentives to vote — to avoid potential legal issues — but helps voters get to Israel and make sure they are registered to cast a ballot.

Barsade, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen who is planning to vote in both countries, said Israelis abroad could account for about 10 percent of voter participation and called the law requiring in-person voting “anachronistic.”

Barsade said that today’s interconnected world makes Israelis living abroad more connected to the daily issues in Israel.

“They might be residing abroad physically, but emotionally, mentally, they’re in both countries,” he said.

Only a narrow set of people are allowed to vote from abroad, including diplomats and Israelis who work for the Jewish Agency, an Israeli national institution. And while there’s no real political movement pushing for wider access to absentee voting, there is debate over whether more Israelis should be allowed to vote from abroad if only traveling temporarily during elections.

For Mor Erez, 37, the burden of traveling to Israel is robbing her husband and friends of their chance to vote, when a few thousand votes can make a difference. In 2022, the historic left-wing party Meretz was about 4,000 votes short of the electoral threshold, left out of the Knesset for the first time since 1992.

“My husband told me that he really wants to come vote with me, but he knows that he will wake up the day after not voting and will live with himself, but he knows that I will not,” she said. “This is the mutual decision we made because we can’t afford for both of us to go and the kids.”

Erez is spending approximately $2,000 to fly back to Israel from her home in North Carolina. She’s been in the U.S. for about 14 months, describing a difficult decision to leave Israel amid financial, physical and emotional hardship from Hamas’s attack and Israel’s subsequent, multi-front wars.

“Although we are here, it doesn’t mean that Israel is not ours. It’s still our home. We still fight for it, and we still suffer from things that happen there, here,” she said. Erez described the feeling of judgment from people when she reveals she’s Israeli, and that she has to answer for the Israeli government and all the associated criticisms.

Erez said she doesn’t view her vote as “anti-Netanyahu,” but is voting to change the leadership who were in place and failed to prevent Hamas’s attack. She’s also traumatized from the heavy burden on her family from her husband’s long military service, and the fraught debate in the country over the ultra-Orthodox community’s reliance on state services without having to serve in the military or national service.

David, 49, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen living in Jerusalem, will vote in Israel and then travel to the U.S. to vote in Maine’s election, where long-time Republican Sen. Susan Collins is facing a tight race against the Democratic nominee, Troy Jackson, and could influence which party controls the Senate. David is using a pseudonym to protect his privacy.

He doesn’t center his Maine vote on which candidate is good for Israel, but he sees parallels in both elections with the debate around term limits. Collins has been a senator for nearly 30 years. Likewise, Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, having served a total of 20 years since 1996.

“Someone can’t just stay in power forever just because they’ve been in power a long time. So in some ways, it’s a little bit like Israel,” he said.

For his vote in Israel, David is concerned about the future of the country, the wars with no end in sight, the increasing global isolation and the increased divide in America over ties with Israel.

David saw President Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu as confirming Israel’s seclusion.

“That really is a disturbing feeling, that Israel basically has only one potential tie with the United States, and that’s the president,” he said.

“The problem is that the other candidates that are running don’t seem to present a strong vision either, and that is a huge problem.”