By Karen Klein in Los Angeles
If we are committed to strengthening and preserving the relationship between Israel and American Jewry, where should we be investing our time, energy, and resources?
Generational differences in attachment to Israel among American Jews have become increasingly pronounced. A 2025 Washington Post/SSRS survey found that while 56% of American Jews overall reported an emotional attachment to Israel, that figure fell to just 36% among Jews ages 18 to 34. The conversation surrounding this challenge is often dominated by the crises unfolding on college campuses: protests, encampments, harassment, and violence. Those realities cannot be ignored. Yet the importance of the college campus extends far beyond headlines.
Few periods of life are as formative as young adulthood. My undergraduate years profoundly shaped the interests, communities, and convictions that continue to guide me today. Much of that trajectory can be traced back to my involvement in pro-Israel student life on campus. Those experiences ultimately influenced not only my graduate studies, career, writing, and the communities I continue to build and participate in today, but even my decision to spend several years living in Israel. I am hardly unique in that experience.
It may be a cliché, but college students are the future. They will soon become parents and leaders who shape institutions and the broader culture around them. Many who raise families will pass on the values they hold. The challenge of sustaining deep ties between Israel and American Jewry has never been confined to a single cohort of young adults. It is, by definition, a multigenerational endeavor.
More than half a century ago, Israeli leaders confronted a similar concern. In the late 1960s, the growing influence of New Left politics was perceived to be weakening support for Israel among young American Jews. The concern was significant enough that millions of dollars were directed toward an effort known as the America Plan. Through training, printed materials, and the deployment of peer emissaries on university campuses, Israeli leaders sought to strengthen students’ connection to Israel throughout the diaspora. In doing so, they identified college-aged young adults as a strategically important audience and the college campus as a critical environment in which to cultivate the future relationship between Israel and American Jewry. They understood that this relationship could not be taken for granted.
The students Israeli leaders sought to engage in the late 1960s are today’s parents and grandparents, whose children and grandchildren are, in many cases, the very students whose relationship with Israel concerns us today.
The America Plan emerged in response to a specific concern: the growing influence of New Left politics and the weakening connection between Israel and young American Jews. Yet by 1973, the effort had largely been dismantled. Israeli leaders concluded that the ideological currents which had prompted such concern had largely dissipated.
And yet, here we are.
The names, slogans, and political movements have changed, but the underlying concern feels strikingly familiar. The weakening ties that worried Israeli leaders in the late 1960s continue to trouble many today, reminding us that young adults remain a strategically important audience through which the relationship between Israel and American Jewry is continually renewed.
Perhaps there is another lesson hidden within this history. The America Plan reflected an important insight: college-aged young adults represented a pivotal audience. But although the effort itself was short-lived, the challenge it sought to address was not.
It was never simply about the politics of one moment. Sustaining the relationship between Israel and American Jewry was always going to require thinking beyond the concerns of any single era.
If that is the challenge, then our efforts cannot be episodic. They must be intentional, strategic, and measured not in news cycles, but in generations.
*
If we are committed to strengthening and preserving the relationship between Israel and American Jewry, where should we be investing our time, energy, and resources?
Generational differences in attachment to Israel among American Jews have become increasingly pronounced. A 2025 Washington Post/SSRS survey found that while 56% of American Jews overall reported an emotional attachment to Israel, that figure fell to just 36% among Jews ages 18 to 34. The conversation surrounding this challenge is often dominated by the crises unfolding on college campuses: protests, encampments, harassment, and violence. Those realities cannot be ignored. Yet the importance of the college campus extends far beyond headlines.
Few periods of life are as formative as young adulthood. My undergraduate years profoundly shaped the interests, communities, and convictions that continue to guide me today. Much of that trajectory can be traced back to my involvement in pro-Israel student life on campus. Those experiences ultimately influenced not only my graduate studies, career, writing, and the communities I continue to build and participate in today, but even my decision to spend several years living in Israel. I am hardly unique in that experience.
It may be a cliché, but college students are the future. They will soon become parents and leaders who shape institutions and the broader culture around them. Many who raise families will pass on the values they hold. The challenge of sustaining deep ties between Israel and American Jewry has never been confined to a single cohort of young adults. It is, by definition, a multigenerational endeavor.
More than half a century ago, Israeli leaders confronted a similar concern. In the late 1960s, the growing influence of New Left politics was perceived to be weakening support for Israel among young American Jews. The concern was significant enough that millions of dollars were directed toward an effort known as the America Plan. Through training, printed materials, and the deployment of peer emissaries on university campuses, Israeli leaders sought to strengthen students’ connection to Israel throughout the diaspora. In doing so, they identified college-aged young adults as a strategically important audience and the college campus as a critical environment in which to cultivate the future relationship between Israel and American Jewry. They understood that this relationship could not be taken for granted.
The students Israeli leaders sought to engage in the late 1960s are today’s parents and grandparents, whose children and grandchildren are, in many cases, the very students whose relationship with Israel concerns us today.
The America Plan emerged in response to a specific concern: the growing influence of New Left politics and the weakening connection between Israel and young American Jews. Yet by 1973, the effort had largely been dismantled. Israeli leaders concluded that the ideological currents which had prompted such concern had largely dissipated.
And yet, here we are.
The names, slogans, and political movements have changed, but the underlying concern feels strikingly familiar. The weakening ties that worried Israeli leaders in the late 1960s continue to trouble many today, reminding us that young adults remain a strategically important audience through which the relationship between Israel and American Jewry is continually renewed.
Perhaps there is another lesson hidden within this history. The America Plan reflected an important insight: college-aged young adults represented a pivotal audience. But although the effort itself was short-lived, the challenge it sought to address was not.
It was never simply about the politics of one moment. Sustaining the relationship between Israel and American Jewry was always going to require thinking beyond the concerns of any single era.
If that is the challenge, then our efforts cannot be episodic. They must be intentional, strategic, and measured not in news cycles, but in generations.
*
Karen Klein holds a B.A. in Communication Studies and an M.A. in Government with a specialization in Counter-Terrorism from Reichman University. Dr. Tal Elmaliach of the University of Haifa first introduced Klein to the history of the America Plan through his paper, “Hasbara Revisited: Israel, the New Left, and Diaspora Jewry, 1967–1973,” which informed much of this essay. Elmaliach currently is a visiting professor at San Diego State University.