From Mamdani to Maccabi: The West Keeps Teaching Jews Why Israel Exists

A December 2025 report suggests that Jewish Israelis increasingly believe that Israel is safer than the world beyond it.

For much of my adult life as a journalist, and living in Israel, Europe, and the United States, the unspoken assumption was that the former might be many things, but “safer” than the diaspora was rarely one of them.

Especially these days, as my family and I spend months on end in and out of bomb shelters, avoiding rocketfire from Hamas in Gaza and Iran. It’s been intense, volatile, and demanding. My own son was wheeled into his first bomb shelter when he was 22 hours old, as Hamas targeted our hospital as a location to attack innocent civilians indiscriminately. It’s been a lot.

And the diaspora, for all its social fragility after October 7, was in some ways where we Jews could exhale when we went home to visit parents or friends.

The December 2025 Israeli Voice Index suggests that assumption has quietly collapsed.

According to the survey, 76% of Jewish Israelis now believe Israel is safer for Jews than countries abroad, up from 68% in May 2024 and 71.5% in November 2024. This sharp, sustained rise, comes despite ongoing war, internal political crisis, and lingering national trauma following October 7.

What does it say about the timing of such news? The survey was conducted roughly two weeks after the terror attack on the Jewish community in Sydney, Australia, and two months after New Yorkers elected a Hamas-sympathizing, anti-Israel mayor.

The Bondi Beach attack and Mamdani victory confirmed among those of us who live in Israel something that many had already begun to feel: that the geography of Jewish vulnerability has changed.

Yesterday’s news out of the UK was another nail in the coffin for diaspora optimism: that West Midlands Police appeased extremist factions of its Muslim community by banning Jewish football fans in Birmingham after discovering that they would arm themselves and prepare for attacks if fans of the Tel Aviv team appeared nearby. Across the pond, Mayor Mamdani was revoking the IHRS antisemitism definition with a stroke of his pen.

For years, I interviewed Jewish and Israeli founders both at home and abroad who spoke in coded language about security, and sometimes avoided the euphemisms entirely. But recently, those conversations among my peers have hardened.

My friends in New York discuss when they are moving to Israel, not if. Colleagues in London tell me how they can’t book spaces for Jewish charity events because they are deemed too “controversial” or “risky” by establishments. One of my closest friends in Europe has swapped his kippah for a baseball cap when he leaves the house.

The gap between formal safety and felt safety has widened dramatically - and Israeli Jews here appear to be internalizing this shift faster than those abroad.

The Virtue of a “Proportional Response”

The data also reveals what Israelis expect from their government in response. 90% believe Israel should pressure foreign governments to ensure Jewish security, 80% support sending Israeli emissaries, 62% favor direct involvement in securing Jewish events, and 50% support financial assistance to diaspora communities, the highest share recorded.