The Myth of Permanent Friends: Why the Jewish Community Must Re-Engineer Its Washington Playbook
NEW YORK (VINnews/Ezra Friedlander) – The dust is finally settling on last night’s election results, and as the political map redraws itself, the American Jewish community finds itself at a critical crossroads. In the corridors of power, the traditional map we have relied on for decades has officially vanished. If last night proved anything, it is that the time for complacency is over.
We must collectively internalize a foundational truth of political realism, famously uttered by Lord Palmerston and codified in modern governance: In Washington, there are no permanent friends, and there are no permanent enemies—there are only permanent interests.
I could name names to illustrate just how shocking these results are and how unimaginable the current political transformation is, but doing so misses the point entirely. Pointing fingers at individual outcomes changes nothing.
For years, I have been sounding the alarm on this very issue. I have argued in communal halls, in print, and behind closed doors that our strategy was growing stale. Last night’s results simply validated what was already true: the old way of engaging in the political process is antiquated. It belongs to a bygone era of predictable voting blocs, stagnant alignments, and legacy institutional structures that assume yesterday’s ally will naturally be tomorrow’s champion.
To cultivate support for our community today—whether on the local, state, or federal level—our prevailing argument must always be anchored in how our priorities serve the interests of the overall population.
We have to frame our value proactively. For instance, whenever critics attack the Orthodox Jewish community with the worn-out trope that we are mere takers who do not contribute to society, I routinely silence that narrative with hard fiscal reality: by choosing not to utilize the public education system, our community literally saves the taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars over time. And I could go on and on. The same logic applies when confronting antisemites who refuse to acknowledge that American Jews literally helped build the economic, cultural, and scientific bedrock of this country far out of proportion to our numbers.
Furthermore, regardless of where one stands on the U.S.-Israel relationship, that relationship must always be defined strictly through the lens of supporting a vital U.S. ally whose strategic interests happen to be in direct alignment with American interests. Unfortunately, that subject has become incredibly toxic today—a polarization that was completely avoidable had leadership adapted the strategy I have been advocating. We must face an uncomfortable reality: traditional support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, rooted in an emotional or religious foundation, is a relic of the post-Holocaust era. Only a few short years ago, it would have been entirely inconceivable to imagine just how drastically the political ground has shifted beneath our feet.
This erosion did not happen in a vacuum. The blame falls squarely on those within our institutional ranks who have arrogantly locked others out of the room, or worse, actively thrown them out. By gatekeeping access and freezing out dissenting or emerging political factions, they left our community dangerously exposed.
Worse yet, our community frequently engages in a childish, emotional approach to political discourse. We operate in absolute extremes—either worshipping the politicians we support like flawless heroes or utterly denigrating those we oppose as irredeemable villains.
This naive approach completely ignores the cyclical reality of American politics: an election is always just two short years away. The villain we demonize today could easily hold the gavel or control the budget tomorrow.
Today’s political arena moves at a breakneck velocity. In an age of fractured attention spans and algorithmic feeds, answers need to be crafted in nanoseconds and anchored in vivid imagery—not boring history lessons that glaze over the eyes of modern policymakers.
