It’s a tough time to be a liberal Zionist, to remain deeply connected to a country who has not been led by a left-wing politician since 2001. (Yair Lapid, who served a six-month stint as prime minister in 2022, is a centrist.)

The prospects of a two-state solution have reached a nadir in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks, with a 2025 Gallup poll finding that 21% of Israelis and 23% of Palestinians saying they believe it is feasible and nary a single major Israeli political party, including left-wing ones, raising the issue ahead of the Oct. 27 national elections.

A recent survey of American Jews by the Jewish Federations of North America found that even as 71% of respondents said they felt an emotional connection to Israel and 88% believed Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, roughly half that number, 37%, self-identified as Zionists. And young people, 18-34 year olds, were the most likely to identify as anti-Zionist (14%) or non-Zionist (18%). 

Last month, Daryl Messinger — the immediate past chair of the Reform movement’s Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA) and the former chair of the Union for Reform Judaism — stepped into the role of chair of the Israel Policy Forum, one of the leading advocacy groups pushing for a two-state solution and, more broadly, for a “secure, Jewish and democratic Israel.” 

Messinger spoke with eJewishPhilanthropy recently about the challenges facing liberal Zionism, her goals for the organization and its role in the broader Israel ecosystem. 

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Judah Ari Gross: Can you tell me a little bit about your connection to IPF?

Daryl Messinger: I became most familiar with IPF when I was chair of the [Union for Reform Judaism]. We turned to IPF for their analysis of various bills in front of Congress, or statements relating to the U.S.–Israel relationship, and really came to rely on Michael Koplow and David Halperin for their analysis. Then I got to know Susie Gelman, when she and I both got involved in the early days of Leading Edge.

As things evolved, I ended up on the board of IPF after I was chair of the URJ, because of both the work the organization was doing, which I was familiar with, and Susie’s encouragement. A little while after that, the URJ came to me and said, “We need a chair for ARZA, the Reform Zionist arm of the Reform movement.” I wasn’t sure that I needed another role. I was happy being the immediate past chair of the URJ at the time, but it felt like a critical moment. So I really focused my energies over the last four or five years, while remaining on the IPF board, on both ARZA and Leading Edge, where I became chair. Those were my principal responsibilities.

But what I saw as I chaired ARZA — over the course of [the Oct. 7 attacks], the war, and even before that with the [anti-judicial overhaul] protests, and then the World Zionist Congress elections — was that IPF increasingly had an important role, and that its voice serves an unusual position in today’s discourse. It serves a unique place in the conversation around U.S.–Israel relationships, around the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and peace efforts, where we’re serving as a trusted resource to community leaders and to policymakers, advocating for what we think are reasonable policies and trying, as best we can, not to be partisan. These days that is really hard and really needed.

JAG: Yes, trusted institutions and reasonability seem to be in short supply these days. 

DM: We really need it, where it’s anchored in some core values. I’ve increasingly put my efforts toward IPF, toward seeing the organization grow and really amplify this set of messages and policies.

 JAG: In addition to, or as part of, Israel becoming a hyper-partisan issue in U.S. discourse, the number of people who identify as liberal Zionists are growing fewer and farther between. It is increasingly common to find people in the Jewish community who take the dogmatic approach of whatever Israel says goes. We’ve been seeing some of that in the discourse around Rahm Emanuel’s speech in Tel Aviv, with a lot of people saying, “You’re an American Jew, shut up. The Israelis know what they’re doing,” sometimes in those words exactly. At the same time, there’s a huge number of voices in the Jewish community that are extremely critical of Israel, whose sole connection to Israel is criticizing it. The people who live in that middle space are very hard to find, and that’s also true on the funding level. Supporting Israeli communities or at-risk populations seems to be considered a right-wing cause. Is there a way to bring more people into that more moderate field? Does IPF serve as a resource for the elite levels, for Jewish leadership, or is there a way for it to reach the masses of American Jews directly?

DM: I wrote about this a little bit as I became chair. For many folks who would describe themselves as liberal or moderate, this is a really hard moment, just as you describe. I can definitely understand folks feeling unmoored from their traditional alliances, from where they’ve felt comfortable, whether it’s their political outlet or their support for Israel. They’re getting pushed and prodded toward the two extremes. We’re seeing that polarization throughout society.

I think that means there’s even more reason for IPF to exist, both in terms of articulating policies for today that strive to address what we believe are the core issues — making sure Israel is Jewish, democratic and secure — as well as trying to identify the leaders for tomorrow through our program, ATID. 

We’re trying to be a space and a place for the folks in that middle ground who feel unmoored, as I described — to have a conversation and to have a community, particularly among young adults, post-college to 35 or 40 years old. We’ve had success there, and there’s interest in growing it, and also in making sure those leaders continue their journey within the larger communal spaces.

Because those voices who have had the opportunity to debate, to discuss, and to have difficult conversations in a safe place — around what the future of Israeli–Palestinian relations is, how we get to a place where there isn’t continuous conflict and war, how we criticize the government of Israel and still not be attacked as anti-Israel in the process — it’s not easy to have those conversations in the public square today. We see that in countless examples. IPF is trying to have those conversations among various folks in a way that allows them to explore ideas and not get shut down. But it’s a guided conversation. There are experts, there are books, there are ways the conversation is pursued so that it’s not a shouting match, and it has some underlying values that everyone understands.

You have to create that environment to make it safe and positive, so the conversation moves forward, and so you can identify who’s leading in those moments, elevate those leaders, and give them the tools and access to other organizations and leadership. We’ve seen that in a number of cases and places. I think we now have something like 300 alumni of our Bronfman Conveners program. They come from across the country, from very different backgrounds, with a variety of political and religious experiences, and they’re serving in many different places — both in the Jewish community and in local government, state government and nationally.

 JAG: Do you see the work of IPF being more as a moderating force to temper the more extreme views in the Jewish community or as a convener of conversations that everyone can be part of?

DM: The latter. More than trying to move folks off the extremes, we want to be a trusted place that has serious ideas and the right set of ingredients for a trusted place. If someone feels so strongly, on either end — there’s that “horseshoe effect” happening now — they’re probably not going to find IPF very conducive or open to their views.

JAG: Are there specific subject areas that you have as priorities for IPF to be looking at under your tenure as chair? Obviously you’re coming from the URJ and ARZA background, and there are lots of things happening in Israel in terms of the Israeli government’s relationship with non-Orthodox Judaism, which is of interest to American Jews. Obviously, the main animating issue is the Israeli–Palestinian conflict — that’s what people think about when they think about Israel most frequently. Are there other areas that you’re hoping IPF becomes more involved with?

DM: I’m looking to have the organization’s impact grow, and to think a lot about how we’ll measure that — on both the policy side and the community-leaders side of the shop. Shanie Reichman [director of strategic initiatives and director of IPF’s young leadership Atid program] does a great job of articulating that we need to keep the conversation going, even if it’s not possible today.

We must continue to have the conversation around how we resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict — how we preserve a path to two states or at least some form of self-determination for two peoples. That doesn’t mean it’s possible today. I know that for most Israelis, that conversation just can’t happen right now. But we need to try our darndest to keep it on the table, because if you don’t discuss it, there’s no possibility that peace will be preserved. So that’s really high on the list. How we do that is critical, and really focusing the organization’s attention there is important.

We have a project called the Shared Values Project. We’re in our second or third cohort of it, bringing together young Israeli policymakers from across the political center — not all liberal-left, former-Labor folks, but really centrist people, inside and outside the government — and a similar group of young policymakers in the U.S., talking about shared values. What are they, and how do we preserve them in our own countries, Israel and America? Jewish, democratic, secure — we have those same values here in the U.S., as I think Israelis do, but they may mean really different things, and everyone’s working on them in different ways. What can we learn from one another? How can we bolster the leadership in both places? How do we create those relationships between Israeli and American leaders? That can be a real focus of the organization going forward.

It builds on our work here in the States, and it supplements our policy work as well, as we come to understand more of what’s possible given the shifts in Israel right now, in the midst of an election. We just published our election tracker — I think that came out yesterday, or maybe Tuesday. And about six weeks ago, though it feels like a decade, we published a paper on what we believe the next [memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Israel] should look like. That’s a great example of core IPF work: laying out the options and what it looks like. We’re not sitting there shaking our fists that it’s got to be X or Y. These are some of the factors we think have to be considered, and here’s the path we think would make the most sense for evolving a mature relationship.

JAG: Who do you see as IPF’s partners in this work, either in the U.S. or here in Israel? I know Michael Koplow also has connections to the Hartman Institute, and there are people at INSS here in Tel Aviv who do some of that work as well. Who are the natural partners or groups you can connect with?

DM: The natural partners are more that center-liberal Zionist core. The Reform movement is a good example. The American Jewish Committy — we have a number of past chairs of AJC on our board. Increasingly, I think we’re called upon to help Jewish professionals, federations and JCCs understand what’s at stake, and to help educate and train them to address the questions their members are coming in with. We’re doing that very much in cooperation and partnership with various federations around the country.

There’s a recognition that — one of my other past hats was as president of the Oshman JCC, and a longtime supporter of Z3. I was the outgoing president as Zach Bodner was coming in. So I’m a big believer in Z3; that’s a great example of a partner here that we’ve worked with in the past and will in the future. In Israel, as I said, there’s the Shared Values Project.

There are times when we’ve served as a resource to J Street, and times we’ve served as a resource to AIPAC. I won’t comment on what I wish for either of those organizations, but I do think that oftentimes there are very loud voices that make it hard for someone to ask questions. We want to make sure, especially for communal leaders, that they can ask those questions and get answers they can rely on when talking with their peers.

JAG: Living here in Israel and being deeply immersed in what is happening here, I do always wonder how much American Jews actually know about the issues here. How up-to-date your average American Jew is on the latest developments with what’s happening at the Kotel or recognizing non-Orthodox conversions, for instance. 

DM: Do you mean whether Jews care about what the policies were around the Kotel?

JAG: I am sure that they would care about it. I’m not sure that they know.

DM: I think what they’re hearing — and I haven’t done a poll, so you might be right that they don’t know — but what I saw around the World Zionist Congress election is that people care deeply that they can be Jewish; that their Jewishness here in the States would be something allowed and recognized in Israel. And especially, for many American Jews, the idea that their grandchildren might not be considered Jewish is deeply offensive and troubling. It goes right to the heart of whether Israel is the homeland for all Jews. 

Again, I haven’t done the poll, but Gali Cook at Leading Edge has a great expression. I’m sure it’s not hers, but I’ve adopted it: “anecdata.” 

I often showed a picture of my grandson, who was about a year and a half old in the picture, at World Zionist Congress election time, and said, “I want to make sure this kid has a home here and in Israel. Your vote matters.”

I do think many American Jews are trying to understand what they believe is the right relationship between the U.S. and Israel, and how Israel will remain Jewish, democratic, and secure — just as they’re having a lot of questions right now about the nature of our democracy here in the U.S. So I think they’re more aware than Israelis sometimes understand or believe: that their identity and their future are very much tied up with where Israel is going.