Six Dimensions of Jewish Well-Being
Geopolitics
Israel ends the year militarily stronger than at any point in decades, but that strength has not yet been converted into a secure strategic position.
The ring of near-border threats has been dramatically weakened: Hezbollah stands at its lowest point since its founding, having lost its leadership, thousands of fighters, most of its raiding capability, and – with Assad’s fall – the Syrian corridor that sustained it; Hamas persists in Gaza as dispersed terror cells rather than a functioning military system; and Iran’s fortified nuclear program was set back close to the last possible moment.
Most consequential of all, the axis’s operative belief that Israel could be defeated militarily has collapsed. Sinwar, Nasrallah, Assad, and Khamenei are gone; Israel remains. Openings have followed: in Lebanon, where a weakened Hezbollah and unprecedented American leverage make disarmament and eventually a bilateral agreement conceivable for the first time; in Syria, where shared interests permit a security arrangement even without peace; and in the prospect of expanding the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia.
Yet roughly half a ton of uranium enriched to 60% remains in Iran and cannot be reliably monitored; the direct missile threat is sharpening; Turkey is emerging as the next challenge; and instability in the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and Jordan could reopen fronts Israel considers closed.
Above all, Israel faces an unprecedented legitimacy crisis in the West – one that bears directly on its capacity to sustain a strong economy and a well-supplied army. Battlefield achievement decays unless converted into political arrangements, and windows do not stay open indefinitely.
The Geopolitics gauge has moved in a positive direction this year, though these gains remain unconsolidated.
Identity
Nearly two years of war have prompted Diaspora Jewry to reconsider what Jewish power means. The dominant note is ambivalence: Jews in the Diaspora express pride in Israel’s military capability while also voicing deep discomfort at the war’s human toll, refusing to be labeled simply as a “supporter” or “critic.” Most striking is the erosion of the civilizational frame that once anchored the bond – fewer Diaspora Jews, across denominations, now see Israel as a moral exemplar or “a light unto the nations,” regarding it instead as a normal state. Identification persists, but its basis is shifting from admiration to familial belonging, even as universalist Diaspora conceptions of Jewishness and particularist Israeli ones pull apart. This is a reassessment, not a rupture – but the shared idealized vision is weakening. As a result, the Identity gauge has moved in a negative direction this year.
Resilience
Antisemitism is shifting from a landscape of occasional threats to a systematic environment, a change that runs deeper than incident counts.
Even where reported incidents have fallen from their post–October 7 peak, physical violence, including lethal attacks, has reached record levels, and growing numbers of Jews now alter their daily behavior – concealing their identity and avoiding Jewish spaces.
Robust laws are failing to translate into protection, exposing a gap between performative condemnation and effective enforcement. The threat is migrating from online content into the cognitive infrastructure – AI systems, search engines, and shared knowledge platforms that shape how a generation understands Jews, Zionism, and Israel. Challenges to Israel’s legitimacy increasingly take the form of denying Jewish peoplehood and historical belonging rather than contesting specific policies. As a result, the Resilience gauge has moved in a negative direction this year.
Cohesion
Israeli cohesion this year tells a genuinely mixed story. Two of JPPI’s three tracking indices rose – the Consensus Index (to 3.71) and the Hope Index (to 7.13) – while the third, the Emotional Proximity Index, fell to 5.51, signaling rising intergroup friction even as substantive agreement and optimism improved. Israelis agree more on fundamentals such as democracy and equal rights, yet feel emotionally further apart. Political alignment is now the dominant fault line, and the share of Israelis identifying the religious–secular rift as the most threatening has risen sharply since last year. Some 78% remain worried about social cohesion. Most troubling is a spreading mutual suspicion that the other camp will not accept the results of the coming election – a potentially self-fulfilling danger that the report ranks above any single dispute. With emotional bonds fraying even as consensus and hope rise, the Cohesion gauge remains in troubled territory this year.
Demography
The global Jewish population continues to grow, but the past year confirmed a new reality: emigration from Israel has risen sharply. The population of Israelis abroad climbed from roughly 630,000 in 2022 to about 755,000 by 2025 – nearly 7% of Israeli Jewry worldwide, or close to one million when children born abroad are included. This increase was driven by a net migration loss last seen in the 1970s, the causes of which remain poorly understood. Yet the demographic effect on Israel itself is modest: even the return of every emigrant would barely alter Israel’s standing as a mid-sized nation by European standards. Abroad, these Israelis are increasingly revitalizing aging Diaspora communities, constituting 7–15% or more of the Jewish populations of Britain and Germany and reshaping them along Israeli lines. Given continued growth offset by an unexplained rise in departures, the Demography gauge remains stable this year.
Israel–U.S. Relationship
The past year deepened the U.S.–Israel partnership even as it exposed its fragility. Structural integration reached historic milestones: the United States joined the June 2025 “12-Day War” against Iran, presidential intervention helped secure the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, and defense technology cooperation advanced through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – binding the two militaries and economies more tightly than ever. Yet the relationship grew more volatile. Anti-Zionism hardened on both the progressive left and the isolationist right, as reflected in Mamdani’s election, Democratic defections in the Senate, and the Carlson–Owens axis, while Israel’s public diplomacy failures in countering the “starvation” and “settler violence” narratives eroded support among conditional, persuadable Zionists. The fundamentals remain sound, and shifts in popular support appear event-driven rather than permanent. The relationship is listing but not sinking; accordingly, the Israel–U.S. Relationship gauge holds this year, shadowed by rising volatility.
