Ossoff Has Fences to Mend
His votes on Israel arms resolutions will be an issue when Georgia's first Jewish senator seeks re-election in 2026.
Dave Schechter is a veteran journalist whose career includes writing and producing reports from Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.
A year ago this week, I wrote in this space: “The Jewish community may think of itself as a large tent, capable of accommodating a range of viewpoints, but Israel is where a line is drawn.”
Back then, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff would have been welcomed inside. Today I wonder whether Georgia’s first Jewish senator might be turned away, perhaps asked to return later.
Ossoff was excoriated by numerous local Jewish leaders after he voted Nov. 20 in favor of two of three resolutions opposing the sale of specific U.S. weapons to Israel.
Never mind that the Senate overwhelmingly rejected the resolutions, or that the weapons would not have been delivered for two or three years, or that Ossoff’s votes were intended as a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Shock,” “astonishing,” “betrayed,” “abandonment,” and “utterly specious” were among the expressions of opprobrium. Similar sentiments were conveyed in an open letter to Ossoff and Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock (who supported all three resolutions), signed by 47 communal organizations, synagogues, and schools, a grouping that claims to represent 90 percent of the state’s Jewish population. [The Atlanta Jewish Times was among the signatories.]
An op-ed published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, signed by 22 rabbis from the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements, chastised Ossoff and Warnock, whom they said had “demonstrated a failure to hear your Jewish constituents . . . showed indifference to the pro-Israel community while granting approval to fringe voices . . . sided with often fanatical and uncompromising organizations and individuals who consistently fight against pro-Israel policies and work to weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Rabbi Peter Berg, senior rabbi at The Temple, told the AJT that Ossoff’s votes were “a tremendous disappointment to me.”
On the other side of the ledger, a single liberal Jewish organization issued a statement of support for Ossoff and Warnock and more than 100 members of the community signed a letter calling them “true friends of Israel,” whose votes “sent a strong symbolic message representing a growing portion of the American Jewish community that believes that the U.S.-Israel relationship should be grounded in our laws, national security interests and shared values.”
Speaking on the Senate floor, Ossoff said: “I remain steadfastly committed to the U.S.-Israel alliance, and I also believe we must be willing to say no, even to our closest friends, when we believe it is in America’s national interest . . . No foreign government, no matter how close an ally, gets everything it wants, whenever it wants, to use however it wants.”
Jewish Republicans will make Ossoff’s votes an issue when he seeks a second six-year term in the 2026 mid-term elections. Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, has declared on X (formerly Twitter): “Defeating @ossoff will be the top priority of @rjc for 2026!!”
Across the aisle, Mark Mellman, chair of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told the AJT: “We were deeply disappointed that both Senator Ossoff and Senator Warnock voted to endanger Israel by blocking aid to that country. Moreover, their explanations did not reflect a clear understanding of the situation. We have not made any endorsement decisions yet for 2026 but you can be sure we will be looking closely at Senator Ossoff’s record when we do.”
Ossoff knows that he has upset a significant portion of the Jewish community. The extent to which he is able or feels the need to repair those relationships will be worth watching over the next two years.
Meanwhile, in response to his votes, I have seen Ossoff referred to as an antisemite, a self-hating Jew, and as a kapo. I wish it were not, but I find it necessary to say: The senator is none of these things. Jews who use such language debase themselves and add nothing of value to the discourse.
An AJT reader wanted me to know that “Because Ossoff is not really Jewish, he doesn’t feel in his kishkes about Jews, Israel and the Holocaust as you or I would — that is the sad reality.”
Ossoff’s father is Jewish. His mother is not. The senator underwent a conversion according to Jewish law, with a trip to the mikvah, before he was a bar mitzvah at The Temple, a Reform congregation. Irrespective of this, the Reform movement recognizes patrilineal descent. “I am descended from Ashkenazi immigrants who fled pogroms at the turn of the 20th century. I was raised among relatives who survived the Shoah,” he wrote in the AJT in December 2020.
In May 2021, Ossoff told the AJT that a message from fearful relatives in Israel — “With the constant sirens, my three-year-old cousin has been very afraid and very upset” — moved him to lead a call for a ceasefire when Hamas fired some 3,000 rockets toward Israel and Israeli forces launched air strikes against targets in Gaza.
The Jewish community is ill-served by playing “Who is a Jew?” It is disrespectful. And whether you agree or disagree with his politics, the senator is Jewish and these issues resonate in his kishkes, as they do in mine — and I trust in yours.
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