Avi Mayer, the former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post and former managing director of public affairs at the American Jewish Committee, visited Cincinnati this past week for AJC Cincinnati’s annual meeting. Mayer grew up in Maryland and Israel, and much of his reporting straddles American and Israeli Jewish life.
In 2025, he launched the Jerusalem Journal, a Substack based platform for commentary and conversation about Israel and the Jewish world, joining a growing number of journalists who have left traditional media outlets to build independent platforms.
We spoke about the upcoming Israeli elections, rising antisemitism, the relationship between Israeli and American Jews, and how Israel is covered in the media.
Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Is this your first time visiting Cincinnati?
The first time I came here [to Cincinnati] was with AJC, when I was the head of global communications for the organization, and I really enjoyed the city. What stood out to me were three things: how friendly people were, how great Graeter’s ice cream is, which is, in fact, as good as they say, and the proximity between Cincinnati and Kentucky, and how easy it is to walk across the bridge and visit a distillery. I went to New Riff Distillery on that first trip because they’re kosher.
The second time was when my sister attended the University of Kentucky. It was very important to her to walk at the graduation, so the entire family flew from Israel. We spent Shabbat in Cincinnati, then drove down to Kentucky for the ceremony and came back up to Cincinnati for Graeter’s. It was a challenge finding kosher food down there, but somehow we all survived.
You left the Jerusalem Post in 2023 and founded the Jerusalem Journal on Substack last year. What drove that decision, and what has been the biggest change?
You know, I found myself looking at the media landscape, and it felt to me as though while there are many forums for conversation about Israel and Jewish issues, there were not as many for truly deep conversation on those subjects; there were always constraints of either space or bandwidth that prevented the existing platforms from delving more deeply into these issues. Some of the platforms that existed had certain ideological leanings that could serve as a turn-off to those who don’t share those ideological perspectives, and so I found myself wondering why such a platform didn’t exist, and then basically resolving to create one.
One of the advantages of using Substack as a platform is that there are no limits. I can publish pieces of whatever length I think is appropriate. My guideline for contributors is to start at around 800 words and go on as long as they can keep the audience’s attention. Folks are generally pretty good at hewing to those guidelines, and it’s been extremely gratifying.
First of all, to see the sheer number of folks who have subscribed, the growth of the audience itself, and the impact the conversation has had. I’ve had people across the political spectrum tell me that the content that we produce has opened their eyes to perspectives they would not have heard otherwise. We’ve been cited in mainstream publications, and I think that is proof of concept that this fills a specific need.
Do you think the biggest failing of mainstream news institutions covering Israel and Jewish issues is that they lack the space for nuance and different perspectives?
I think that there is a need for much more nuance in the conversation than currently exists. I think we should view the conversation and those involved in it as a big tent, but even the biggest tent has walls. For example, I will not accept anti-Zionist content.
I won’t accept content that is racist towards any group, Palestinians, Arabs, or any other. I won’t accept content that calls for acts of violence, but excluding those voices, the tent is pretty big, and so long as someone signs on to the basic premise that the Jews have a right to self-determination and Israel has a right to exist, I’m open to pretty much any perspective, and I think that that is not necessarily true of every existing platform.
I would also say that creating something from scratch, as I’ve done, and as others have as well, gives us the advantage of engaging in the conversation in a way that is perhaps less tainted by commercial or other interests in ways that other publications are simply not as free to do.
In this era, where advocacy and journalism have blended, is it harder to walk that line when running your own platform?
I have my own perspective. I think that is reflected in my writing. It’s pretty clear from what I say and what I write where I stand on the issues. I don’t conceal any of it, but I don’t shy away from platforming those with whom I disagree, and you will find on my platform, Jerusalem Journal, a whole host of views that I don’t necessarily share.
I don’t know that you will find that at a place like Zeteo (another independent editorial news service). I think that there is a certain orthodoxy that is expected in those spaces that I think is anathema to opinion journalism, and that does transform those platforms into advocacy organs rather than journalistic initiatives, and I think it is perhaps a fine line to answer your question.
I think that there are different ways of threading that needle, but to me, saying that we have – the publication – certain core values, which, by the way, is also the thing I said at the Jerusalem Post, my first column at Jerusalem Post, and I had a weekly column, it was always published in the back of the paper. The first one I ever published was titled “These Are Our Values,” which is a pretty unusual thing for an editor to do, but I wanted to be very clear about what the rules of the ball game were. This is what we’re gonna accept, this is what we’re gonna welcome, this is what we’re gonna try to promote, and this is what we’re not. I think that is totally fair, and you can do that even in a newspaper, a news publication, or an opinion platform without delving into advocacy.
You straddle the line between American and Israeli Jewish identity. What is the biggest misunderstanding each community has about the other right now?
I think one of the core points of divergence, and perhaps of misunderstanding, between communities is the extent to which each community or group has to invest in its Jewishness. Israelis are often Jewish through osmosis. The entire environment is Jewish. Ergo, they are Jewish. Many Israelis don’t feel the need to invest in Jewish education or Jewish literacy because it’s in the air, in the holidays we celebrate as a public, in the fact that Shabbat is the day of rest, and in the fact that many restaurants are kosher. It’s in the texts we study in school.
Conversely, American Jews have to invest a great deal in maintaining their Jewishness. They have to be much more intentional about building and maintaining a robust Jewish identity, and I think that is one major area in which the two communities diverge, and is also the source of a great deal of misunderstanding about one another’s nature.
I think now, there is a growing understanding of how much we depend on one another for our survival. I think that in the past, there was this sense of mutual condescension where American Jews kind of looked down at these poor, pathetic Israelis, particularly in Israel’s earlier years, and Israeli Jews looked down on these disappearing American Jews who were not long for this world.
And there’s, I think, now a growing understanding that American Jews rely on Israel as a core element of their Jewish identity and of their sense of Jewish peoplehood and Jewish continuity, that Israel is a pillar of contemporary Jewish identity, whether or not you like it. And for Israelis, I think they’ve come to see, particularly over the past few years, how essential American Jewish support has been to their own sense of security, but also their sense of solidarity, the awareness that the hatred and hostility that we encounter in Israel is the same hatred and hostility that American Jews and Jews around the world are encountering as well.
And I think that sense of shared destiny and shared dependence is ultimately what will carry both communities forward and, hopefully, enable them to understand one another more fully.
What do you think Americans get most wrong when they look at Israeli politics?
I think one thing that I find very frustrating about how, not only American Jews, but particularly American Jews view Israeli politics is the outsized role they believe that extremist figures play in the Israeli political system.
While it is certainly true that figures like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are in the Israeli government, are part of the current coalition and do have seats in the Knesset, combined, they account for roughly 10% of the Israeli electorate. Most Israelis do not share their views, and so the notion that most Israelis are aligned somehow with the extremist perspectives put forward by these politicians is simply not reflective of reality.
The overwhelming majority of Israeli voters reject them now, whether they support parties that are willing to sit in the coalition with them, whether they support the Prime Minister’s reliance on these parties in order to form a coalition is a separate question entirely, though I think it is also worthy of consideration, but the presence of extremists like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in government, though deeply troubling, does not necessarily indicate that they are reflective of the views of the Israeli majority.
But hasn’t the presence of those extremists done serious damage to Israel’s perception worldwide, particularly among younger liberal American Jews?
Absolutely. And I don’t want to minimize at all the toxic role that these extremists have played in American and American Jewish perceptions of Israel. I think that has been deeply damaging, and it will take a long time to undo that damage, but I am equally, if not more, concerned about the damage that their presence in government is doing to Israel itself.
I think it is corrosive to Israel’s national identity that these people have any role at all in public life, and that one of them controls the national police force, and has at times directed police to focus more on certain crimes and less on others. I think it is extraordinarily destructive, and I think the sooner that comes to an end, the better, not only for perceptions of Israel, but for Israel.
What is your hope for the upcoming Israeli elections?
There’s a saying in the Talmud that after the destruction of the Temple, prophecy was given over to children and fools. Since I’m neither, I’m not going to try to prophesy what will happen after this election.
What I’ll say is what I hope will happen: a coalition will emerge that reflects the moderate majority in Israel. That includes folks who identify with the left, with the right, and with the center, but who do not hold extremist views and who certainly do not support the violent extremism espoused by certain members of the far right — and the far left as well — and that we can start a process of national healing.
I think it will take a great deal of political will. I hope and believe the numbers are there, but in the past, such efforts have been undermined by political ego, preventing that kind of coalition from forming.
I’m hopeful that Israeli leaders will be aware of the historic responsibility they currently bear to rebuild a country that has been deeply traumatized and pulled apart by events of the past few years that long predate October 7, and that we’ll see a coalition emerge that serves all the citizens of Israel as best they can.
You wrote about hesitating to put on your kippah in America for the first time. How are you feeling navigating the world as a visibly Jewish person in this moment?
I’ve always been aware that those around me immediately identify me as Jewish, just by virtue of the kippah that I keep on my head, and so that in itself is not new. But I think I have become more sensitized to how that might affect my interactions with others over the past few years.
I remember writing a piece years ago about my experience of wearing or not wearing a kippah on a visit to Paris, and how I was told by members of the local Jewish community that I really shouldn’t do it, because it simply wasn’t safe. I never thought that I would encounter that same question in America, and yet on a recent trip, for the first time in my life, I found myself wondering whether I should take my kippah off. It’s a horrifying thought that that is where I am as an American Jew who lives in Israel.
But from what I understand, I’m far from alone. I’ve heard countless stories of parents telling their children to take their kippah off as they walk home from school, of concealing the names of their Jewish schools on their uniforms or T-shirts. I’ve even heard stories of people taking their mezuzot off their front doors so they aren’t identified as a Jewish household. It’s deeply upsetting that we have reached that point in American Jewish history.
But the flip side of that is the number of stories I’ve heard of American Jews who are doubling down on their Jewish identity, who are choosing to engage much more deeply in Jewish life since October 7 than they ever did before, choosing to send their children to Jewish day schools, attending synagogue more regularly, learning Hebrew, reading Jewish news, and consuming Jewish content. All those are indications that, even as the challenges facing us are perhaps more significant and seem more insurmountable than at any point in our lives, we have it within us to persevere and re-engage with our Jewish identities in ways that will enrich not only the Jewish community but all of American society.
You’ve written that the election of [New York Mayor] Zohran Mamdani could mark the start of an uncomfortable new chapter for American Jews. How should American Jews navigate this moment?
Far be it for me to prescribe from the outside what should be done in American politics. But what I will say is that the other side has been extraordinarily effective in mobilizing, organizing, cultivating, and elevating candidates for public office who share their values, and we have been left far back.
In order to effectively respond to the emergence of extremist candidates at all levels of public office in this country, we need to build a parallel operation. And it’s not only Jews. There are many, many people in this country who are repulsed by the kind of extremism espoused by certain candidates, or at this point, elected officials, but have not had the infrastructure to support them in elevating sane and moderate voices.
There has been, I would say, maybe a passion deficit, or a multiplicity of voices, that have prevented the emergence of a unifying organizational infrastructure to support those kinds of candidates. And I think the time is now. I don’t think we can wait any longer.
The DSA has been very good at what they do. Where is the parallel organization of sane, moderate, centrist voices to elevate them and get them elected? I’m not seeing it. I think we need to build it.