Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleNEW YORK — In January 2023, after the just-elected Israeli government announced plans to overhaul the judiciary, anti-government Israelis in New York City launched a protest movement, targeting coalition ministers whenever they came to the city.
Referring to their activities as a game of “hide and seek,” the activists relied on a network of thousands to harangue the ministers whenever they appeared in public.
The movement culminated with a series of protests at the UN General Assembly in September 2023 that drew crowds of Israelis and allies into the streets at locations like Times Square. In doing so, they broke a long-standing taboo on Zionist, Jewish protests against the Israeli government in the US.
Weeks later, the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel rocked the Jewish world. The activists repurposed their network to support Israel by raising funds, sending supplies to soldiers and civilians and advocating for the hostages abducted to Gaza.
Since the release of the final hostages last year, that loose movement has pivoted back to Israeli politics, providing expats with impetus and infrastructure to travel back to Israel to vote in the upcoming elections. (Israel does not allow absentee voting, with the exception of diplomats and emissaries posted around the world. Eligible citizens aged 18 and older who live abroad can vote if they are in Israel on Election Day.)
Maya Ben-Meir, an Israeli musician in New York who moved to the US 13 years ago, said that, in her social circles, “everyone’s talking about” going back to vote, with much of the discussion taking place in chat groups left over from the judicial overhaul.
“We’re really good at organizing,” she said.
Tens of thousands expected to fly in to vote
AID Coalition, a nonpartisan US nonprofit focused on Israeli democracy, estimated that 53,000 Israelis who live abroad will make the trip to vote. The group surveyed 17,500 respondents in August and extrapolated the data to make the determination. There is no comparable data set for past elections, said Batell Vallentine Blaish-Sultanik, the group’s CEO, who lives outside New York City.
Ben-Meir, who has organized with the leftist activist groups Israelis for Peace and the Anti-Occupation Bloc, said the impetus to vote in her circles was “absolutely because of Netanyahu.” The musician faulted the prime minister for opposing a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 invasion, not taking personal responsibility for the attack, and the domestic turmoil ahead of the war.
She has voted in all but two of Israel’s elections since she moved to the US 13 years ago, and said she was inspired to vote due to concern about her friends and family in Israel and the effect Israeli leadership has on the wider Jewish world.
‘It’s hard for me to explain sometimes to Americans how much I can’t separate Israel from me’
“It’s hard for me to explain sometimes to Americans how much I can’t separate Israel from me,” she said.
“It’s my home. I care a lot about what goes on there and what affects the people that I hold dear,” she said. “Whoever’s in charge in Israel affects Jewish life all over, throughout the globe.”
The government’s 2023 judicial overhaul plan set off unprecedented, nationwide protests in Israel, drawing mass crowds into the streets every week. In parallel, an Israeli-led protest movement rose in the US.
There had been minor anti-government, Israeli-led protests in the US in the years leading up to the judicial overhaul, but Israelis and pro-Israel American Jews had mostly refrained from demonstrating against the government, fearful that the rallies could feed into anti-Zionist activism.
But Israeli activists from groups like the expat network UnXeptable countered that narrative by making their support for Israel clear, waving Israeli flags at their rallies and singing the Israeli anthem at the end of their events.
Zionist American Jews also felt more comfortable protesting against the Israeli government when the rallies were led by Israelis.
The activists launched WhatsApp groups to coordinate their activities that grew into thousands of members in areas such as New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
After October 7, those networks turned to supporting the hostages in Gaza with activities such as rallying outside the home of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to demand he take more action for the captives.
One anonymous group projected an anti-Netanyahu message onto the UN Headquarters during the General Assembly; weeks later, it used the same equipment to project images of Israeli hostages onto the same building.
American-Israeli Josh Drill was a spokesperson for the anti-judicial overhaul movement in Israel before moving to New York to study at Columbia University.
He said he had organized salon discussions in the US to highlight the importance of voting and provide information about how to vote, for example, which type of identification is needed at the ballot box.
Drill, who is traveling from New York to Israel to vote, said the judicial overhaul protests “enabled this broader movement to understand that we have power over what happens.”
‘We will see the impact of this energy in the upcoming elections’
“That energy is within people, and that energy has also been captured in WhatsApp groups, in Facebook groups, in networks of activists and change-makers who have continued working together,” he said. “We will see the impact of this energy in the upcoming elections.”
An evolving network
The Israeli-led protest groups in the US are not monolithic — some, like Israelis for Peace, in New York, focus more attention on Palestinian war casualties, while others, such as UnXeptable, focus more on Israeli politics. Some individuals also cross over between the different camps.
The Israeli-led pro-hostage protests were sometimes coupled with messaging targeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners, especially as the war progressed, such as during Netanyahu’s 2025 appearance at the UN General Assembly.
The hostages’ release last year gave the expat activists more space to turn their focus back on domestic Israeli politics, including by organizing voters for this month’s election.
In the informal WhatsApp groups that once organized against the judicial overhaul and for the hostages, activists are coordinating phone banking calls to Israel, advertising surveys to collect data about the expat vote, holding informational Zoom calls about the election, and posting encouragements to vote.
Israeli flags bearing the slogan “free in our land,” a line from the national anthem, were used in protests against the judicial overhaul, then for rallies in support of Israel and the hostages after October 7, and now for protests against Netanyahu.
Israelis involved in the voting campaign have pointed out that polls in Israel do not survey expats who are flying in to vote, so the bloc could be a wild card in the election.
Eitan Berechman, 22, a musician from the Boston suburbs, started political organizing during the protests against the judicial overhaul in 2023, then pivoted to hostage advocacy and opposing the war in Gaza. He has been involved with groups such as UnXeptable, J Street, Israelis for Peace and Standing Together.
‘The election will literally determine the future that Israel is going to go in, whether it will be democratic or whether it will be with Netanyahu and never-ending war’
Berechman said many Israelis in Boston were traveling to Israel to vote and may hold a gathering in Israel.
Berechman grew up in the US, has Israeli citizenship through his Israeli father, and visits Israel most summers. He is traveling with his parents to vote for the first time in Israel.
“This election is the most consequential in Israeli history. It will literally determine the future that Israel is going to go in, whether it will be democratic or whether it will be with Netanyahu and never-ending war,” he said.
The US-based nonprofit AID Coalition was established in June 2023, during protests against the judicial overhaul, with the aim of “strengthening and preserving the democratic foundations of the State of Israel.” AID Coalition is strictly nonpartisan.
After October 7, AID Coalition coordinated support for victims of the invasion, such as therapy for survivors in southern Israel, and co-produced the documentary “Children of October 7th.”
AID Coalition’s latest initiative, Fly&Vote, helps Israeli expats “take part in Israel’s democracy,” Blaish-Sultanik said.
Fly&Vote answers questions about how to vote, such as about the locations of polling stations, and helped arrange travel from locations including Lisbon, Portugal.
Flights present an obstacle to those traveling to vote because the wars in recent years have made the journey unpredictable and expensive, with international airlines often canceling flights due to hostilities and driving up prices.
AID Coalition’s survey found that flight prices and flight availability were the most often cited obstacles to voting.
Berechman said he and his parents had spent $6,000 in total for their tickets. Ben-Meir arranged a lengthy layover in Spain that helped defray the cost, and said that in some families, one spouse is flying to vote while the other stays behind to tend to children.
Fly&Vote’s flight assistance led to a spat with Netanyahu’s Likud party, which fought against efforts to bring in expatriate voters, presumably based on the assumption that most will support opposition parties. The organized Israeli activist groups in the US all appear to be anti-Netanyahu, although pro-Netanyahu activists sometimes demonstrate in the US.
A December 2025 survey by the Israel Democracy Institute found that Jewish Israelis on the left and center, and those who were more dissatisfied with “Israel’s situation,” were more inclined to move abroad.
Blaish-Sultanik stressed that AID Coalition “does not represent any political side.”
“We represent a political right to enable citizens who have the right to vote to make their voices heard and to encourage the broadest possible civic participation, because democracy works when people show up,” she said.
The Times of Israel Community.
