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U.S.-based Jewish organizations are working to get out the vote amongst Americans dwelling in Israel forward of the November election, which comes weeks after the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist assaults.
Nathan Diament, the manager director of public coverage for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, stated his group has coordinated with the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and partnered with Yeshiva University, a non-public Orthodox Jewish college in New York, on outreach instructing younger Americans taking their hole years in Israel on learn how to request their absentee ballots and vote from overseas.
“First of all, it’s important, from our point of view, for every American citizen, no matter where they are, to hopefully participate in the election,” Diament advised Fox News Digital. “You know, this past year has obviously been a very intense, serious and historic year in terms of what’s going on in Israel as it continues to battle against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran itself. We have friends and family who are there, whose lives are really on the line. And so it’s really important for Americans there who have the right to vote to, again, participate, because the United States is Israel’s most important ally.”
He estimated that there are just a few thousand Jewish Americans at present in Israel taking their hole yr, sometimes completed between highschool and faculty. His personal son is a type of college students this yr.
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An indication factors the best way to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Sept. 27, 2023. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)
The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (or Orthodox Union), which represents greater than 1,000 Orthodox Jewish synagogues across the U.S. in addition to a number of hundred Jewish Ok-12 faculties, additionally works on instructional sources focusing on one other demographic – the few hundred thousand Jewish American immigrants who completely relocated to Israel – so that they, too, can take part in the 2024 election.
The deadline to request absentee ballots is approaching for a number of battleground states. Of the about 420,000 Jewish Pennsylvanians, Diament stated that some finding out or dwelling in Israel “could have an impact on the vote” in their communities round Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and even Scranton.
“Joe Biden won Pennsylvania in the last election by an 80,000 vote margin,” Diament stated. “So, you know, a shift in the American Jewish vote in Pennsylvania by, you know, several thousand or 10,000 or more votes could be very, very significant in this election.”
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in January urged Americans dwelling in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to test their voter registration to offer for sufficient time to take part in the upcoming 2024 federal elections. As the U.S. doesn’t supply in-person voting at embassies or consulates overseas, U.S. residents are inspired to vote by absentee ballot if they can not meet their state’s in-person voting necessities.
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Israeli military troopers stand close to an indication signifying the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, assaults by Hamas. (AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)
At the time, the embassy famous how “many U.S. federal elections for the House of Representatives and Senate have been decided by a margin smaller than the number of ballots cast by absentee voters.”
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem stated all states are required to depend each absentee ballot “that is valid and reaches local election officials by the absentee ballot receipt deadline.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department advised Fox News Digital that U.S. residents dwelling exterior the United States can register to vote and vote absentee whereas dwelling abroad. Students dwelling abroad for an prolonged interval throughout an election season have to vote absentee and full a Federal Post Card Application at FVAP.gov to request an absentee ballot, the spokesperson stated, including that voting residency will proceed to be the coed’s final authorized residence previous to leaving the U.S. to review overseas.
The State Department spokesperson stated U.S. residents voting from abroad ought to test FVAP.gov for his or her state’s deadlines and extra details about learn how to return their ballot.
“An American living abroad can most easily request an absentee ballot either through the team that we have set up at our center in Jerusalem or, again, they could go to the U.S. embassy or consulate in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv,” Diament stated. “And as long as you show your ID and you get your absentee ballot appropriately, then you just need to send it in a timely way. It’s really not that complicated.”
Absentee ballots are ready for mailing on the Wake County Board of Elections in Raleigh, N.C., on Sept. 17, 2024. U.S. residents voting from overseas are inspired to request their ballots as quickly as attainable. (Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
Jeremy Kazzaz, government director of the Beacon Coalition, a nonprofit centered on getting out the Jewish vote domestically on the bottom in Pittsburgh, stated U.S. residents, whether or not touring out of state or overseas throughout an election season, ought to ship their absentee ballots as quickly as attainable to be included in preliminary counts.
“The mail system gets bogged down around election time because it’s not just all the ballots that are going through the mail, but it is the 5 billion pieces of political mail that everybody is getting on a day-to-day basis,” Kazzaz advised Fox News Digital. “And then you add to that the chaos and disruptions of multiple hurricanes going through the Eastern Seaboard at this time. And so the best practice is to do all of this as early as humanly possible.”
While Diament stated it’s confidential which candidates who members of the Orthodox Union assist, he pointed to polling completed by Israeli retailers and pollsters on the bottom amongst Israelis and Americans as signaling a shift towards Republican Donald Trump, particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, assaults.
“You know, frankly, that is not matched in the American Jewish population as a whole. The American Jewish population, by and large, is pretty liberal. And so, traditionally, the Democrat wins a majority, sometimes a very, very large majority. But we’ve done polling and others have done polling this year among American Jews here in the United States,” Diament stated. “What we’ve seen, at least so far, is that while Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate is ahead among the American Jewish vote in general, she’s not ahead by as large a margin as the Democratic candidate, you know, has been traditionally.”
Diament argued that rising antisemitism in the U.S. may very well be one contributing issue.
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“It’s a different kind of election in the wake of what’s going on over the past year for American Jews,” Diament stated. “We’ve seen the terrible surge in antisemitism in the aftermath of the Oct. 7th terrorist attacks. And that’s another dimension, which American Jews have to really stand up and hold government officials accountable and make sure that they are being responsive to us, to make sure we’re guaranteed our rights of freedom of religion in this country.”
Regarding his son and his sons’ mates taking their hole yr in Israel, Diament stated that “in some ways, they feel more comfortable and secure than some of their friends who are on some American university campuses.”
“Their lives are not being threatened, obviously, the way people on the ground in Israel are by foreign militaries,” he stated. “But there are a lot of campuses where young American Jews are really being … psychologically threatened and personally threatened.”
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