Tal Zlotnitsky, pictured in 2024, is on the board of the University of South Florida’s business school. (Courtesy Zlotnitsky)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cDuring Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign, my dad and I actually drove to Pennsylvania to canvas on Election Day,\u201d Jacob recalled. He would also tag along when his dad would meet with U.S. senators. \u201cProgressivism has been a large part of my upbringing. Social justice, things like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like his father, who attended Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Jacob graduated from high school in Maryland before heading to Boston for college. Tal, meanwhile, moved in recent years to the Tampa, Florida, area to be near other members of his family.<\/p>\n
After Oct. 7, Israel took center stage in the family\u2019s politics. As progressives began mounting protests against Israel\u2019s response in Gaza, his father affixed an Israeli flag to his car, Jacob recalled. Antisemitism became the primary topic at family gatherings. And Tal Zlotnitsky watched as some of his friends \u2014 \u201cpeople,\u201d he said, \u201cthat should know better\u201d \u2014 joined in what he called a \u201cvilification of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an Instagram post two weeks after the attack, he poured out his feelings. \u201cTo my non-Jewish friends, those who have stood with the Jewish community in this time of desperate need, I am forever indebted to you, forever grateful to you,\u201d he wrote. \u201cFor others, many who are deeply good people, who are continuing to live their lives, as if nothing has changed, as if we didn\u2019t just witnessed [sic] the worst massacre of Jews in 90 years: Know that it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharing a picture from inside a protest for racial justice, he added, \u201cIt hurts to stand alone, or mostly alone at this time. I\u2019ve stood with Muslims when Trump denied them refuge, and was banning them. I\u2019ve stood with my fellow Americans of color in support of Black Lives Matter \u2026 I stood with minimum wage workers. I stood with the LGBTQ community for marriage equality. What about us?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not that the Zlotnitskys have no qualms about Israel\u2019s response to being attacked, which included a steep death toll and widespread destruction in Gaza. \u201cI\u2019m not thrilled with Israel\u2019s reaction,\u201d Tal Zlotnitsky said.<\/p>\n
But he had the sense that people on the left were furious with Israel for even having a reaction to begin with \u2014 a reaction to Hamas murdering roughly 1,200 Israelis, many in their own homes, and kidnapping about 250 others. He said, \u201cI think any American in the same situation would expect their government to do everything necessary to free anyone who\u2019s taken.\u201d<\/p>\n
He thought Harris did a good job of navigating the complex issue during her Democratic National Convention speech, in which she reiterated the horrors of Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7 attack while also saying she was working for an outcome where \u201cthe suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought she took a principled position,\u201d Zlotnitsky said. \u201cShe clearly stood on the side of truth about what had happened there, and also talked about the need for a different outcome in the region. I agree with her.\u201d (Jacob, too, said he supported Palestinian statehood and opposed Israeli settlers: \u201cI think I am, in the truest sense of the word, pro-Palestinian, because I do think Palestinians have a right to sovereignty.\u201d)<\/p>\n
But even as Harris got huge applause in the room, many progressives were furious that the DNC hadn\u2019t permitted a Palestinian to speak at the convention. Unlike in previous election cycles, Zlotnitsky decided not to donate to downballot Democrats \u2014 unless they had explicitly stated a pro-Israel platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hated doing it,\u201d he reflected. \u201cIt was a dark moment. \u2026 It\u2019s been a lot of soul-searching and a lot of self-doubt and a lot of fear about what\u2019s to come, what are we leaving here for our kids?\u201d<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/C4yWMgdRIiv\/?hl=en&img_index=1<\/p>\n
He had already experienced heartbreak after finding and supporting a rare candidate: one progressive enough to nab the endorsement of the local Democratic Socialists of America, a group known for its vociferous Israel criticism, but with a pro-Israel policy platform.<\/p>\n
It felt natural for Tal to donate to and organize for Evan Minton, who was running for state senate in California and hoped to be the state\u2019s first openly transgender state legislator. A policy manager and former legislative aide, Minton had made headlines in 2021 for taking a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital\u2019s refusal to perform gender-affirming care to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
\u201cPro Israel candidate in California who needs our support,\u201d read one fundraising email Zlotnitsky sent his network. He feared that Minton\u2019s support for Israel after Oct. 7 would make their candidacy an uphill battle in the modern progressive tent.<\/p>\n
Those fears were borne out after the Sacramento-area district held its primary in March 2024. Minton finished dead last out of seven candidates, with 2.6% of the vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis position on Israel overshadowed everything,\u201d Zlotnitsky said. Looking back on it, he cites the race as \u201ca pivotal moment\u201d when he lost faith in the progressive coalition he\u2019d devoted much of his adult life to supporting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so thrilled to have someone, from a community I care deeply about and want to champion, take our \u2014 I hate to say \u2018our side\u2019 \u2014 take a view that I thought was principled on this issue, knowing the certain opposition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then to watch this person just get clobbered for it\u2026\u201d He trailed off. \u201cI need to stop, because I don\u2019t even know who my allies are anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Election Day in November, Zlotnitsky posted a picture of himself on Instagram wearing his Obama\/Biden \u201908 T-shirt. \u201cHoping today above all else for peace, for brotherhood and sisterhood, for Americans to come together and recognize that what\u2019s made us the shining city on the hill is that our system of electing our leaders, while imperfect, is fair, predictable, and temperate,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI hope today is not the end of that American era.\u201d<\/p>\n
By that night, it was clear that Trump had won. Zlotnitsky is more convinced than some other Democrats that Israel played a role in costing them the election. \u201cI think our division cost us in November. I think \u2014 I know \u2014 I\u2019m not alone,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve talked to a lot of people who are Jews and activists who felt untethered.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, has redirected his activism closer to home. Through the Israeli-American Council \u2014 a group that runs local cultural activities and has a national political arm that leans right \u2014 he works with Jewish high school students \u201cto bring Jewish teens closer to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
And through the University of South Florida\u2019s business school, which he sits on the board of, he talks to college students who are first-generation Americans.<\/p>\n
With the first group, Tal hears \u201chorrifying\u201d stories about their experiences with antisemitism. \u201cIt feels like we\u2019re whistling past the graveyard,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only thing you can do with these kids is just hug them and tell them that we understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
But with the latter, he takes the opposite approach: \u201cI have been avoiding the issue of Israel.\u201d It feels wrong on some level, but at the end of the day he still believes in helping immigrant families. He\u2019d rather not know \u201cwhere their sympathies lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacob, too, feels similarly about the communities he and his family used to advocate for under the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo this day I\u2019m proud to stand up against the Muslim ban. I\u2019ll stand up for it again,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only thing that\u2019s changed is that, in the back of your head, a lot of the people you were standing up for probably don\u2019t want your family to exist as they do in Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both father and son are occupied by the question of how, or whether, Jews could ever rejoin progressive coalitions. Tal figures there would need to be \u201csome answer\u201d in Gaza \u2014 \u201cand it\u2019s certainly not, \u2018Gaza is the new French Riviera,\u2019 whatever President Trump\u2019s fantasies are.\u201d (He was alluding to Trump\u2019s proposal to turn Gaza into a \u201cRiviera,\u201d an idea captured in an AI-generated social media video imagining a gold-plated \u201cTrump Gaza.\u201d)<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever happens, maybe then, there could be some restoration of partnership between Jews and Jewish groups and our natural allies,\u201d Tal mused.<\/p>\n
But, he added in the same breath, \u201cmaybe not.\u201d He said he\u2019d recently dined with \u201ca dear friend\u201d who was a \u201cformer very senior official in the Obama administration, who I consider an ally.\u201d Tal found himself \u201cdeeply disappointed\u201d by what he considered the former official\u2019s interest in \u201cblaming Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zlotnitsky is deeply concerned about what the Trump administration is doing on almost all fronts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing more actions that represent a fundamental lack of respect for basic democratic principles and bedrock American values such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and due process,\u201d he said in an email this week. \u201cIt\u2019s disheartening to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n
But earlier, in a Zoom interview, he had held up the latest mailer he\u2019d received from the Democratic Party, asking him to pledge donations. The envelope listed suggested dollar amounts in increments of thousands, based on his track record of handing out large sums to Democrats.<\/p>\n
He won\u2019t send it back, he says. He\u2019s lost faith.<\/p>\n
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