Building a blue community: Democrats Abroad in Israel relaunches with new leadership - exclusive

"As Democrats abroad, we need to have our say," newly-appointed chair of Democrats Abroad in Israel (DAI), Joe Meidan, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Though not a new organization, DAI disbanded after October 7 due to frustration with the parent organization’s neutrality and refusal to release a statement about the terrorist attack. A DAI member was killed on a kibbutz in the South, and there were a lot of emotions involved, so the group took a step back.

Meidan and Houpt said they intend to reinvigorate the organization and build a community.

Houpt – a writer, educator, and religious mother of five – said she wants to bring a younger perspective to Jewish-American life in Israel. She was involved with DAI as a volunteer in the last election cycle and had been a member prior to that but mainly only interacted when it was time to vote.

“I found the process overwhelming and confusing,” Houpt said, adding that she wanted to become “very involved in voter assistance and education” in the run-up to the last elections. She would set up stalls in Jerusalem before the US elections, talking to people and canvassing. “Suddenly, people had someone they knew they could call who was like them,” she said.

All 50 US states have their own voting regulations, and people really wanted help with how to vote, but “they didn’t know how,” Houpt said.

Meidan told the Post: “I’m a newcomer, and I’m an outsider to organizations such as Democrats Abroad. I’m an anarchist.”

He said he got involved because “I think there are very important issues that must be taken care of by the Democratic Party, but I find that it is not very easy going along with the Democratic Party concept.”

“My task is to find a way to encourage the Democratic Party to allow Democrats Abroad and Democrats Abroad in Israel to be involved,” he said. “As Democrats, we should have our say.”

Most DAI members are binational (Israeli-American), and many issues, including humanitarian – “ethnic cleansing, causing damage to uninvolved people, such as in the Gaza area” – affect them as both Israelis and Americans, Meidan said.

“I am finding a way to allow DAI to raise their voice and have their say regarding humanitarian issues, not domestic political issues,” Meidan said, adding that this is a problem only faced by several country branches of the organization, such as Israel and Turkey, with others more focused on domestic political issues.

“Starvation of people in Gaza is exceeding a domestic political issue,” he said.

Houpt said Meidan’s stance was his personal position, and he was not speaking for the organization as a whole.

“It is a blanket rule for the safety of all Democrats Abroad that they don’t take stances as an organization,” she said.

“Obviously, individual members can do as they please.”

Meidan said the most important thing apart from lobbying the party to change its stance was his desire to make “the role of DAI much greater than going to polls during election times.”

“Being a Democrat is a way of life, a way of living,” he told the Post. “It’s much more than mobilizing people to the polls.”

The first event as a new country committee will take place on July 4. Houpt said it would be a Zoom event with an interesting speaker to plan the seeds for a new community.

“I want to be getting people excited about events, getting more young people involved, and community building,” she said.

The event would be especially focused on bringing in young people, Houpt said, adding that the organization typically skewed to the older age brackets.

As the mother of twin girls who are about to turn 18, Houpt said she understood how the young generation is “idealistic and yet to be tapped.”

Meidan said: “Creating a sense of belonging is very important, not only for the young generation but especially for them, as they are neither in the states or in Israel; they are both. How do they balance these two worlds that are dominant in their lives?”

The Post asked them what their message was to previous Democratic voters who have felt pushed out of the party due to rampant antisemitism and anti-Israel stances. Those who were once staunchly blue voters, now feel that is incongruous with their life in Israel as Jewish Israeli-Americans.

Meidan said the answer was better communication with the more “liberal portions of the party to try to get in touch with them, to discuss matters with those who spread antisemitic or anti-Israel views.”

He said he did not think the leaders of the Democratic Party “are bothered by the DAI’s opinions on anti-Israelism and antisemitism.”

Houpt said: “While extremism and antisemitism exists across the political spectrum in both parties, we really care about addressing these issues, and we want to state unequivocally that antisemitism is unacceptable.”

The vast majority of American Jews are supporters of Democrats, and so the voices of concern about the party have not manifested in an actual shift away from party support, she said.

“The vast majority of democratic politicians in the party are supporters of Israel,” Houpt said.

“It’s more about making a better party,” she added. “There are significant concerns in our movement, and it’s about making sure parties do not minimize antisemitism within their sphere.”

Despite concerns over the proliferation of antisemitism and anti-Israelism within the Democratic Party – especially with vocal figures such as Zohran Mamdani, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar – American Jews remain overwhelmingly blue voters. Kamala Harris won 79% of the Jewish vote in the 2024 election, a historically high margin.

Democrats Abroad is the official Democratic Party arm for Americans living outside the US, with 52 country
committees throughout Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.