Two years after October 7, 2023, a ceasefire took hold in Gaza and 20 Israeli hostages came home. In an October 2025 op-ed in The Jerusalem Post, written in that moment, Adam Milstein turned his attention to a front that no army can hold on its own. He called it “the eighth battlefield,” the arena of media and social media that, in his words, “is where narratives are shaped and public opinion is won or lost.”
The op-ed, “Leading with strength: Building the Jewish future beyond the war,” laid out a list of priorities for the period after the fighting. Confronting the war of narratives was near the top. A month earlier, Milstein had published a case study of what losing that battle looks like in practice.
A case study in representation
In September 2025, Ezra Klein wrote an op-ed in The New York Times analyzing what he described as a “divide in the Jewish community’s views on Israel.”
Adam Milstein answered it in a Jerusalem Post column titled “How token far Left Jewish voices misrepresent US Jewry.” He took issue with the voices that major outlets choose to present as representative of American Jews.
Klein’s piece quoted Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, whom Milstein describes as a liberal Zionist turned anti-Zionist advocate.
Adam Milstein also points to the actress Hannah Einbinder, who used an Emmy acceptance speech to say, “I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel.” His summary of the pattern is three words long. “This is tokenism,” he writes.
His argument is about editorial choices more than individual views. “Left-wing media outlets, like The New York Times, cherry-pick voices exclusively from the far-left fringe because those are the only Jewish voices their audiences want to hear,” Milstein writes. The result, in his account, is a distorted picture of American Jewish opinion, one in which a fringe is presented as the community’s voice.
What the data shows
Adam Milstein’s rebuttal rests on survey numbers, which is characteristic of how he argues.
“A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 73% of American Jews hold favorable views of Israel,” he writes.
His October op-ed added findings from UJA-Federation of New York’s 2025 study, which found that 57 percent of American Jews felt more connected to Israel or to their Jewish identity after October 7, and that 31 percent had become more engaged in Jewish life.
Those figures describe the people Milstein calls the “October 8 Jews,” Americans whose connection to their identity grew stronger after the attack. He argues that the surge needs deliberate investment if it is going to last. The gap between that majority and the voices the media chooses to amplify is the problem he wants addressed.
Milstein also faults Klein for a later interview with Mahmoud Khalil, whom Milstein calls a notorious antisemite. In his account, Khalil justified the October 7 attacks, and Klein offered almost no pushback. Milstein rejects the premise that anti-Zionist Jews offer a safer path for the community. “Antisemites don’t hate Jews because of Israel; they hate Israel because they hate everything Jewish, especially the right of Jews to self-determination in a land of their own,” he writes.
Why he calls it a battlefield
Adam Milstein served in the Israel Defense Forces during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, years before he moved to Los Angeles. He now describes himself as an Israeli-American “Strategic Venture Philanthropist.” His decision to rank media alongside the military fronts of the war reflects how seriously he takes it.
His October op-ed treats the narrative front as a matter of capacity. Milstein calls for empowering credible voices to counter misinformation. He also rejects the instinct toward silence that has long shaped communal strategy. “For too long, we’ve been told to stay quiet, avoid provocation, and trust others to protect us,” he writes.
Beyond the narrative front, Milstein calls for professional security at Jewish institutions, legal and crisis-communications resources for people facing harassment, and cybersecurity support against online harassment and doxxing. “Synagogues, Jewish community centers, and schools need professional protection, not volunteers with good intentions,” he writes. He frames all of it as a response to a problem that reaches well beyond the Jewish community, and he calls for coalitions that include Christians, African-Americans, Asians, and others.
Building the bench
The Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, which he and his wife, Gila, co-founded in 2000, describes its approach in three principles.
One of them, Philanthropic Synergy, is defined on the foundation’s site this way: “We facilitate and maintain collaborations between organizations we support with similar missions to amplify the effect of their joint efforts to make the most impact.” Applied to the eighth battlefield, the principle points toward organizations that reinforce one another’s work.
Adam Milstein recommended that Klein spend time with Jewish communities in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago, or New York, in Jewish schools, among Jewish college students, and with Jewish professionals. Those communities, in his view, would give a far more accurate picture of American Jewish life than the handful of commentators who are quoted most often.
Speaking for themselves
The September column closes with a declaration.
“We speak for ourselves: We are Americans, we are Jews, Israel is part of our identity, and we will not be divided by those within us who would trade our people’s future for progressive applause, which they’ll discover was never worth the price,” he writes.
The October 2025 op-ed began with hostages coming home and a war winding down. Its message was that one front would remain open long after the others closed. At 74, Adam Milstein continues to write on that front himself, and his argument to the October 8 Jews is that they belong there too.
This content is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. AFP editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.
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