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The far right is saying Jews don't serve in the military - they're wrong

On 19 June 2025, while Israel and Iran were at war, The Forward published The far right is saying Jews don't serve in the military - they're wrong. Reporter Arno Rosenfeld wrote it for the paper's Antisemitism Decoded desk. An American family should care because the piece is about posts saying the United States might send Americans to fight Iran for Israel, and that Jewish Americans would not fight that war themselves. A draft is an order to serve. In the United States that system is Selective Service, the registry of people who can be called up.

Background for a new reader. In June 2025 Israel and Iran fought a short war, often called the 12-Day War. On 22 June 2025 the United States joined it by bombing Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. A larger US-Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February 2026. This article was written during the June 2025 fighting, before or as the United States joined, when Americans were first asking whether their soldiers would be sent.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. The rating covers Arno Rosenfeld's reporting in The Forward: the posts he quotes, and the service estimates he cites from the Jewish War Veterans of the United States and demographic studies. The military does not record religion, so the service figures are estimates, not a roster.

What the article says

Rosenfeld writes that prominent far-right voices, led by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, were campaigning against the United States intervening for Israel in the war with Iran. He says a worse claim was mixed into that argument: that Jews were trying to drag American soldiers into a war they would never fight themselves.

He quotes Simon Goddek, whom he describes as a libertarian scientist with more than a million followers on X. Goddek posted on Wednesday, Rosenfeld writes, a proposal that if America went to war with Iran, Jewish Americans should be drafted first. Goddek had also claimed, Rosenfeld writes, that American Jews were the group least likely to send their own children to fight.

How about this: If America goes to war with Iran, Jewish Americans get drafted first.

Simon Goddek, on X, as quoted by Arno Rosenfeld in The Forward, 19 June 2025.

Rosenfeld also describes animated videos made with artificial intelligence, not footage of real soldiers. In one, fictional American soldiers say they do not want to fight Iranians for Israel. In another, a mother says she does not want her children to die for Israel, and a fictional Jewish man tells her to stop crying. Rosenfeld says these posts stack several antisemitic claims: that Jews are loyal only to other Jews, here meaning Israel; that they can push President Donald Trump into Israel's war; and that they refuse to fight.

He says the "Jews do not serve" claim is old. He notes that the Nazis used it, even though German Jews fought in World War I. He also writes that Tzipi Hotovely, whom the article calls the current Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, once said American Jews never send their children to fight for their country. After an uproar, Rosenfeld writes, she apologized.

On the numbers, Rosenfeld writes that the US military does not require members to disclose religion. He cites the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, who estimate about 270,000 living Jewish veterans since 1941 and about 15,000 to 20,000 Jewish service members then enlisted. He also cites demographic studies finding that about 0.4 to 1 percent of people serving identified as Jewish, while Jews were about 2 percent of the US population. He writes that this does not mean Jews do not serve, and that surveys can undercount religious minorities. He adds that almost the entire Israeli military is Jewish, which makes the claim especially odd in a war Israel was already fighting.

What other reporting and posts add

• The same theme in the 2026 war. The ADL's Center on Extremism, in an update dated March 2026, called "'Americans Dying for Israel' / The U.S. as Israel's Military Proxy" "the most dominant and cross-ideological throughline" it tracked after 28 February. It records that Marine veteran Sgt. Brian McGinnis was removed from a 4 March Capitol Hill hearing after shouting "America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel!" ADL. (capture: twitter/t72__v864.md)
• The mirror image of Goddek's post. In September 2026, an account whose bio labels it parody, fiction and satire posted: "If we call for a draft and American boots on the ground in Iran, they should answer without hesitation." Another account copied it almost word for word 23 days later without a parody label. Neither is an Israeli official. Parody account; copy. (capture: twitter/t13__v156.md)
• An unsourced draft rumor. A post on 20 August 2025 with nearly 5,000 likes: "Israel is now considering drafting American soldiers to fight in a potential war with Iran." It named no official and no document. (capture: twitter/t13__v154.md)
• The US ambassador to Israel. Mike Huckabee, as a September 2026 post quotes a Ynet interview (no link given): "Not one time since 1948 has America ever put boots on the ground for Israel." And: "Israel is maybe the appetizer, but we're the entree." Post. (capture: twitter/t13__v153.md)

What it shows

This article matters because it draws the line this investigation keeps. The question of who is being asked to fight Iran is about governments, lobbies, and policy: an Israeli state that keeps its own infantry home, and a US government building ground plans and draft machinery. It is not about Jewish Americans as a people, and posts that turn it into that are wrong, as Rosenfeld shows. The case is stronger without them. What the record does show is on Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home, A Long Pattern, and Reserves, Guard, and the Draft.

Check it yourself

Read The Forward article: The far right is saying Jews don't serve in the military - they're wrong.

Status: Tucker Carlson is alive. Simon Goddek is alive. Donald Trump is alive. Tzipi Hotovely is alive.

Research captures: twitter/t72__v864.md, twitter/t13__v156.md, twitter/t13__v154.md, twitter/t13__v153.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26