Key Takeaways:
- NPR’s popular Code Switch podcast recently aired an episode purporting to discuss how American Jews view Israel but focused solely on fringe anti-Israel voices within the Jewish community.
- The failure to provide a complete picture and not platforming alternative voices is a breach of NPR’s own journalistic standards. This was not the first time that NPR’s Israel coverage has breached its journalistic principles.
- This and the continuing misinformation in NPR’s Israel-related reporting call into question why anyone looking to stay informed should support such a biased outlet.
On October 15, 2025, NPR’s popular Code Switch podcast aired a 45-minute program entitled “What does Israel mean to American Jews?”
But anyone hoping to gain an insight into how different parts of the American Jewish community feel about the Jewish state, would have been left sorely disappointed.
Because, contrary to how it was presented, this was not a look at the relationship between American Jews and Israel, from staunch Zionists to anti-Zionists. Rather, it was an invitation to platform fringe voices within the Jewish community that are either highly critical of Israeli actions or oppose the existence of the Jewish state altogether.
It should be noted that much of the content was lifted verbatim from an April 2024 Code Switch episode that was aptly titled “As American Jews speak out on Israel, some see rifts in their communities.” Unlike this most recent episode, its 2024 predecessor did not purport to provide its audience with a general understanding of the relationship between American Jewry and the State of Israel.
NPR, of course, found a token anti-Zionist Jew and invented a split in US Jewry over Israel. https://t.co/YTLygvVd7x
— Howard Lovy (@Howard_Lovy) October 15, 2025
The tone of this latest piece is set early on by one of the podcast’s hosts, Leah Donnella, who tells her co-host that, in the days following October 7, all of her interviewees were “devastated” by what Israel was doing in Gaza and that they all felt somewhat “implicated” in it.
This is truly astonishing. That the response to October 7 (which, by the way, is mentioned but never explained as a large-scale massacre of Israelis by a Palestinian terror group) by all of Donnella’s interviewees was to entrench their criticism of Israel signifies how fringe their voices are within the wider American Jewish community. Because the feelings of the vast majority of the American Jewish community in the immediate aftermath of October 7 were characterized by “horror, shock, and disbelief.”
Aside from the fringe Jewish American voices that are platformed by NPR during the first part of this podcast episode, the second half is largely dedicated to an interview with Marjorie Feld, a university professor who recently wrote a book on the history of the anti-Zionist movement within the American Jewish community. Feld’s inclusion in this episode is meant to provide an academic context to the anti-Israel positions put forward by those who were interviewed in its first half.
However, while host Leah Donnella does mention in passing that Feld is “openly critical of Israel,” she never informs her audience that Feld, appearing as an impartial academic with an expertise in the topic, is actually an anti-Zionist activist and serves on the Academic Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, a virulently anti-Israel organization.
This failure to inform is a breach of basic journalistic standards of transparency and impartiality.
Here’s exactly why Feld’s JVP affiliation matters and why readers should be informed that they are not getting the views of an “expert” but of an ideologue. https://t.co/lxL7bCyQSw
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) June 23, 2024
These were not the only journalistic standards that were breached by this latest Code Switch episode. By only profiling those on the fringes of the Jewish community who are extremely critical of Israel, its actions, and Zionism in general, this episode not only failed to live up to its title, but it also completely failed to provide a proper and accurate answer to the question it posited.
NPR has not only breached general journalistic principles, but it has also violated some of the very standards that NPR professes to abide by. These include accuracy, fairness, and completeness. None of the opinions put forward by any of the interviewees were “rigorously challenged,” no opposing viewpoints were presented, and the story of American Jewry and Israel was not told “comprehensively.”
Related Reading: NPR Bends Over Backwards to Conceal the Real Reason There Isn’t a Palestinian State
This breach of standards when it comes to reporting on Israel is nothing new for NPR. From the first days of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, HonestReporting has continually exposed bias and misinformation within NPR’s coverage.
It’s no secret that NPR is in financial difficulties. Why should anyone contribute to a media organization that tosses its own journalistic principles into the wind over Israel, continuously providing a disservice to its loyal listeners and readers?
Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region. Get updates direct to your phone. Join our WhatsApp and Telegram channels!
