In Memoriam: Rael Jean Isaac – Remembering A Founder of Americans For a Safe Israel

Jun 25, 2026 by Susan Rosenbluth

By: Moshe Phillips

Social scientist and pro-Israel author Rael Jean Isaac passed away in New York this week at the age of 93.

Together with her late husband, Erich Isaac, and their colleague Edward Alexander, Dr. Isaac was a central figure in a group of activist intellectuals who were at the forefront of pro-Israel advocacy for many decades with much of this work being done through Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), of which she was a founder.

Defending Israel with Her Pen

Rael Isaac was a graduate of Barnard College, and Johns Hopkins University, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1972 with a dissertation on grassroots Israeli political movements.

While she was completing her doctorate, Isaac and her husband, together with former Israeli Knesset member Shmuel Katz, established Americans For a Safe Israel, AFSI to defend Israel’s historic Jewish rights to the Land of Israel and to challenge Israel’s increasingly aggressive intellectual enemies. She was the editor of AFSI’s Outpost newsletter for over 25 years.

Dr. Isaac’s op-eds and letters to the editor soon began appearing regularly throughout the general and Jewish press. Her first book, Israel Divided: Ideological Politics in the Jewish State, was published in 1976. It explored the divisions in Israeli society that shape politics in the Jewish State to this day.

Dr. Isaac’s landmark investigative reporting revealed the extremism of the leftwing American Jewish organization “Breira,” and brought about the downfall of that group.

A similar exposé by Dr. Isaac two years later documented the anti-Israel activities of another far-left group, New Jewish Agenda. Like Breira, NJA collapsed under the weight of the public learning the truth about its work. AFSI published Dr. Isaac’s booklets about NJA and Breira and these can be found online at: https://afsi.org/pamphlets/.

A Prolific Author

Dr. Isaac’s careful research on the beliefs and activities of extremist groups continued to make its mark in the years to follow, particularly her revelations about the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s, which were published in The American Spectator.

Her 1984 book, The Coercive Utopians, coauthored with Erich Isaac, exposed far-left activists and groups that were undermining American democracy in the name of universalist ideals.

A 1986 Commentary essay Dr. Isaac wrote with Erich Isaac, titled “Whose Palestine?” is widely regarded as the definitive analysis of the controversy surrounding the book From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters.

Dr. Isaac’s expertise and intellectual interests were wide-ranging. Over the years, she also published essays concerning adoption, race relations, and mental health issues. Her 1990 book, Madness in the Streets, coauthored with Virginia Armat, criticized the radical psychiatrist theories that led to the mass release of patients from American mental institutions. Her last book was about the global warming controversy, Roosters of the Apocalypse.

She was a devoted mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

Moshe Phillips is the National Chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.