Short answer: As of July 2026, Martha Stewart has not taken a public political position on Israel or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023 attacks and the ensuing war. Her documented connection to Israel is cultural and culinary rather than political or religious: a 2011 trip hosted by Israel's Tourism Ministry, a long-running on-air appreciation for Jewish and Ashkenazi food, and a 2024 babka collaboration with the Israeli-style Breads Bakery in New York. She is not Jewish; her father reportedly objected to her first marriage to a Jewish man, per the 2024 Netflix documentary "Martha."
What Martha Stewart has actually said and done
Here is the documented public record of Stewart's connection to Israel.
- 2010: Stewart made an earlier trip to Israel, described by Haaretz as a two-week visit that preceded her better-documented 2011 trip. Few independent details about this earlier visit turned up in available reporting.
- September 2011: Israel's Tourism Ministry invited and helped fund Stewart's trip, part of a broader push to court American celebrities into promoting Israeli tourism and backing the Dead Sea's bid for New 7 Wonders of Nature status, according to Haaretz, which confirmed the trip about a week before she arrived, and Ynetnews, which reported the ministry was also negotiating to help fund a filmed cooking segment at sites like the Western Wall and the Dead Sea. While in Israel, Stewart toured Jerusalem's Old City and the Mahane Yehuda Market, visited Yad Vashem, gave an interview to Israeli television, and attended her nephew's wedding, as she recounted on The Martha Stewart Blog. It remains unclear whether the proposed cooking segment was ever produced or aired.
- January 2019: Members of Stewart's editorial team, Sarah Carey and Thomas Joseph, joined the "Celebrity Chefs Birthright" trip to Israel alongside chefs like Ruth Reichl and Gail Simmons, touring Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Akko, as reported on The Martha Stewart Blog and confirmed by the Times of Israel. Stewart herself did not go on this trip; it was her team.
- May 14, 2024: Stewart collaborated with the Israeli-style Breads Bakery in New York on a limited-edition babka (poppy seed, golden raisin, and citrus zest), a project the bakery's owner called a career highlight, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which also notes her long pattern of featuring Jewish delis and bakeries like Barney Greengrass, PopUp Bagels, and Acme Smoked Fish on her shows.
- October 30, 2024: Netflix released the documentary "Martha," in which Stewart recounts that her father reacted to her engagement to her first husband, Andy Stewart, who was Jewish, by objecting, "No, you're not marrying him. He's a Jew." This is a personal-history anecdote about her own family, not a statement about Israel or geopolitics, per a post from the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism citing the documentary and further discussed by the Forward.
Her relationship to Jewish identity and food culture
No search turned up any public statement from Martha Stewart on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Gaza war, October 7, 2023, or any related controversy, positive or negative. There is no record of her participating in or opposing any boycott of Israel, no donation record to Israeli or pro-Israel causes in public reporting, and no record of her attending an Israel-related advocacy event.
What is well documented is her genuine, recurring affection for Jewish and Israeli-style food. That runs through the 2011 trip itself, where she toured Jerusalem's central market and its historic sites at the Tourism Ministry's invitation, through the 2024 Breads Bakery babka, and through years of her shows spotlighting institutions like Barney Greengrass and Acme Smoked Fish. She is not Jewish, and her own family history, including her father's objection to her first marriage to a Jewish man, adds a personal layer to that affinity without turning it into a political one. Her visible enthusiasm for Jewish food culture is likely what drives search interest in whether she "supports" Israel, but the two things, culinary appreciation and political advocacy, are not the same, and the public record only supports the former.
The bottom line
Martha Stewart's relationship to Israel is cultural, not political: a well-documented 2011 trip hosted by Israel's Tourism Ministry and a warm, recurring appreciation for Jewish and Israeli-style food, most recently the 2024 Breads Bakery babka. No public statements, donations, boycotts, or advocacy tied to Israel or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have surfaced in the public record through July 2026. She is best described as politically neutral or silent on Israel, paired with a genuine, longstanding cultural affinity for Jewish cuisine.
Support Israel directly
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Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
