Only one head of government is in the hall of fame of Cheltenham high school, just outside Philadelphia: prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel.

Netanyahu graduated from the school in 1967, when his father was teaching at a nearby Jewish college. But the prize alumnus has angered many members of the large Jewish community in the Philadelphia suburbsby agreeing to speak to Congress next month to condemn Barack Obama’s negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

“Most of the Jews I’ve spoken to, who are very concerned with the welfare of the state of Israel, are not comfortable with Netanyahu speaking to Congress, especially not in the way it’s being done,” said Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom, who recently retired after 36 years in the pulpit of Congregation Adath Jeshurun, a Conservative synagogue in Cheltenham Township, Pennsylvania. “I think most American Jews don’t see this as a constructive act for Israel.”

An editorial last month in the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent took Netanyahu to task for angering the leader of Israel’s closest ally.

“At this delicate juncture, a very public spat with the Obama administration does no one good, least of all Israel,” the weekly newspaper’s editors wrote. “President Barack Obama will remain in office for the next two years, and Israel needs his continued support.”

These comments may seem mild, but they are actually exceptional statements from American Jewish voices usually loath to criticize the government of Israel in public. By aligning himself with conservative Republicans in Congress seeking to embarrass the White House and torpedo a nuclear deal with Iran, Netanyahu has provoked an unusually harsh reaction from many Jewish leaders, and has widened the rift between the community’s liberal majority and its increasingly strident right wing.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the leader of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest and most liberal Jewish denomination in North America, said the speech was “ill-advised”, and called on the prime minister to back out. He was joined by two more centrist voices: Seymour Reich, former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who said the planned speech had become “a circus”.

At the same time, rightwing groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition (backed by billionaire Sheldon Adelson) and the Emergency Committee for Israel said Democratic lawmakers thinking about boycotting the speech were handing a victory to Israel’s enemies and promised to “educate voters” about their disloyalty. The Zionist Organization of America compared Foxman and Jacobs to Jewish leaders who tried to play down Hitler’s rise in the 1930s.

By accepting the invitation of House speaker John Boehner to address Congress on 3 March, Netanyahu has forced many American Jews to choose between their support for a liberal Democratic president and their support for a hardline Israeli prime minister. The White House is furious that it did not receive the customary prior notice of the visit, and ruled out any meeting with Obama, though officials insist the reason for the apparent snub was “long-standing practice and principle” that US presidents should not meet foreign leaders during re-election campaigns. More than two-thirds of Jews voted for Obama in 2012, according to exit polls. A Pew Research survey in 2013 showed that 70% of US Jews identified with or leaned toward the Democratic party, while 80% described themselves as liberal or moderate.

So far, there are strong signs that Netanyahu’s decision to provoke a high-level confrontation with the White House is not winning favor in the Jewish community.

Critical editorials have appeared in several American Jewish newspapers, which are usually staunchly behind any Israeli government.

“Someone has to be the grown-up here,” wrote the Jewish Advocate of Boston, urging Netanyahu to at least delay his speech until after the Israeli elections. The Forward said Netanyahu was embracing a political party whose values were at odds with the vast majority of American Jews.

J Street, a Jewish group that supports a two-state solution in Israel and is regularly critical of the Likud government, says it has collected 20,000 signatures on a petition to delay the speech.

“This speech has really threatened the bipartisan nature of American Jewish support for Israel,” said Rabbi John Rosove, co-chairman of J Street’s rabbinic cabinet and senior rabbi of Temple Israel of Hollywood, a 900-family Reform congregation in Los Angeles. “By meddling in the foreign policy of the United States, and taking a position in our partisan politics, the prime minister has crossed a red line. It makes American Jews very uncomfortable, and I think it’s irresponsible.”

Perhaps the most uncomfortable Jews are the 29 in Congress, only one of whom is a Republican. Though most have only disdain for Boehner and his use of Netanyahu, they fear their absence from the speech would be seen as an insult to Israel and most are planning to attend.

“This was a political trap engineered by the speaker of the House,” said Representative Steve Israel, a Democrat from Long Island who intends to be there. “He is rooting for Democrats not to show up, so he can drive a wedge with voters on the issue of Israel. I know it’s a stunt, so why would I want to give him a victory?”

The congressman, whose district is heavily Jewish, says calls from constituents are about evenly divided on whether he should attend the speech.

Representative John Yarmuth, a Democrat from Louisville, Kentucky, said he would stay away in order not to give the impression that he supports Netanyahu’s position on Iran over US foreign policy. Representative Steve Cohen, of Memphis, Tennessee, said he hadn’t decided, not wanting to send a sign of disrespect to Israel but angry that Boehner and Netanyahu are using a joint session of Congress as a theatrical showcase for Republican policies in hopes of pressuring the White House. The publicity will also benefit the prime minister’s re-election campaign, he said, just two weeks before the 17 March Israeli elections.

“We can’t use our floor speeches in campaign ads, but that’s what Netanyahu did the last time he spoke here,” Cohen said. “It’s a political show.”

He joked that he was thinking about going but sitting high up in the visitor’s gallery, “just like women do in Orthodox synagogues”.