Critiques of Zionism by Jews

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At the Jewish-led rally In Union Square, the mood was mournful, though the emphasis was different from that of the Central Park event. At 5:30 p.m., hundreds gathered for “Not Another Bomb,” a non-Zionist event co-sponsored by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, If Not Now, Shoresh and the Halachic Left. Attendees at the rally wore mostly black clothing, with dozens wearing keffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity. Many carried signs that read “Free Them All”; “Not Another Bomb”; “Mourn the dead, Fight for the Living” and “Palestinian and Jewish Safety are Intertwined.”

For an hour, speakers at the Not Another Bomb rally read aloud hundreds of names, ages and stories of Israelis and Palestinians killed since Oct. 7. At the feet of the speakers, mourners placed yahrzeit memorial candles and stones in memory of the victims on both sides of the conflict. Several shed tears.

The gathering also communally chanted Psalm 121, read in times of distress, and recited Mourners’ Kaddish.

As the sun set, attendees were encouraged to stay for a 7 p.m. gathering held by Israelis for Peace, an anti-occupation group, also in Union Square. The crowd thinned out and swelled again as the gathering transitioned to the Israeli-led one. Israelis for Peace has been holding weekly vigils in Union Square since November.

Attendees held lit candles in their hands, and as at many of the group’s rallies, signs were not allowed. As at the rally that preceded it, many wore black, but there were far fewer keffiyehs or kippahs.

The somber gathering of hundreds focused on the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza, mourned the Israeli and Palestinian lives lost and called for an end to the war and a safe return of the hostages. The gathering also called for an end to the Israeli occupation and a path toward peace.

Attendees wore stickers that read “367,” acknowledging the number of the days since the attack, as well as T-shirts and dog tags in honor of the hostages, and lit yahrzeit candles in honor of the victims.

Speakers at the Israelis for Peace rally included Comptroller Brad Lander, a regular at the rallies who is running for mayor, and Alana Zeitchik, who had six family members taken by Hamas on Oct. 7.

“Oct. 7, 2023 took away my power, but not for long,” Zeitchik said. “What Hamas did not know is that the love I have for my family is more powerful than any weapon in their hateful arsenal. And what Bibi Netanyahu did not know is that the love I have for my family would not fill me with hate for Palestinian families.”

Halachic Left is a grassroots movement of halachically-observant Jews advocating for our communities to oppose Jewish supremacy, support ending the Israeli military control and occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and work for a just and equitable future for Israelis and Palestinians.

WHO WE ARE

We share a common experience of belonging to institutions where uncritical support for Israel is a nearly universal assumption, and our views are marginalized and ignored. We are united in our belief that we should not need to compromise on our values to be a part of religious communities.

Halachic Left is the only Diaspora organization working within observant communities to change the narrative on Israel and Palestine. Our commitment to halacha compels us to speak out against the right-wing voices twisting our traditions to their own ends. Similarly, we add Jewish religious voices to the American left, demonstrating that observant people can and do play a key role in progressive movements.

The above post mentions "Shoresh and the Halachic Left."

Googling, there seem to be lots and lots of different things named "Shoresh." I didn't specifically find a Jewish anti-Zionist and/or peace activist group with that name.

I did find the website of Halachic Left, "a grassroots organization working to shift the conversation on Israel and Palestine in traditionally observant Jewish communities."

Their About page says:


Further down on the page, one of their goals is to "Mobilize liberal Zionists, non Zionists, and anti-Zionists to work together to build a better future for Israelis and Palestinians."

A Jewish anti-Zionist group is set to demonstrate against Israel in the London Borough of Camden on Friday night, which falls on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur, Camden Police announced on Friday.

The ‘International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network’ has held weekly protests in Swiss Cottage, protests which have reportedly increased in size and drawn in counter-protesters.
Police enacted the Public Order Act to prevent “serious disruptions,” which would limit the protesters' movement, time to congregate, and ability to use amplified sound equipment

The protest calls for the British government to expel the Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely, and accused her of inciting genocide, the network announced on X.

About the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
The network was founded in 2008, according to the Union of International Associations, and aims to “Dismantle Israeli apartheid; promote return of Palestinian refugees; end Israeli colonization of historic Palestine.”

What is Yom Kippur?
Yom Kippur is the holiest day in Judaism and the most important day in the Jewish calendar, the Jerusalem Post explained. Also known as the Day of Atonement, the holiday marks the completion of the Ten Days of Repentance that began on Rosh Hashanah and is marked with a 25-hour fast and numerous rules and restrictions.

The fast of Yom Kippur is explained in the Bible and described in the Book of Leviticus as a day of cleansing, where the Jewish people atone for their sins, become pure, and pray that they are inscribed in the Book of Life.

Many activities are forbidden on Yom Kippur, including bathing, applying deodorant, washing hands and using electronics.

Maté was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944 to a Jewish family.[4][5] His maternal grandparents, Josef Lövi and Hannah Lövi, who came from the town of Košice in eastern Slovakia, were killed in Auschwitz when he was five months old.[5] His aunt disappeared during the war, and his father endured forced labour at the hands of the Nazi Party.[6] When he was one, Maté's mother put him in the care of a stranger for over five weeks to save his life. Upon their reunion, the infant Maté was so hurt that he avoided looking at his mother for several days.

PalestineIn a July 2014 opinion piece, titled "Beautiful Dream of Israel has become a Nightmare", Maté described how the policies imposed by Israel were not compatible with a just peace, and described how "There is no understanding Gaza out of context".[28] Maté drew direct comparisons between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto and commented on the severe power imbalance stating, "Unlike Israel, Palestinians lack Apache helicopters, guided drones, jet fighters with bombs, laser-guided artillery."

In November 2023, Maté was interviewed by Piers Morgan in which he described how he cried every day for two weeks after visiting Gaza. He also called for an end to the occupation and persecution of Palestinians, as well as a return of Palestinian land occupied since 1967.

A new organization has been created on American college campuses with the sole purpose of campaigning to have the Jewish campus organization Hillel removed due to its Zionist affiliations.
The group, which can be found on social media under the name “Drop Hillel,” is affiliated with National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in the US.

Drop Hillel calls itself a “Jewish-led campaign... advocating for divestment from Hillel” that wishes to “weaken Hillel’s grip on Jewish campus life.”

It said Hillel is a Zionist organization concerned first and foremost with bolstering support for the State of Israel.

Over the last several decades, Hillel has monopolized Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” it added.

According to its social media statement, there is concrete evidence of Hillel’s surveillance and harassment of Palestinian students, as well as initiatives involving trips to Israel (including Birthright) and rules against Palestinians attending events.

Drop Hillel said Hillel is alienating Palestinian and Jewish anti-Zionist students and is collaborating with the IDF.

The group called on universities across the US to cut institutional ties with Hillel and to create grassroots Jewish organizations that are inclusive to anti-Zionist Jews.

“[We wish to] build alternative Jewish community structures on campuses that are capable of recognizing a Judaism beyond Zionism,” it said.

Hillel has taken over as an authority on antisemitism, which it criticizes as a means of suppressing Palestinian liberation, Drop Hillel said. It also said Hillel creates “antisemitic campus climate moral panic.”

The accounts that Drop Hillel follows are almost exclusively anti-Zionist or pro-Palestinian groups, such as Jewish Voices for Peace, Jews for Ceasefire, Anti-Zionist Minyan, Students for Justice in Palestine, and various BDS groups.

Anti-Zionist Sukkahs
Alongside Columbia Jewish Voices for Peace and Columbia Apartheid Divest, Drop Hillel recently erected anti-Zionist sukkot on Columbia University’s campus, which they named “liberation sukkahs.”

“While we sit in our sukkah in observance of our ritual and tradition, the Palestinians shelter in tents because their homes have been destroyed,” it said. “We refuse to profane our religion by celebrating in a sukkah built by a pro-genocide institution.”

According to the Daily Tar Heel, the student paper of the University of North Carolina, Students for Justice in Palestine held a rally on October 9 in which they called for “no more Hillel.”

Hannah Spinrad, executive director of UNC Hillel, told the Daily Tar Heel that comparing Hillel to organizations like the KKK is hateful and antisemitic.

She said attempts to dismantle Hillel “[create] a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus.”

However, a member of SJP told the Daily Tar Heel that allegations of antisemitism are a “red herring” to distract from Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Disputing this, UNC Hillel VP Michael Wagner said, “We’re the ones who get to say what hurts us or what doesn’t hurt us. You can’t.”

The Gaza war has had a massive impact on American Jewry.

Recently, several scholars and organisational leaders, from anti-Zionists to Likud supporters, offered their opinions about how they see the changing landscape of the American Jewish community and what they expect in the future.

Prior to 7 October, divides widened among American Jews over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push for judicial reform.

But the Hamas attack ushered in a new sense of coming together among both the liberal and conservative mainstream.

Parallel to this, however, a newly energised Jewish anti-Zionism became very visible, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. And it may be symbolic of coming political changes in the Jewish community.

Marc Dollinger, a professor of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, noted that liberal and conservative Jews have “pushed back and forth against each other’s political positions for generations”.

Dollinger noted that in 2014, right-wing members blocked liberal lobbying group J Street’s application to join the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

But the most important thing that cranked divides open further in the lead-up to 7 October was arguments over Netanhayu’s judicial reform.

Organisations that typically did not comment on Israeli politics, including the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federations, weighed in.

The Hamas-led massacre changed all that.

Dov Waxman, director of UCLA’s Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, noted that American Jews felt a “new sense of vulnerability”—not just for Israelis and the Jewish state itself, but also for themselves.

Fear in the face of skyrocketing Antisemitism was mixed with shock at leftist approval of—and even glee at— 7 October.

The immediate result was that the Jewish mainstream experienced an outpouring of participation in religious, social, and cultural activities.

A survey of Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis said 86 per cent saw “an increase in attendance at synagogue and programs”.

This had a political effect on Jews.

Not only was there what Waxman called a “broad expression of sympathy for Israel that we haven’t seen in many years” but a “rallying around the flag effect” among duelling factions.

Russell said there was “no question” about an explosion of interest in his organisation and similar ones. For example, he cited an 800% increase in website contacts for the JCRC Bay Area since 7 October.

Amanda Berman, executive director of the progressive Zionist group Zioness, said her organisation also experienced an “exponential rise” in interest.

Zioness Facebook groups increased from 36 to 45 after 7 October, along with increased demand for trainings.

Although fewer than their liberal cousins, conservative Jews also felt the new unity.

Oakland resident and former America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) National Council member Michael Sosebee was heartened by a willingness to “put our differences aside”.

Even American Friends of Likud board member Steven Goldberg agreed, saying, “I do think this has brought the American Jewish community together.”

The massacre appears to have affected right-wing Jews less. Goldberg said it merely “confirmed the general thoughts” of his group, although they did experience some increased interest.

While Goldberg has not sensed a rise in support for Netanyahu in his circles, “people who are especially committed to defend Israel feel stronger about it”.

Jewish anti-Zionists have also emerged as a very public third rail.

While often dismissed as marginal and unimportant, radical politics can crystallise attitudes held by a larger group of people and sometimes act as a canary in a coal mine about upcoming changes.

Unsurprisingly, anti-Zionists have had a different experience than the Jewish mainstream.

Clyde Leland, a member of the Chapter Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Bay Area, said his group did not take part in the feeling of togetherness. What JVP did experience, however, was an explosion of interest.

The national organisation claims thousands have joined since 7 October and now has 22,000 members.

Among Bay Area anti-Zionists, no love was lost for the JCRC.

Leland said what irritates him is that, in his impression, the organisation portrays itself as speaking for “the Jewish community” but excludes anti-Zionists.

He also claimed that post-7 October, his JVP chapter experienced more interest and activity than the JCRC.

Pointing to the over 50 synagogues and organisations that are on the JCRC Council, Russell said, “As a proudly Zionist organisation, we cannot and would not claim to speak for the tiny minority proclaiming themselves anti-Zionist.”

Leland also said young people are flooding into the organisation.

Shane Burley, co-author of the forthcoming Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, said, “Jewish anti-Zionism is growing at an incredibly rapid rate, especially among Millennials and Gen-Z.”

Indeed, Jewish anti-Zionists are far more visible. Sosebee agreed. “We were shocked at how many there are,” he said.

Amanda Berman noted that anti-Zionists are actually “driving people” to Zioness, especially those who feel Jewish anti-Zionists are being used as tokens.

Unsurprisingly, many in the Jewish mainstream have hardened towards them.

Steven Goldberg said previously he thought Jewish anti-Zionists were “cranks and crackpots”, but now he sees them as “supporting people who revel in the murder of Jews”.

Regarding the future, Sosebee is “optimistic” that the new unity will continue after the crisis and help the “Jewish community work for a better community.”

Marc Dollinger was not surprised about the new wave of Jewish leftwing radicalism, saying “something like this happens every generation” as youth seek to “reinvent Jewish life”.

As in the past, he thinks the moment will ebb and flow until the next generation takes aim at this one.

Others are less sure. Shane Burley points to what he sees as a growing alternative movement of new organisational forms outside the mainstream, which are not Zionist, although not necessarily anti-Zionist.

Burley named a mix of synagogues, community centres, independent minyans, and political groups. Although only a minority of those involved are anti-Zionists, they appear to be finding a home among these new alternatives.

Dov Waxman says divisions over the war only “accelerated” an ongoing process.

While the numbers are debated by all sides, and in the absence of a large-respondent national poll asking specific questions, Waxman thinks 10 to 15 per cent of American Jews are anti-Zionist, while another 10 per cent could support either one or two states.

Regardless, the postwar golden age of liberal hegemony among American Jews looks like it is coming to a close as both the right and left wings of the community push in opposite directions.

Dov Waxman’s estimate of the number of anti-Zionist Jews seems likely to grow.

While 8 out of 10 Jews identified as Democrats in the last election, nearly half of 18–35-year-olds disagree with President Biden’s Israel policy.

That tension is evident inside the Jewish community.

With over 33,000 Palestinian casualties (including estimates ranging from 6 to 12,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters), Waxman says dovish groups are now in a “difficult middle ground position” between anti-Zionists and uncritical supporters of the war.

Siphoning from this, the Jewish anti-Zionists have solidified what looks like a permanent, albeit modest, base on the left wing of the Jewish community.

But simultaneously, the most significant population growth of American Jews is among the Orthodox. They are more right-wing leaning than their Reform counterparts, whose percentage is set to decline.

This has led Steven Goldberg to think that if anti-Israel attitudes continue to grow inside the Democratic Party, “more Jews will switch to the Republican Party” and that, within a decade, they might be split between the parties.

It’s hard to imagine that any move to the right would be that large, as American Jews remain solidly liberal on practically all other political positions. And the country’s two-party system locks them in with nowhere to go.

Nonetheless, sans the infinitesimally distant creation of a separate Palestinian state, practically any position the Democratic Party takes will accelerate already increasing shifts to the left and right among American Jews.

Despite the unity felt in the Jewish mainstream at present, its future seems to be inevitably one of increased divergence.

We are an ad-hoc group of Rabbis and Rabbinical students across political affiliations and denominations.

We are from Conservative, Reform, Modern Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and Renewal communities.

At this moment of great moral reckoning, we are speaking out with one voice to fulfill the most sacred obligation in Jewish tradition.

Pikuach nefesh:
Saving a life

To mark a year of genocide in Gaza, we publish this powerful interview with two Israeli dissidents who took part in a Palestine Action siege of the Elbit HQ.

Yisroel Dovid Weiss, Rabbi and spokesman for Neturei Karta, talks to TRT World about the Israeli attack on Palestine.