South African Jews have strongly denounced their government’s foreign policy toward Israel, urging officials to reopen the country’s embassy in Tel Aviv, which has remained closed for two years amid Pretoria’s deepening hostility toward the Jewish state since the start of the war in Gaza.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) on Tuesday blasted the government for abandoning its own citizens abroad by keeping the Tel Aviv embassy closed. 

The group said the resulting vacuum has created serious difficulties for thousands of South Africans in Israel and forced SAJBD to take on crisis-response duties that should fall to the state.

“This knee jerk, virtue signaling exercise did nothing to contribute to the peace deal that thankfully other governments, including the United States and several Arab nations, were able to achieve, through hard work and negotiations with both sides of the conflict,” SAJBD’s national director, Wendy Khan, wrote in a column for the South African Jewish Report, referring to the US-backed ceasefire to halt fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Kahn also slammed the government for its glaring double standard: during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June, the South African embassy in Tehran proactively contacted citizens in the Islamic Republic to offer consular assistance and support — yet no comparable effort was made for South Africans in the Jewish state, even as civilian areas there were directly targeted by Iranian missiles.

“It was left to the SAJBD to arrange for the repatriation of South African citizens when the war ended, arranging for three Ethiopian Airlines flights to be added to bring South African citizens home,” Kahn said. “This was a task other governments arranged for their citizens.”

South Africa closed its embassy in Tel Aviv on Nov. 17, 2023 — exactly two years ago — citing concerns over the war in Gaza, in a move that marked the beginning of an increasingly hostile campaign against Israel. 

According to Kahn, President Cyril Ramaphosa assured SAJBD at the time that the closure would last only “for the duration of the war” in Gaza. However, even though a ceasefire has been in place for over a month now, the embassy remains closed.

“The war has ended, and we therefore call on Ramaphosa to honor his commitment of reopening the embassy in Tel Aviv,” she said. 

Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct.7, 2023, the South African government has taken an openly hostile stance toward the Jewish state, emerging as one of its fiercest critics and seeking to undermine it on the international stage. 

Last month, the South African Medical Association (SAMA) cut all ties with the Israel Medical Association (IMA) in one of the country’s latest attempts to boycott Jerusalem, prompting the resignation of at least 80 Jewish doctors and medical professionals.

SAMA is also urging the World Medical Association (WMA) to suspend the IMA’s membership until “meaningful changes” are made.

In its statement, SAMA set several conditions for lifting its suspension, including the release of Palestinian medical personnel, condemning the destruction of Gaza’s health-care system, opposing the blockade of essential medical supplies, and ensuring adequate medical care for all individuals under Israeli control.

The local Jewish community slammed SAMA’s decision, labeling it “underhanded.”

“Instead of representing our country’s medical professionals, they have chosen political expediency over the interests of their members,” SAJBD said in a statement.

“This action will serve only to alienate members of the association, causing unnecessary division and creating rifts between professionals and communities in our country,” the statement read. 

This move came as diplomatic relations between the two countries continued to plunge, with South Africa pulling its diplomats from Tel Aviv, hosting Hamas representatives at a government-backed conference, and pursuing its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Most recently, South Africa insinuated that Israel is seeking to “cleanse Palestinians” out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The apparent accusation came after the surprise arrival of 153 Palestinians on a chartered flight that landed in Johannesburg last week. The group arrived without departure stamps from Israel in their passports.

South African border police kept the Palestinians on the plane for several hours before Ramaphosa allowed them entry on a standard 90-day visa exemption.

“We are suspicious, as the South African government, about the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the plane,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters.

“We do not want any further flights to come our way because this is a clear agenda to cleanse out Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank and those areas, which South Africa is against,” he added. “It does look like it represents a broader agenda to remove Palestinians from Palestine into many different parts of the world and is a clearly orchestrated operation.”

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, an agency called Al-Majd was behind the flight in addition to others chartered for those fleeing Gaza and had contact with the Israeli government. Al-Majd, which is reportedly operated by a dual Israeli-Estonian national, says on its website that it seeks to “provide aid and rescue efforts to Muslim communities in conflict and war zones.”

(JTA) — Hannah Karpel-Pomerantz and her wife met as rabbinical school classmates in Jerusalem four years ago, bonding over their love of Jewish texts and rituals. This August, as they began their final two years of school, Hebrew Union College splashed the couple across its website in an essay celebrating their relationship.

“HUC wanted to feature me and my wife as a love story — as something that makes the school look good,” Karpel-Pomerantz said. “It signals that American progressive Jewish life has evolved to the point where LGBTQ inclusion is a no-brainer.”

A new national study suggests just how deeply that shift has taken hold: 51% of the rabbinical students surveyed identified as LGBTQ+. It’s an eye-popping finding that provides the first empirical evidence for a phenomenon many in the non-Orthodox rabbinate have been noticing for years.

“If you take a historical perspective, it is rather astounding, given the fact that rabbinical schools weren’t even accepting LGBTQ students until the 1990s or later,” said Jonathan Krasner, a professor of Jewish studies at Brandeis University.

The demographic shift can be linked to a broader transformation in the rabbinate, as the old “sage on the stage” model gives way to a more pastoral, responsive style of leadership. Aspiring rabbis are entering the field with new expectations, while congregations are placing unprecedented demands on clergy, fueling a placement crisis that has left many pulpits empty.

As they make the case for their students, educators say LGBTQ rabbis, shaped by the long fight for inclusion, are emerging as the leaders the community needs amid polarization and rising antisemitism.

“For 23 years, SVARA has invited queer Jews into the long project of upgrading the tradition,” said Rabbi Benay Lappe, founder of the queer yeshiva whose alumni now populate rabbinical schools across the country. “Queer people understand upheaval, resilience, and creativity — the same toolkit that catalyzed rabbinic Judaism itself. When people who’ve had to reimagine their own lives step into spiritual leadership, they bring clarity and empathy that enrich the whole community.”

Lappe added, “The question is not ‘Why so many queer people?’ but rather, ‘Why is this extraordinarily good news for the future of Judaism?’”

The new research, published by a group called Atra, bills itself as the first comprehensive, cross-denominational study of the American rabbinate. But its headline-grabbing LGBTQ+ figure requires some clarification: It is based on a survey of 181 volunteer respondents, with limited participation from Orthodox students, making it impossible to know how precisely it reflects the entire population of aspiring rabbis.

Still, the study’s lead researcher, Wendy Rosov, said the finding should not be dismissed. “Even if the estimate is high, it’s not far off — it is not a crazy statistic,” she said.

Rosov noted that seminaries do not systematically track students’ sexual orientation or gender identity, but several told her team informally that as many as half of their current students identify as LGBTQ+. She also pointed to broader survey data showing rising rates of LGBTQ identification among young Americans — and among young Jews in particular — which helps explain the pattern.

There is clear year-over-year evidence within the study itself. Among surveyed rabbis ordained before 2004, only 7% identified as LGBTQ+. The share rises to 15% for those ordained between 2005 and 2014, 29% for the 2015-2024 cohort, and 51% among current students.

The study does not attempt to explain the trend, and Rosov declined to offer theories, citing a lack of data.

Scholars and educators expect the dramatic numbers to stir murmurs in some corners of the Jewish community about the “queering of the rabbinate.” Krasner said those anxieties echo an earlier chapter in Jewish history, when women began enrolling in rabbinical schools in significant numbers and some predicted a “feminization” of Judaism and a loss of rabbinic authority.

“Those concerns were overblown,” he said. What mattered then, he added, is what matters now: that people can see themselves reflected in their religious leaders. “I’m not worried about the rabbinate ‘going queer.’ We should be cautious about that kind of anxiety.”

Deborah Waxman, president of Reconstructing Judaism, remembers that earlier era firsthand. When she came out to her mother during her first year of rabbinical school in 1993, the reaction was immediate — and telling.

“My mother cried,” Waxman recalled. “She said, it’s already going to be so hard for you as a woman rabbi, I’m so worried that you will never get employed as a lesbian.”

At the time, Waxman said, those fears weren’t unfounded. Many queer students worried that being open about who they were could jeopardize their ordination or leave them unemployable. Waxman’s career bridges both eras, and she has learned to reinterpret the social anxieties of the past as markers of how dramatically the landscape has shifted.

One leading theory among rabbinic educators is that the surge in LGBTQ students represents not only a new openness but also generations of pent-up aspiration. For much of modern American Jewish history, LGBTQ Jews were barred from the rabbinate. Once that barrier fell, seminary leaders say, the long-deferred interest began to surface.

Andrew Rehfeld, president of Hebrew Union College, calls it a “backlog of interest.”

“For years, gay and lesbian Jews were excluded not only from leadership, but from many communities themselves,” Rehfeld said. “Now that the doors are open, it’s not surprising there’s an equilibrium happening.”

Shuly Rubin Schwartz, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary and a historian of American Judaism, said she is reminded of the pattern that unfolded before. When the rabbinate first opened its doors to women, she said, there was an initial wave of interest from people who had long been denied access.

“You have a group that has been marginalized throughout Jewish history finally given the opportunity to exercise leadership,” she said. “What we’re seeing now is similar.”

Another theory holds that the trend reflects a deeper affinity between queer identity and Jewish spiritual life.

Lappe sees this clearly through SVARA, her queer-centered yeshiva, where thousands of LGBTQ Jews have engaged in Talmud study over the past two decades. Many of her students later apply to rabbinical school.

“This shift isn’t an accident,” she said, referring to the new study. “It’s a predictable outcome of a tradition that has always been renewed by people moving through upheaval. When people who have had to courageously reimagine their own lives step into spiritual leadership, they bring clarity, empathy, and a commitment to justice that enriches the whole community. That shows you where this energy is coming from.”

For many aspiring rabbis, that process begins long before they arrive on campus.

Karpel-Pomerantz said LGBTQ Jews often come to the rabbinate with a level of self-awareness that grows out of the work of understanding their identities. “LGBTQ people are sometimes almost on the fast track to having done a lot of the soul-searching that can help prepare people for the rabbinate in a meaningful way,” she said.

The increase in LGBTQ enrollment has come in tandem with an evolution in the role of a rabbi. Once defined primarily as a learned authority who delivered sermons and rendered halakhic decisions, the rabbi was positioned above the community. Today, rabbis are expected to serve as pastoral caregivers, counselors, organizers and companions in moments of crisis. Their authority is less formal and more relational, grounded in presence, empathy and trust rather than in scholarly distance.

Krasner noted that LGBTQ Americans are generally overrepresented in “helping professions” like social work, counseling, and education. Rabbinic work, increasingly centered on pastoral care, fits that pattern.

Karpel-Pomerantz sees the same phenomenon in herself and in many peers. “I’m in rabbinical school because I want to be a clinical pastoral educator,” she said. “First, I need to become a hospital chaplain, and then I can learn to teach other people how to do it.”

Even as seminaries become more welcoming, the job market is still uneven for LGBTQ clergy. Rabbi Leora Kaye, director of career services for the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the association for Reform rabbis, said she tries to prepare students honestly.

“I can’t promise them they won’t encounter bias,” she said. “What I do promise is that we’ll do everything we can to make it as safe as possible. We respond when situations arise. We don’t let people face it alone.”

As a sign of the Reform movement’s commitment, she cited anti-bias training that is now a requirement for search committees in congregations before they begin interviewing rabbis.

Often, Kaye said, LGBTQ graduates find congregations that are enthusiastic about their leadership.

“We see many situations where sexuality or gender identity is not an issue at all, or where it’s embraced,” she said. “Communities want rabbis who are compassionate, grounded, and capable. And many of them are explicitly seeking rabbis who reflect their own diversity.”

Rehfeld also said that despite broad acceptance in many congregations, discrimination still happens. He recalled how one HUC graduate ended an interview process after being asked inappropriate questions.

“The harm was real for the student,” he said. “But the bigger loss was for the congregation. Discrimination keeps talent out of the pool.”

The student ultimately found a “fantastic” pulpit, he added: “They still ended up in middle America in a relatively rural place that they never thought about living.” He sees the outcome as a testament to the movement’s ethical guidelines and support systems.

Both working as rabbinic interns at congregations in the Los Angeles area, Karpel-Pomerantz and her wife feel confident about what they have to offer and optimistic about what will come after graduation.

“At this particular moment in history, there is something really valuable about people who have multiple marginalized identities being willing to take on the role of leader of communities,” she said. “And I hope that our communities are able to see the presence of queer folks as the gift that I believe it to be.”

The post Surging LGBTQ enrollment in Jewish seminaries signals ‘astounding’ shift in US rabbinate appeared first on The Forward.

Israeli settlers spent months ramping up a campaign of terror against Palestinians in the West Bank — torching mosques, Qurans and farmland; attacking innocent civilians; and defacing IDF bases — before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even weakly condemned these “riots” for violating Israeli law. And that statement, issued on Sunday, only came because of international outrage.

If you want to understand why Americans are abandoning Israel, that long silence is your answer. Israel’s opponents frame the state as hellbent on ridding the land of Palestinians by any means necessary, and the American public increasingly believe them. When Israel’s leaders and supporters turn a blind eye to lawless settlers, and the Palestinian suffering they create, that belief is reinforced.

For that to change, the response to settler violence has to change. Israel and its supporters must try to expunge this extremism from its circles.

That will not be easy, because settler violence is not a new phenomenon.

For the last 50 years, a radical ideology preaching Israeli dominance, and advocating Palestinian expulsion, has spread among settlers’ ranks. And they have come to expect impunity for extremist acts, because for much of that time, Israeli leadership failed to impose strict or meaningful consequences.

The attacks hit a fever pitch in the last two years, reaching an all-time high this October. In one notable example from two years ago, swaths of settlers rampaged through the Palestinian village of Huwara, leaving one Palestinian dead, about 100 injured and the entire town ablaze. The Israeli army did not intervene, and hardly anyone was punished.

The fact that extremists like the far-right cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — who often defend settlers in these cases — are prominently serving in Israel’s government indicts the Jewish state even further.

I understand that criticizing the state of Israel is a big no-no among pro-Israel organizations, which usually excuse their silence by saying they do not comment on domestic Israeli affairs. But this inaction is de facto acceptance. It’s a long-standing norm that needs to change.

In Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, Joshua Leifer traces this loyalty to the 1967 Six-Day War, which provoked a broad deepening of Zionist sentiment among American Jews. The result was a relationship in which diaspora supporters of Israel were expected to support the state without criticism — because criticism was seen as playing into the hands of Israel’s enemies, who had so recently posed an existential threat to the state’s continuance.

The overwhelming power of that expectation was perhaps best shown in the experience of Elie Wiesel — the Nobel Prize-winning human rights defender who survived the Holocaust — who was met with outrage when he tried to critique Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank in the 1970s, particularly taking aim at settlement expansion.

“Wiesel was so upset by the Israeli reaction that he made a pledge to himself never to criticize Israel again,” writes Joseph Berger in his 2024 biography Elie Wiesel: Confronting the Silence. “And he never did.”

Against this backdrop, for pro-Israel groups and advocates to stand against settler violence is no simple choice — but it is doable.

The American Jewish Committee consistently calls out acts of settler violence, urging accountability and punishment. Other groups — such as the Anti-Defamation League — did the same in prior years, although the drop-off of such advocacy over the last few years has been stark.

But much remains to be done, because the silent devotion to Israel by generations past does not work today. Not for Americans at large, and certainly not for young American Jews.

“For an older generation of American Jews, a mythologized vision of a progressive, social democratic Israel served as a source of moral inspiration,” Leifer writes in Tablets Shattered. “That view is much less prevalent today.”

While many young Jews still view Israel in such a light, Leifer explains, increasing numbers “have only known Israel as an authoritarian state and regional military power hurtling down a path of ever more extreme ethnonationalism.”

Pairing these conceptions with countless videos depicting masked Israelis brutalizing Palestinians and ransacking their properties in the West Bank, in addition to the devastation of the war in Gaza, it is no wonder why public opinion on Israel is in free fall.

American sympathy for Israel hit a 25-year low in March 2025. Views of Israel and its government worsen each year. Even American Jews are drifting — with 41% opposing more U.S. military aid to Israel and 39% believing Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The violence in the West Bank is almost certainly not the primary factor in that slide. But silence on it suggests that Israeli violence against Palestinians is acceptable — a stance that needs urgent and public correcting.

Condemnation is a necessary step, but words will not be enough to change the minds of opponents of the Jewish state. More crucially, supporters of Israel need to start taking steps to systematically combat extremism.

First, they must show zero tolerance for those who excuse or minimize crimes like those committed by settlers in the West Bank. Words without actions are meaningless, so pro-Israel groups must take steps to weed out those espousing views within their own community that align with the extremism now rife within settlement communities.

Second, they must unequivocally condemn violent rhetoric and actions against Palestinians. During the war against Hamas, for example, slogans like “no innocents in Gaza” and jokes mocking starving Palestinians ran rampant on social media from Israelis, including many Knesset members. Some were echoed by Israel’s supporters abroad. Pro-Israel groups must reject such rhetoric, as it applies to the West Bank as well as Gaza, immediately and forcefully.

Third, they must recognize Israel’s failure to subdue extremists and demand real accountability. They must demand investigations, prosecutions and punishments for violent settlers, insist that the Israeli government follow its own laws, and be prepared to impose consequences if those calls go unmet.

Claiming moral superiority while accepting extremism only reinforces distrust in Israeli narratives. Moreover, extremism of this flavor endangers the Jewish state itself by prolonging the conflict and degrading law and order.

This is not the behavior of a country committed to peace, justice and democracy — and the American public sees that. The absolutist narrative of total Israeli innocence is not only materially untrue but also entirely unconvincing.

Now is the time to pivot on the pro-Israel playbook and stand up for what we profess to care about. What Americans are looking for is not whether injustice takes place in Israel — but how the country and its supporters respond.

The post Israel’s reputation is in free fall. One radical change could help appeared first on The Forward.