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Hundreds of US rabbis pledge to block extremists in Israeli government from speaking in their communities
(JTA) — More than 330 American rabbis, including some who occupy prominent roles in major cities, are pledging to block members of the Religious Zionist bloc in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from speaking at their synagogues and will lobby to keep them from speaking in their communities.
An open letter now circulating says they will not invite members of the bloc “to speak at our congregations and organizations. We will speak out against their participation in other fora across our communities. We will encourage the boards of our congregations and organizations to join us in this protest as a demonstration of our commitment to our Jewish and democratic values.”
Netanyahu announced his proposed new government including the Religious Zionists late Wednesday, although its details have yet to be finalized.
Israeli government ministers sometimes speak at American synagogues to drum up support for their initiatives and ideas. It’s not clear if figures who are harshly critical of non-Orthodox Jews, as Religious Zionist leaders have been, would accept invitations from their synagogues even if offered. Nevertheless, the letter’s uncompromising tone and the breadth of the signatories is a signal of a burgeoning crisis in relations between Israel and the U.S. Jewish community triggered by the elevation of the extremists, who won 14 seats in the Nov. 1 election.
Its signatories come from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements. There are no Orthodox signatories.
Among the signatories are current and former members of the boards of rabbis in Chicago and Los Angeles; rabbis who lead the largest Conservative and Reform congregations in the Washington, D.C., area; former leaders of major Reform and Conservative movement bodies; the current leader of the Reconstructionist movement; and the rector of the Conservative movement’s Los Angeles-based American Jewish University. The letter was organized by David Teutsch, a leading Reconstructionist rabbi in Philadelphia, and John Rosove, the rabbi emeritus of Temple Israel in Los Angeles.
The letter outlines five Religious Zionist proposals that it says “will cause irreparable harm to the Israel-JewishDiaspora relationship”: changing the Law of Return to keep out non-Orthodox converts and their descendants; eroding LGBTQ rights; allowing the Knesset to override Supreme Court rulings; annexing the West Bank; and expelling Arab citizens who oppose Israel’s government.
How much of that agenda will make its way into governance remains to be seen. Netanyahu has said he is confident that he will be able to constrain some of the figures he plans to name to lead ministries.
Among these are Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been tapped to control the police and who has been convicted of incitement over his past support of Israeli terrorist groups and inflammatory comments about Israel’s Arab population; Bezalel Smotrich, who has been accused by Israeli security forces in the past of plotting violent attacks against Palestinians, and who will supervise West Bank Jewish settlements; and Avi Maoz, who has described himself as a “proud homophobe” and has called all liberal forms of Judaism a “darkness,” and who will have authority over some aspects of education.
A number of U.S. Jewish groups spoke out against including the extremist faction in the government while Netanyahu was negotiating with the bloc, and more have done so since he announced the government’s formation on Wednesday. They include the Anti-Defamation League, the major non-Orthodox movements, and the liberal Jewish Middle East policy groups Partners for Progressive Israel, J Street and Americans for Peace Now.
Abe Foxman, the retired director of the ADL and a longtime bellwether of establishment Jewish support for Israel, said earlier this month that he is hopeful that Netanyahu can contain the extremists, but that “if Israel ceases to be an open democracy, I won’t be able to support it.”
Some organizations that spoke out in 2019 when Netanyahu considered a coalition with extremists were silent even as others sounded the alarm since the election, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. An AIPAC statement after Netanyahu’s announcement this week said, “Once again, the Jewish state has demonstrated that it is a robust democracy with the freedoms that Americans also cherish,” The Conference of Presidents has not issued a statement.
Orthodox groups have yet to pronounce on the new government. The Zionist Organization of America, which backs settlement building, has indicated it will support the new government.
The American Jewish Committee shifted its tone slightly from before the election, when it declined to speak out. In a statement after Netanyahu’s announcement, it sounded a note similar to Foxman’s, saying it would work with Netanyahu “to help ensure that the inflammatory rhetoric that has been employed by some members of the governing coalition — rhetoric unrepresentative of Israel’s democratic values, its role as a homeland for all Jews, and its unwavering quest for peace — will not define the domestic and foreign policies of the new government.”
The Biden administration has said that it will judge Israel’s government by its policies, not the individuals in Netanyahu’s cabinet.
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PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors
(JTA) — The president of PEN America resigned over the weekend in protest of a report on boycotts targeting Jewish and Israeli authors, part of yet another round of internal division over Israel at the literary free-speech institution.
Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian-American novelist and Bard College professor, told The Atlantic he was stepping down because he believed the PEN report, “A Silent Moratorium,” failed to defend the free-speech rights of participants in the movement to boycott Israel.
“It’s the First Amendment that allows all of us to engage in boycotts, not PEN America,” Mengestu told the publication. “PEN America as a free expression organization is supposed to defend that right.”
The author did not respond to multiple Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment, but in an Instagram post Monday alluded to an interest in creating a new organization to rival the prominent nonprofit, which defends the free expression rights other writers.
In response to an interview request, PEN sent a statement to JTA saying it was “grateful” for Mengestu’s leadership and would “respect” his decision. The statement also alluded to PEN’s own past turmoil: “We tell hard stories, in politically challenging moments, about writers from a range of perspectives, even when it’s uncomfortable for us given our own recent history.”
In its report, published on its blog, PEN described “Jewish and Israeli writers who feel that the mainstream literary world is increasingly shutting them out because of their identity, nationality, or views.” Interview subjects include several Israel critics, as well as literary agents who assert that they face more difficulties signing Jewish authors after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and amid the subsequent war in Gaza. The report also repeatedly cited a JTA report about a 2024 viral list of “Zionist” authors to boycott.
Among other details, PEN’s report revealed that Israeli novelist Etgar Keret and public radio host Ira Glass had cancelled a planned live event in Australia over fears of threats and protest.
“This silencing and exclusion of writers is a threat to what PEN America is fundamentally committed to defending: a culture of free expression for all,” according to the report.
In addition to the report, PEN also altered its institutional policy toward cultural boycotts, which the organization has long opposed. Although its report on Jewish authors asserted that boycotts “threaten the free expression rights” of their targets, the revised guidelines say that the group will also defend the right of writers to participate in boycotts.
Mengestu’s resignation comes at a perilous moment for Jews facing cultural boycotts, both within the standard-bearers of PEN and elsewhere. PEN’s Jewish former longtime CEO stepped down in 2024 following months of blowback from rank-and-file authors who felt the organization was insufficiently critical of Israel and caused PEN to cancel a festival for global authors.
Since the leadership change, PEN leadership has published and retracted a condemnation of a boycott effort trained at an Israeli comedian and also published a report cataloguing Israel’s “cultural destruction in Gaza.”
Mengestu had assumed the role of board president in 2025. But PEN’s report about Jewish and Israeli writers on Thursday, he wrote, “makes clear that [change] will not happen.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply troubled” by Mengestu’s resignation Monday. “Freedom of expression means opposing efforts to boycott, silence, or exclude writers because of their identity or nationality,” the organization tweeted, saying that the author’s decision to leave PEN over his objections to the report on Jewish authors “sends a chilling message.” Jewish authors also objected.
“Imagine running a free expression org and resigning because it refuses to blacklist authors based on their nationality,” the author David Zweig wrote on X, musing whether Mengestu would object to boycotting authors from his birth country: “Ethiopia doesn’t exactly have a good human rights record.”
In response to The Atlantic’s story that quoted sources from inside PEN who were critical of his resignation, Mengestu wrote a lengthy Instagram post Monday in which he stated, “This piece is about trying to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” criticized past PEN reports critical of the BDS movement, and added, “What PEN America fails to understand is that boycott is a form of dialogue.”
He announced his intention to “help make something better,” receiving affirmative comments from notable authors including Viet Thanh Nguyen, Angela Flournoy, Jewish pro-Palestinian novelist Jess Row and Pulitzer Prize-winner Benjamin Moser, author of a forthcoming history of Jewish anti-Zionism.
Other Jewish authors on the left were among those defending Mengestu’s decision to step down.
“Dinaw is one hundred percent correct that this kind of fake victim propaganda can be used to support anti-Boycott legislation which violates the First Amendment and is everywhere as popular support for Palestinians grows,” author Sarah Schulman wrote on Facebook. Calling PEN’s blog about Jews “one of those fake anti-semitism pieces,” Schulman added, “If PEN wants to survive, they have to get out of the Israel/Zionism business.”
The post PEN America president, defending Israel’s critics, resigns after report warns of threats to Jewish authors appeared first on The Forward.
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Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide
(JTA) — The Church of England’s legislative body voted Monday to encourage churches across England to engage with a document produced by Palestinian Christians that accuses Israel of genocide despite requests from Jewish organizations and Britain’s chief rabbi to reject it.
The document is titled “Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide” and is also known as Kairos II, after the Palestinian Christian movement Kairos Palestine that produced it. It describes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide, states that Israel is a “colonial enterprise built on racism,” and says decades of “occupation,” “apartheid” and “settler colonialism” are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The vote on Monday does not adopt the accusations as church doctrine but says the church should hear the documents as “heartfelt expressions of the lived experience of Palestinian Christians,” and to engage with them in order to better understand the conflict.
Ahead of the debate in York, several Jewish organizations expressed concerns, and Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis asked Synod members to reject the amendment. Mirvis called Kairos II “deeply concerning” and that it “risks undermining decades of careful relationship-building” between Christians and Jews.
“It is truly shocking that a document which purports to speak in the name of truth contains so much falsehood,” he said.
Afterwards, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, issued a statement calling the passage of the motion “highly problematic.”
“Kairos Palestine may come from a place of genuine pain, but the falsehoods and distortions of Kairos II, including its erasure of Jewish identity and experience, is a prescription for more division and not the answer to conflict in the Middle East,” he said.
“This document reflects the pain and trauma of the Palestinian people. As a pastor, I hear the cry of our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers — a cry that rises from the ruins of Gaza, and from the violence and oppression of the West Bank,” she said.
She added, ”I also hear the concerns of the chief rabbi, the co-leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism, and the Board of Deputies, and I thank them for their honesty.” She said the church remained opposed to antisemitism and committed to safety for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
The Synod debate followed Mullally’s visit to the West Bank in June, where she met Palestinian Christian communities in Birzeit. During the visit she said, “I will use my role as Archbishop to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve.”
The debate marks the ascendance of Israel-related issues in another major church, after the Catholic Church’s Pope Leo XIV angered Jewish groups soon after being elected last year by endorsing an investigation into whether Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
The post Church of England backs study of Palestinian Christian document accusing Israel of genocide appeared first on The Forward.
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Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown
(JTA) — Former Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in against antisemitism after officials in his Indiana town say a costly fire may have been caused by arson to an Israeli flag displayed on a local barn.
The alleged arson broke out early Friday morning, damaging a historic home in Zionsville, Indiana, where Pence lives, and causing an estimated $150,000 in damages, according to the Zionsville Police Department.
Zionsville Mayor John Stehr said during a press conference on Friday that officials believed the fire began when an individual set fire to an Israeli flag that had been displayed outside the building alongside an American flag. The town later announced that the FBI had joined the investigation and that officials were examining whether the arson “may have been motivated by bias” but said no determination had been made.
“Absolutely despicable,” Pence tweeted on Sunday. “There can be no tolerance in America for Antisemitism or political acts of violence, and it is heartbreaking to see in our adopted hometown of Zionsville, Indiana. We thank God no one was hurt and urge anyone with information to contact law enforcement.”
Pence has long cast himself as a staunch supporter of Israel, including after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, and has also repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism in the conservative movement and beyond.
Republican Indiana Sen. Jim Banks also condemned the alleged arson in a post on X Saturday. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated. Not in Zionsville. Not in Indiana. Not anywhere,” Banks wrote. “Thank you to the federal, state, and local officials working to bring the perpetrators of this despicable arson attack to justice.”
On Sunday, the Jewish community in central Indiana hosted a rally condemning the alleged arson attack, chanting, “We will stand up,” according to local outlet Fox 59. While Zionsville does not have a large Jewish community of its own, other suburbs of Indianapolis have significant Jewish populations, and Zionsville is also the longtime home of a Reform movement summer camp, the Goldman Union Camp Institute, which is in session now.
“The founding fathers founded a country where we have the ability to resolve differences among each other; we don’t do it by firebombing homes,” rally organizer David Schiller told Fox 59. “It’s inexcusable and unacceptable.”
The Zionsville Police Department did not respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the status of the investigation on Monday.
The post Mike Pence denounces alleged arson of Israeli flag in his Indiana hometown appeared first on The Forward.
