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Jewish institutions awaken to climate crisis, with hundreds pledging action
(JTA) — For a decade starting in 2002, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi devoted herself to pro-Israel advocacy. After that, the Jewish philanthropist and activist from Annapolis, Maryland, went all in to fight for disability rights, working in the field for the next decade. Now, Mizrahi is focused on climate change.
“Let me put it this way: In 2021, we donated to one climate organization, and in 2022, we donated to 17 of them,” Mizrahi said, referring to the small charity fund she runs with her husband, tech entrepreneur Victor Mizrahi. This year, the couple made their largest climate-related donation yet, sending a group of nine climate reporters to Israel to meet tech startups working on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Mizrahi and her husband have also begun commercially investing in such startups.
“I was hoping other people would solve it,” she said. “But the pace of the change is not nearly meeting the demand at the moment. I felt that even though I don’t know the subject, I’m just going to have to do it because I have kids and I don’t want this world to fall apart.”
Climate change has long ranked at or near the top of a list of issues concerning Jews in the United States, according to multiple surveys, and Jews have been heavily involved in the wider climate movement. But until recently, the issue had a marginal place on the agendas of Jewish communal organizations, which neglected climate even as the subject took on importance in the activism and policies of other religious communities and in the larger philanthropic world.
Mizrahi’s newfound emphasis on climate is an early example of a larger shift that is underway in Jewish philanthropy, a multibillion-dollar world made up of thousands of individual donors, charitable foundations and nonprofit organizations.
“It’s the beginning of what will become a more widespread focus among Jewish groups,” said Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, the founder and CEO of the Jewish climate group Dayenu. “We’re seeing an awakening to this as a profoundly Jewish issue, and awakening to the role that the Jewish community has to play in addressing the climate crisis.”
Scientists say that decisions regarding carbon emissions made in the next few years will affect life on Earth for thousands of years to come. The most recent warning came in March, when leading global experts with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a new report, stating that “there is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”
The large Jewish populations living in the coastal United States are vulnerable to extreme storms, sea-level rise, severe heat and other weather disruptions — a situation dramatized in the recent Apple television series “Extrapolations,” in which a rabbi contends with rising sea waters infiltrating his Florida synagogue. Meanwhile, Israel is experiencing a slew of impacts from drought and floods to security threats tied regional climate-related instability.
A flooded road after heavy rainfall in the central Israeli city of Lod, Jan. 16, 2022. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
Israeli officials visit the site where a road collapsed into a large sinkhole at Mineral Beach in the Dead Sea on December 7, 2017. Many facilities and beaches have been closed or shut down in recent years following the increase in sinkholes caused by ever-declining sea levels, as climate change strains the country’s water resources. (Mark Neyman/GPO)
The last few months have seen a flurry of new initiatives aimed at both greening Jewish institutions and directing collective action on climate.
In December, for example, Rosenn’s group published a report calculating that endowments of Jewish organizations, from family foundations to local federations, are invested in the fossil fuel industry to the tune of at least $3 billion. The report launched an ongoing campaign called All Our Might that urges Jewish leaders to withdraw these investments and put the money toward clean energy instead.
Meanwhile, many of the most prominent Jewish organizations in the country — representing local federations, Hillel chapters, summer camps, community centers, day schools and nearly every religious denomination — had already joined a new green coalition organized by another Jewish environmental group and were preparing to unveil pledges to do more in the fight against climate change.
The unveiling of the climate pledges happened in March, under the leadership of Adamah, a nonprofit created through the merger of two stalwarts of Jewish environmentalism, Hazon and the Pearlstone Center.
“Climate and sustainability have not been on the list of priorities for the vast majority of Jewish organizations; this coalition and these climate action plans reflect a deep paradigm shift and culture change moving forward,” Adamah CEO Jakir Mandela said at the time.
The commitments made by members of Adamah’s Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition include sending youth leaders to global climate summits, reducing emissions of buildings and vehicles and lobbying the federal government to pass climate policies.
More than 300 congregations and nonprofits have joined. For Earth Day, Adamah announced a million-dollar fund offering interest-free loans and matching grants to Jewish groups for projects to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
If any single event can be said to mark the debut of the climate issue as a top Jewish communal priority, it is probably the recent annual conference of the Jewish Funders Network, which took place in March in Phoenix, bringing together thousands of donors and charity executives.
For the gathering’s first event, before the formal opening of the conference, a group of participants went on a field trip to downtown Phoenix to learn about the local effects of the climate crisis. Far more people signed up than organizers anticipated, and with about 55 passengers, the tour bus chartered for the occasion reached capacity. Mizrahi, who was among the participants, said the trip was helpful as a networking opportunity for like-minded philanthropists.
“We wanted to expose them to how the existential threats posed by climate change are not long term, but are already here,” Yanklowitz said. “People down in the Zone are dying every summer from heat exhaustion and dehydration.”
Based on his debrief with the group afterward, Yanklowitz feels the trip left an impact on participants.
“I didn’t hear anyone say, ‘Oh, I’m changing my commitments.’ But I did get the sense that climate change was kind of abstract for many people, and that now it really hit home,” Yanklowitz said.
The rest of the conference featured multiple talks and gatherings dedicated to climate, including on the main stage, and an announcement that Birthright, which offers free trips to Israel for young Jews, was increasing its own climate activism with the help of a new donation.
In an interview, Ellen Bronfman Hauptman and Stephen Bronfman, children of Birthright founder Charles Bronfman, said their $9 million gift is meant to honor their father on the occasion of his 90th birthday, while also bringing Birthright more in line with the values of a new generation that is environmentally-minded.
Birthright organizers will use the funding to develop programming focused on climate that could, for example, expose participants to Israel’s clean tech scene. The money is also intended to help Birthright lower its own carbon footprint, potentially by switching to electric buses or adding more vegetarian meals.
The Bronfmans hope that Birthright’s significant purchasing power in Israeli tourism will nudge the industry toward more ecologically sustainable practices.
“To me, Birthright is like Walmart — everyone wants to do business with them,” Stephen Bronfman said. “They have the power to dictate terms to their service providers and affect the supply chain.”
The widespread interest in climate mobilization among Jewish groups comes after years in which the issue languished outside the mainstream. Rosenn, the head of Dayenu, who has attended about 15 conferences of the Jewish Funder Network, noticed a change this year.
“There used to be half a dozen people at a breakfast before the program talking about climate. And it wasn’t even climate, necessarily — it was the environment writ large,” she said.
The Jewish world is, in many ways, still lagging behind the larger climate movement. Divesting endowment funds from the fossil fuel industry, for example, is seen as a bold step among Jewish groups even though at least 1,590 institutions representing nearly $41 trillion in assets have already publicly committed to doing so, according to a website tracking such pledges. About a third of the groups on the list are defined as faith-based organizations, but only three are Jewish: Kolot Chayeinu, a congregation in Park Slope, Brooklyn; the Reform movement’s pension system; and the American Jewish World Service, a global justice group.
Rabbi Laura Bellows, now Dayenu’s director of spiritual activism and education, waves matzah as she encourages major financial organizations to divest from fossil fuels at a rally in Washington, D.C., April 20, 2022. (Bora Chung | Survival Media Agency / Courtesy of Dayenu)
Adamah’s own climate plan doesn’t include a pledge to divest but only a promise that it will investigate the option of doing so for its endowment and employee retirement funds. Instead, the plan touts the group’s education and advocacy efforts, and focuses on reducing emissions at its retreat centers.
Adamah’s chief climate officer, Risa Alyson Cooper, acknowledged that Jewish community institutions have been “largely absent” from the divestment movement and said her group regards divestment as one of several required tools for addressing the climate crisis.
She said the Jewish community hit a milestone when 12 of the 20 founding members of Adamah’s climate coalition said in their climate plans that they would consider amending their financial practices. That was significant, she said, in light of the organizations’ complex and deliberate governing structures, which can make executing such changes onerous.
“While the Jewish community may have lagged behind in years past, we are catching up quickly,” Cooper said.
Such a shift would mark not only a milestone for Jewish climate activism but also a departure from how the Jewish community has historically done philanthropy, said Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, executive vice president of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.
She said wielding financial holdings for social impact has been a hallmark of advocacy by Christian groups. Last year, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) opted to divest from fossil fuels in light of the climate crisis.
The Jewish community, meanwhile, has tended to act primarily through charitable donations. One of the reasons for the difference, she said, is that the Jewish community is much less centralized with communal assets spread across many endowments, making the actions of any single group relatively less impactful.
“Adamah had done some really important work to change individual behavior and grow people’s connections to the environment, but the bigger piece of bold collective action to fight the climate crisis was missing,” Kahn-Troster said. “The overall community is late to respond to the urgency of the problem. But I do think that the work of these organizations is very significant, so I’m excited to see it.”
Kahn-Troster’s historical view is informed by the legacy of her father, Rabbi Lawrence Troster, an environmental activist who had pushed for communal Jewish action on climate, and by the passion for climate justice displayed by her 15-year-old, Liora Pelavin, a member of the Jewish Youth Climate Movement, an arm of Adamah.
“Finding a meaningful Jewish space to do grassroots-level climate advocacy that many young people are demanding has been really important to Liora,” Kahn-Troster said.
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Israeli Report Sounds Alarm Over ‘America Only’ Faction Influencing US Right
Tucker Carlson speaks at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, Oct. 21, 2025. Photo: Gage Skidmore/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism has published a new report warning of a high-stakes schism among US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement propelled by an “America Only” alliance known for advancing antisemitic invective.
“The picture emerging from the report is concerning: Alongside significant American support for the war against the Iranian terror regime, a discourse is expanding in the US that attempts to present Israel as acting manipulatively, as if it dragged the US into war,” Amichai Chikli, minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, said in a statement announcing the research.
“This is a dangerous discourse that often devolves from political and diplomatic criticism into conspiratorial rhetoric with a sharp antisemitic aroma,” he continued. “Our role is to identify these trends in time, alert people to them, and act together with our partners to understand deep-seated trends and know how to prepare and respond to them.”
Avi Cohen-Scali, the government ministry’s director general, added that “we identify an increasingly tightening connection between internal political debate in the US and the dissemination of anti-Israel and antisemitic messages online.”
The report, released on Thursday, analyzes the public sentiment of Republicans and conservatives regarding the US-Israeli military campaign against the Islamic regime in Iran. It defines two alliances on the American political right which have voiced opposition to the joint strikes: so-called “America First” and “America Only.” The Israeli researchers characterize the former faction as “restraint-oriented,” noting that adherents argue “”the strikes contradict anti-war campaign rhetoric, risk drawing the United States into another prolonged Middle East conflict, and impose economic costs that undermine domestic priorities.”
Advocates of this approach have also advanced narratives around the term “Israel First,” which the report describes as “including antisemitic claims alleging disproportionate Israeli or Jewish influence over US foreign policy, as well as slogans such as ‘dying for Israel’ that frame the war as serving foreign rather than American interests.”
The report names and profiles three prominent podcasters it identifies with this mentality: Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Joe Rogan, as well as streamer Sneako (Nicolas Kenn De Balinthazy).
In contrast, the Israeli researchers name “a more radical fringe, sometimes referred to as ‘America Only,’ which promotes extreme isolationism combined with conspiratorial, white nationalist, and antisemitic narratives.”
In this category, the report offers six profiles, leading with former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who features “America Only” in her descriptor and banner on her X social media account where she routinely shares her views with 1.6 million followers. The report notes five others and includes data about their followings on billionaire Elon Musk’s X website: white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes (1.3 million), former mixed martial arts fighter Jake Shields (over 900,000), British-American influencer Sam Parker (over 300,000), neo-Nazi Lucas Gage (over 286,000 but now blocked), and radio host Stew Peters (over 900,000).
According to the report, “the core distinction between right-wing populists (America First) and white nationalists (America Only) lies in how they define the in-group.”
While America First advocates “emphasize culture, nativism, and hostility toward elites,” those in America Only “place race and ancestry at the center of their worldview and openly support either the maintenance or restoration of white dominance. Their ideology prioritizes the preservation of ‘ethnic purity’ and often rests on explicit racial doctrines that can also shape their positions on foreign and international policy.”
Researchers describe how these voices “play a central role in shaping discourse, particularly among younger audiences, amplifying anti-war messaging and framing the conflict as misaligned with American interests.”
Noting that polls show Republican support for the war with Iran is limited with voters expressing caution about sending soldiers back to the Middle East, the report says that “divisions within conservative media and among some Republican figures, particularly within ‘America First’ and ‘America Only’ circles, indicate that support could weaken if the conflict becomes prolonged, expands operationally, or imposes sustained economic costs.”
These divisions do not remain in the domestic sphere. The ministry describes how pro-Iran networks “amplify narratives of American opposition to the conflict to deepen perceived divisions. These trends may have implications for Jewish and Israeli communities in the United States, particularly in relation to the risk of increased antisemitic discourse and incidents.”
The report cites polling showing a collapse of the American public’s sympathy for Israel (down to 36 percent, according to a recent Gallup survey) in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with – for the first time ever – more Americans now aligning with the Palestinians (41 percent). This has flipped from February 2025 when 46 percent stood with the Jewish state and 33 percent supported the Palestinians.
While most of this rising anti-Israel sentiment has grown among Democrats, the report notes that “among Republicans, the same tendencies are evident to some degree, but the changes are significantly smaller. Among Republicans, sympathy for Israel decreased from 80 percent in 2021 to 70 percent in 2026, while sympathy for Palestinians edged up from 10 percent to 13 percent.”
A survey of 1092 people conducted from March 26-30, released on Thursday by YouGov and the Center for Public Opinion at UMass Lowell, offers further illumination about the potential levels of American enthusiasm for these ideologies.
Asked whether the close US-Israel alliance does more to help or harm the American national interest, 42 percent said more to hurt, 29 percent said more to help, and 29 percent said neither. Among Republicans those figures were 23 percent more to hurt, 52 percent more to help, and 24 percent neither.
Analyzing the survey results, CNN senior political reporter Aaron Blake shared data and noted that “Tucker Carlson isn’t that popular among Republican-leaners anymore,” with 31 percent having a favorable opinion compared to 24 percent unfavorable. Overall, 38 percent of respondents said they have an unfavorable view of him, compared to 17 percent favorable.
Even among Carlson’s heaviest bloc of backers – self-identified conservatives — the former Fox host showed limited support. While 34 percent of conservatives expressed a favorable opinion, 26 percent affirmed “unfavorable,” 31 percent offered no opinion at all, and 10 percent had never heard of him. Meanwhile, the poll showed that 7 percent of Democrats and self-described liberals expressed favorable views.
The pollsters also researched how Carlson would potentially fare against California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), two widely floated potential Democratic presidential candidates, in the 2028 contest.
Head-to-head with the California leader, 25 percent of voters would support Carlson, while 33 percent would vote for Newsom and 20 percent would refuse to vote. Two percent of Democrats said they would back Carlson while six percent of Republicans said they would vote for Newsom, as did 7 percent of conservatives.
Up against Ocasio-Cortez, the numbers remained similar with 25 percent saying they would support Carlson and 32 percent backing the leader behind the so-called “squad” of left-wing congressional representatives.
Many observers in the media have speculated that Carlson could run for president in 2028.
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Antisemitic Social Media Personality Dan Bilzerian Launches Longshot US Congressional Bid Against Randy Fine
Dan Bilzerian arrives at the Fashion Nova x Cardi B Collection Launch Party held at the Hollywood Palladium on May 8, 2019, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States. Photo: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Antisemitic social media personality Dan Bilzerian launched a bid for the US Congress this week, setting off a firestorm of controversy as he seeks to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, a race already defined by personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric.
Bilzerian, who grew a massive social media presence by showcasing his hedonistic lifestyle, formally filed paperwork on Tuesday to run as a Republican, challenging Fine in what is shaping up to be one of the most unconventional GOP primaries of the 2026 election cycle.
During an interview with TMZ this week, Bilzerian was confronted over his previous comments referring to Fine as a “fat Jew.” He responded by condemning Fine as a “Jewish supremacist and he puts Israel ahead of America, and I think that, you know, he should be tried for treason.” Bilzerian also dismissed antisemitism as a “made-up term.”
“I think we just have a big Jewish supremacy problem in the country, and everyone’s talking about it, and nobody’s doing anything about it,” he told the Daytona Beach News-Journal in a separate interview, echoing a message he has previously posted on social media.
The remarks drew swift backlash online and placed Bilzerian’s candidacy under intense scrutiny, raising questions about the viability of the campaign.
Fine responded forcefully, arguing that Bilzerian’s comments were not accidental but reflective of deeper hostility. He said the rhetoric demonstrated that his challenger is unfit for public office and outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse.
“This isn’t about disagreement,” Fine said in a media appearance. “It’s about whether someone who speaks this way about an entire group of people belongs anywhere near Congress.”
Fine responded directly to Bilzerian’s condemnations, suggesting to TMZ that the social media provocateur views the Jewish religion “as some sort of negative thing.”
During the TMZ discussion, Bilzerian also used the n-word, comments which drew sharp criticism from Fine.
“It’s my view that anyone who can use that word so easily, probably uses it in their everyday language and that’s not a word that I believe has any place in the Republican party and I’m not interested in platforming it,” Fine said.
The congressman has pledged not to back down and also touted his close ties to US President Donald Trump.
“Congressman Randy Fine is the only person in America that President Trump has endorsed three times in the past two years, including in his current reelection,” a spokesperson for the lawmaker told The Hill, describing the Florida Republican is one of Trump’s “greatest allies.”
“Randy Fine will never back down in the face of any effort to impeach President Trump and obstruct the will of the American people,” the spokesperson added.
The clash has highlighted the unusually combative tone of the race. While Fine has positioned himself as a mainstream conservative with strong ties to Trump, he is no stranger to controversy himself. Critics have previously pointed to his own inflammatory statements about Muslims and Palestinians, which resurfaced in recent interviews as the campaign feud intensified.
Fine has repeatedly justified Islamophobia as “rational” rather than a form of bigotry.
“We need more Islamophobia, not less. Fear of Islam is rational,” Fine wrote on X.
He has warned about the “Islamification of America” and cautioned that the growing influence of Islam could lead to the banning of pet dogs.
“If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” Fine posted on X.
Despite weathering a bevy of controversies, Fine has sought to reinforce his standing with conservative voters. He announced this week that he is joining the House Freedom Caucus, a move that underscores his alignment with the GOP’s most conservative faction and signals an effort to consolidate support ahead of the primary.
Despite the backlash, Bilzerian has not backed down. He has insisted that his remarks are being mischaracterized and has continued to attack Fine on social media.
In the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, Bilzerian transformed his public image from a social media provocateur to a prominent critic of Israel and Judaism writ large.
Bilzerian has engaged in Holocaust denial, saying during an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan that casualty figures of the genocide have been “revised” and he “would bet [his] entire net worth that it was under 6 million.” He has also declared that “Jewish supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today” and denied that Jews experience antisemitism in any meaningful way, asserting that Palestinians are “the real semites.” Bilzerian has also parroted the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Israel orchestrated the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy and claimed that the Israeli government also killed Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
“I wasn’t there, but everything I’ve seen, evidence-wise, points to Israel,” Bilzerian said.
For now, the race remains heavily tilted in Fine’s favor, given his incumbency, established political track-record, and close relationship with Trump.
Bilzerian, a Florida native, currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada and possesses no political experience. His repeated antisemitic and anti-Israel commentary is likely to serve as a liability in a conservative district with a significant Jewish population.
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42 Jewish authors slam Jewish Book Council for ‘bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices’
(JTA) — Dozens of anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jewish authors are criticizing the Jewish Book Council, a historic literary group, for what they said was a “bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices” and “narrowing its vision to a Zionist approach to Jewish culture.”
A new open letter signed by 42 authors argues that the council, which was founded in 1925, should commit itself more to spotlighting Jewish voices who disagree with traditional Zionism and should not have showcased Israeli and Zionist voices after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“Because the JBC is our most visible and longstanding Jewish literary institution, its focus on Zionist authors and books gives both Jewish and non-Jewish readers the false impression that Jewish books are inherently Zionist,” the open letter, published Thursday by “a Concerned Group of Jewish Writers,” argues.
Notable signatories include Israeli-Dutch novelist Yael van der Wouden, whose 2024 debut “The Safekeep,” a Jewish LGBTQ romance set in postwar Amsterdam, was shortlisted for a Booker Prize and won an award from the Jewish Book Council; memoirist Qian Julie Wang, whose book “Beautiful Country” was a New York Times bestseller, recommended by former President Barack Obama and winner of an award given by the council; novelist Adelle Waldman, author of “Help Wanted”; and Michael David Lukas, a professor at San Francisco State University and past winner of both the National Jewish Book Award and Jewish literature’s prestigious Sami Rohr prize for his 2018 novel “The Last Watchman of Old Cairo.”
Yael van der Wouden, winner of the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction, during The Women’s Prize Trust Summer Party & Awards Ceremony 2025 at Bedford Square Gardens on June 12, 2025 in London, England. (David Levenson/Getty Images)
The Jewish Book Council was founded to support and award Jewish authors and topics. In addition to handing out the annual National Jewish Book Awards, the council also connects authors with Jewish speaking engagements, publishes reviews of Jewish books, and provides other forms of support. In 2024, after a list purporting to expose “Zionist” authors circulated online, the council launched a hotline to report antisemitism in the books world.
The council’s CEO, Naomi Firestone-Teeter, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency the letter represented a “difference in expectations” about what the institution can stand for.
The authors said they initially contacted the council’s leadership in private last year, engaging in a dialogue over a list of specific concerns. Those included the council’s failure to define antisemitism in its reporting tool, as well as its stated support of Israel and Israeli authors in recent awards ceremonies.
The authors also urged the council to state that criticism of Israel “is not inherently antisemitic,” and to “create programs and content in the coming year that reflect a more genuine diversity of Jewish views on Israel/Palestine and create spaces for Jews and cultural workers engaged with Judaism to have these difficult conversations.”
When the council didn’t follow up on their requests, the authors claimed, they decided to take their letter public. “We were—and remain—concerned that the institution’s apparent bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices is not only exclusionary but harmful, contributing to the dehumanization of Palestinians and advancing a system of cultural apartheid,” they wrote.
The open letter was the latest salvo in a series of dust-ups about Jews and Israel throughout the book world. Literary free-speech organization PEN America, after months of protest over its perceived Zionist tilt, this year replaced its leadership and retracted a statement standing in solidarity with an Israeli comedian whose performances had been cancelled. Bestselling authors have called to boycott Israeli literary institutions, and Guernica magazine experienced an internal upheaval after publishing an essay about the Gaza war by an Israeli writer arguing for coexistence.
The Jewish Book Council, however, had not experienced much public pushback from within its ranks of authors, until now.
“What the open letter is reflecting is a difference in expectations about our role as an institution, not a lack of engagement,” Firestone-Teeter told JTA. “Our role is to be a platform for literary exchange. We’re not a political advocacy group.”
Firestone-Teeter said that, contrary to the authors’ claims that the council had failed to follow up on their requests, she had “engaged in good faith” and made the council’s position clear to them. She said she disagreed with their assessment that the council deprioritizes Jews who are critical of Israel.
“You will see the diversity of the Jewish community represented, including some of these voices,” she said. “Jews are not a monolith. Our writers write with a lot of nuance, a lot of complexity.”
She also defended the council’s decision not to narrowly define antisemitism for its hotline, noting that they received hundreds of antisemitism reports and that different authors have different ideas of what constitutes antisemitism. The council intends to analyze the data it received. “We have not used the tool to take punitive action,” Firestone-Teeter said.
In addition, she said, it was appropriate for the council to spotlight Israeli authors after Oct. 7. “We are an organization that supports Jewish authors in America, Israel and beyond. Israel is a key part of our efforts to support the Jewish community,” she said. “Our Israeli authors represent a very wide range of views, politically and otherwise.”
Despite the authors’ objections, Firestone-Teeter told JTA, the council still considered them part of its constituency: “These are Jewish authors.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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