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A chaotic response to Israel’s turmoil a reveals a fraught new dilemma for Jewish legacy organizations
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Major American Jewish organizations that hoped to send a unified message about the turmoil in Israel yesterday instead found themselves tussling, partly in the public eye, about what exactly they wanted to say.
Should they praise the massive anti-government protests that have taken shape in recent months? Should they criticize Israel’s sitting government? What, if anything, should they endorse as a next step in the ongoing crisis?
Five large Jewish organizations — all known for their vocal pro-Israel advocacy — began Monday afternoon trying to answer those questions in a unified voice that sent a positive message: praise for a decision to pause the government’s divisive judicial overhaul.
Instead, in a somewhat messy process that unfolded over the course of the afternoon, they ended up sending out a number of different statements that contrasted in subtle yet telling ways. The scramble to publish a statement reflecting consensus — and the resulting impression that consensus was lacking — was a reflection of how Israel’s politics have created a rift in the U.S. Jewish establishment.
For decades, large American Jewish groups have publicly supported Israel’s foreign policy, and mostly stayed quiet on its domestic conflicts. Now, a domestic policy issue threatening to tear Israel apart has compelled at least some of them to do two unusual things: opine on Israel’s internal affairs, and publicly chide the government that, in their view, is responsible for the crisis.
“For a long time any criticism of Israel, even criticism of very difficult policies, was thought to be disloyal, and couldn’t be spoken out of love,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which was not a signatory to the statement but is a constituent of the group that organized it. “I think we now understand that there’s plenty of legitimate criticism and activism that comes from that very place.”
The five groups that began composing the statement together were the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. All have historically been seen as centrist, pro-Israel and representative of the American Jewish establishment, speaking for American Jews in international forums and in meetings with elected officials. All have annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, if not more.
Any vocal criticism from those groups has largely been limited to Israel’s treatment of non-Orthodox Jews. Because most American Jews are themselves not Orthodox, American Jewish groups have felt more comfortable advocating for policies that, they believe, will allow more of their constituents to feel welcome in the Jewish state.
But events this year have prompted the groups to speak out on another Israeli domestic issue: the judicial overhaul being pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which aimed to sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power and independence. The court has, in the past, defended the rights of vulnerable populations in Israel such as women, the non-Orthodox, Arabs and the LGBTQ community.
“The recognition that what happens in Israel, the policies of the Israeli government and a broader range of issues in this particular case — on judicial reform, the perception of Israel as a vibrant democracy for all of its citizens — that perception has a significant impact on American Jewish life and American Jewish engagement,” said Gil Preuss, CEO of Washington, D.C.’s Jewish federation.
Most of the five groups had previously endorsed calls for compromise on the judicial reform proposal. The federations had also come out against one of its key elements. So when Netanyahu announced on Monday — in the face of widespread protests and dissent from allies — that he would pause the legislative push to allow time for dialogue, they all hoped to express their support.
What to write after that sentiment, however, proved contentious. A version of the statement put out by the American Jewish Committee included sharp criticism of Israeli politicians that was not in the other statements.
The Jewish Federations of North America sent out an addendum to the statement that was sympathetic to anti-Netanyahu protesters.
And the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ultimately opted out of the statement altogether — but not before a version had already been released in its name.
None of the five groups responded to requests for comment on the process behind the statement, but insiders said the differences between the statements, and AIPAC’s opting out, had little to do with policy differences. Instead, they blamed the confusion on missteps in the rush to get the statement out in the minutes after Netanyahu’s remarks, which aired in Israel at 8 p.m. and in the early afternoon on the East Coast, where all of the groups are based.
The statement that ultimately appeared, after declaring that the groups “welcome the Israeli government’s suspension” of the reforms, said that the raucous debate and protests over the legislation were “painful to watch” but also “a textbook case of democracy in action.”
A key line included rare advice to Israel from the establishment Jewish groups: “As a next step, we encourage all Knesset factions, coalition and opposition alike, to use this time to build a consensus that includes the broad support of Israeli civil society.”
The Conference of Presidents was the first to release the statement, just past 2 p.m., less than an hour after Netanyahu had completed his remarks. It listed its co-endorsers as the AJC, the ADL and JFNA.
Five minutes later, the AJC put out a version of the same statement that added AIPAC to the endorsers. It included the same sentence offering advice, plus another two that added criticism and a caution: “Israel’s political leaders must insist on a more respectful tone and debate. A hallmark of democracy is public consensus and mutual consideration.”
Statements from JFNA and ADL, which went out subsequently, hewed to the Conference of Presidents version. An AIPAC official told JTA that the group did not want to sign onto the statement because it had wanted more time to add edits.
Just before 3 p.m., more than 40 minutes after its initial email, AJC sent out an email advising recipients that its inclusion of AIPAC was an error.
But its new statement still included the line criticizing politicians, which the other groups had eschewed. In the end, AJC removed that line, too: It is absent from the version of the statement posted on the group’s website.
AIPAC ultimately settled on posting a tweet that stuck to praising Israel for its democratic process, without further comment.
“For many weeks, Israelis have engaged in a vigorous debate reflective of the Jewish state’s robust democracy,” it said. “Israel’s diverse citizenship is showcasing its passionate engagement in the democratic process to determine the policies that will guide their country.”
JFNA, in an explanatory email to its constituents attached to the joint statement, was more pointed in its criticism of Netanyahu. On Sunday night, the prime minister had summarily fired his defense minister, Yoav Galant, for publicly advocating a pause on the legislation. That decision sparked protests across Israel, which in turn prompted Netanyahu to announce exactly the same pause and compromise that Gallant had proposed.
“The response across Israeli society was immediate and angry,” said the email signed by Julie Platt, the chairwoman of JFNA, and Eric Fingerhut, its CEO. “Spontaneous protests gathered in the streets and commentators expressed shock at a decision to fire a Defense Minister for having expressed concern about the risks to the country’s military position … Netanyahu’s own lawyer in his corruption trial announced that he could no longer represent him.”
The groups weren’t alone in releasing pained statements about Israel’s volatility — which has also stirred anguish among groups that have previously defended the Israeli right.
This week, Rabbi Moshe Hauer of the Orthodox Union, who met earlier this month with far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, praised Israel’s leaders for “the recognition of the value of taking time, engaging with each other with honesty and humility, and proceeding to build consensus.” (Smotrich, for his part, supports the overhaul and opposed pausing the legislation.)
“Our Sages taught, ‘Peace is great; discord is despised’,” Hauer, the group’s executive director, said in an emailed statement to JTA. “We are deeply shaken by the upheaval and discord that has gripped our beloved State of Israel. In recent weeks, the Jewish tradition and the democratic value of vigorous debate have been replaced by something very dangerous and different.”
The two largest non-Orthodox movements were open about their opposition to the overhaul. “We believe ardently that the proposed judicial reform is fraught with danger and goes against the principles of democracy,” the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement Tuesday.
A statement from the leadership of the Reform movement, including Jacobs, castigated Netanyahu for agreeing to create a national guard under the authority of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, and for being “willing to risk the safety and security of Israel’s citizens to keep himself and his coalition in power.”
That strong language, Jacobs suggested, reflects the wishes of those who fund establishment Jewish groups and congregations. He said those groups were hearing from donors whose frustration with the Netanyahu government is reaching a boiling point.
“I hear of donors telling organizations, ‘I have to tell you, I don’t hear your voice, speaking out in favor of Israel’s democracy at this very vulnerable moment. So I’ll tell you what, why don’t you hang on to my phone number when you find your voice?’”
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Illinois voters pass proposals objecting to state anti-BDS law
(JTA) — Voters in eight municipalities in Illinois approved ballot measures last week registering formal objections to the state’s law barring state pension investments in companies that boycott Israel.
The ballot measures will have no effect on state policy. But pro-Palestinian groups are celebrating the wins as demonstrations of shifting public opinion against the law, first signed in 2015 to oppose the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.
The village of Oak Park and the townships of Champaign, Cunningham, DuPage, Kickapoo, Medina, Normal and Peoria all approved similarly worded ballot measures that urge the state to repeal its anti-BDS law or support specific state legislation that would do so. According to unofficial tallies, 65% of voters in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb whose local Jewish population mounted a sustained objection to the referendum, approved the measure there.
Jewish groups including the Jewish United Fund, Chicago’s federation arm, had campaigned against the ballot measure. The Illinois law, championed by JUF when it was first passed, was the first of what has become dozens of state anti-BDS laws in the country. First Amendment groups have challenged the laws.
“We would have much preferred a victory,” Dan Goldwin, chief public affairs officer for JUF, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Monday. Yet Goldwin pointed out that Oak Park voters had approved the measure by smaller margins than their votes for top Democratic candidates including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and former presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“Once people began to be exposed to the meaning of what the referendum was about, they moved against it. We just didn’t have enough time,” he said.
Some members of the Oak Park opposition had engaged in a drawn-out fight over the eligibility of the signatures the ballot measure activists had gathered. That time, Goldwin theorized, “was probably time better spent convincing people to vote against it.”
Separately, voters in Bloomington Township approved a measure stating that the federal government should “ban the transfer of weapons to any country that is a dictatorship, apartheid state or major violator of human rights.” The ballot language did not mention Israel, but pro-Palestinian activists have long maintained that Israel commits apartheid and that the U.S. should halt weapons sales to the country.
Local Jewish figures have said the campaign troubled them.
“It felt like it was a local chapter of a global movement to destroy the world’s only Jewish state, and I felt it personally and acutely,” Rabbi Adir Glick of Conservative Temple Har Zion in River Forest, which borders Oak Park, told the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest about the campaign. “I know people who lost friendships in the last few months, and difficult moments with neighbors and colleagues, but it also galvanized our Jewish community.”
Goldwin said the measures’ passage wouldn’t change JUF’s own strategy opposing the repeal of the anti-BDS law at the state level. He noted that ballot measure activists, with the exception of Oak Park, largely didn’t target municipalities with large Jewish communities. In his view, those seeking the repeal of the law “are still a significant minority.”
The BDS movement had a more significant policy victory on election night with the passage of a binding ballot referendum in Providence, Rhode Island, to divest that city from “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.” Proponents and opponents of the measure alike have said they believe the language and parameters of the question will include Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Illinois voters pass proposals objecting to state anti-BDS law appeared first on The Forward.
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Blinken, Pompeo: Strong U.S.-Israel ties, assistance to continue despite Trump call to end aid
(JTA) — Former secretaries of state Antony Blinken and Mike Pompeo both downplayed the potential end of American military aid to Israel on Sunday, insisting such a development would not harm U.S.-Israel ties during a joint appearance in Washington.
Speaking at the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual General Assembly, both men also defended Israel’s security and its need to defend itself in the wake of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, condemning voices who try to equate Israel’s actions with those of Hamas and accuse it of committing genocide.
But Blinken, who was secretary of state in the Biden administration at the time, also didn’t spare Jerusalem from criticism over its conduct of the war.
Following Oct. 7, “the Israelis did, for the most part, the bare minimum of what they felt they needed to do for people who were stuck in the middle of this crossfire in Gaza,” he said. “There was a certain amount of disregard, a certain amount of disdain for the well-being of the Palestinian civilians.”
He added that “that is vastly different, vastly different from an intent to do them harm, from an intent to eliminate them. The target was Hamas, and horrifically, too many people were caught in the middle of that and suffered terribly as a consequence.”
Still, he said, it is important to “recognize that we’re at an inflection point” when it comes to American attitudes toward Israel. Blinken recalled discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the Gaza war was raging in which he warned that Israel was “not only losing the Democratic Party — and that may be fine from your perspective — you’re going to be losing young Republicans, young evangelicals.”
On Election Day last week, following campaigns in which many candidates called for reducing support for Israel, President Donald Trump declared that the money “gets cut off at the end of the year.”
Pompeo, who served as CIA director and secretary of state during the first Trump administration, said that while he did not “know exactly how this administration will follow through on that,” there had been conversations between Jerusalem and Washington “about what’s the appropriate level of assistance and what [is] the right model” for cooperation.
Calls to change the nature of U.S. military aid have become “bipartisan,” he noted.
Stating that he is “very optimistic,” the former Republican congressman asserted that “whether we provide the $4 billion a year — which … mostly goes to buy U.S. weapons systems from Lockheed and Raytheon and big defense contractors — is much less material than the nature of the relationship between the United States and Israel.”
“And so whether we provide that particular money, there will still be deep connectivity. There’ll still be lots of assistance, and there will be a partnership that is historically important, not just for Israel, but for the United States of America as well … we couldn’t do the intelligence work we need to do without them.”
“They save American lives all the time,” he continued. “I still have a death threat on me from the Iranians. The Israeli intelligence has been very helpful at making sure that I’m where I need to be and I’m not where I ought not be.”
Israel’s 10-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the United States, which currently pledges Israel $3.8 billion annually for the fiscal years 2019-2028 subject to congressional appropriations, has proven a political liability for Trump. Last week he questioned why his administration should have to deal with criticism from Democrats over the issue. Following the GOP’s loss in the midterms, Vice President JD Vance explicitly called to put America first and “change our relationship to Israel.”
Blinken responded similarly to his Republican counterpart on the question of U.S. aid to Israel.
“I think you’re seeing a recognition on the part of the Israeli government that this thing is not going to last forever, and an attempt to make it clear in the body politic in Israel that, no, we can pay for our own stuff. We don’t need the kind of assistance that we’re getting from the United States in terms of paying for what we’re acquiring,” Blinken stated, adding that “it doesn’t change anything … about the inherent value of the relationship and the partnership.”
But while Pompeo and Blinken appeared largely on the same page regarding military aid to Israel, the two differed significantly regarding the conflict with Iran and a future resolution to the long-running conflict with the Palestinians.
Asked how to negotiate a settlement with Iran, Pompeo replied that “I just I simply don’t think that it’s possible with the regime” even as he admitted the United States cannot currently curtail Iran’s ambitions through military means.
Pompeo called to “continue to apply pressure there” through the current economic blockade and by “going after further assets inside of Iran” because “they still have the capability to muck up the Gulf region and to threaten Israel [while] we have the capacity to, if not eliminate it, mitigate that materially.”
As for offering concessions to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and maintain the flow of oil, Pompeo insisted that “we should never give the Iranians a damn thing.”
Blinken, on the other hand, stated that Trump needs to acknowledge that the war against Tehran “might not be a loss” but it “wasn’t a real win.”
But while concessions, possibly including sanctions relief, may be needed to bring the Iranians back to the table, “I think what you have to do is exert sustained, systematic pressure on them economically … for purposes of getting to negotiate,” he added.
The lesson learned from the 2015 Iran deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Blinken said, is that it can take time to get Iran to the point where it is ready to negotiate.
Blinken added, “Same thing with the Iran-Iraq war. There wasn’t a capitulation. There was a negotiation. I think at this point that’s in our interest.”
Turning to the Palestinian issue, Blinken argued that part of why Hamas attacked on Oct. 7 was to preempt the further expansion of the Abraham Accords and that “for that vision to be fully realized, it requires a resolution of the Palestinian question.”
“I believe to the bottom of my heart, as I have throughout, that the only way forward, and again, this is very unpopular these days, is through a secure Israel and a sovereign Palestine,” Blinken said.
He drew pushback from Pompeo, who argued that “one of the keys to success of the Abraham Accords was not letting the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis get in the way of what the Gulf Arab states actually know needs to happen.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Blinken, Pompeo: Strong U.S.-Israel ties, assistance to continue despite Trump call to end aid appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Jews are welcome, Zionists are not’: Is a Zionist ban at a restaurant legal?
Sap Sua, a Vietnamese restaurant in Boulder, Colorado, was one of Emily Lanigan’s favorite restaurants. She even celebrated her 44th birthday there in June. So Lanigan was stunned when the restaurant posted this since-deleted message on Instagram in September: “Jews are welcome, Zionists are not.”
Lanigan, a former synagogue president, identifies as a Zionist, which she defines as the Jewish right of self-determination. Was she really no longer welcome at the place where she had received a complimentary dessert just months before?
She wondered if the restaurant had a different definition of Zionism, she said, and thought maybe reaching out and offering to have an in-person discussion could clear things up.
“Being a Zionist does not mean I do not also believe in the freedom and autonomy of Palestinians,” Lanigan said she commented on Instagram. “You and I are not so far apart.”
But Sap Sua’s owner, Anthony “Ni” Nguyen, doubled down: “As you clearly saw, the full statement was ‘Jews are welcome. Zionists are not.’ Jews are a protected class, and all Jews are welcome,” Nguyen wrote in messages to Lanigan reviewed by the Forward. “Zionism is a political ideology, like Nazism.”
Nguyen’s response to Lanigan implied the law was on his side. He could ban “Zionists,” it seemed, so long as he let in Jews who shared his views about Israel.
Legally speaking, Nguyen was partially correct. Neither federal civil rights law nor Colorado law prohibits businesses from refusing service based on customers’ political beliefs — meaning turning someone away based solely on their political support for Israel could be allowed.
But the line gets murkier when “Zionist” is used as a stand-in for Jewish or Israeli identity, which can violate laws prohibiting discrimination based on religion or national origin.
The distinction matters not only for Sap Sua, as spaces from coffee shops to book festivals to concert venues make disavowing Israel a condition of entry or participation. The troubling practice raises a thorny question: How should the law distinguish between excluding someone because of their political beliefs and excluding them because of who they are?
The right to exclude?
Sap Sua was not the first business to declare itself off-limits to Zionists with no legal consequences. In Utah, after a bar called Weathered Waves declared “no Zionists allowed” in 2024, the attorney general found no evidence of legal wrongdoing. (Weathered Waves later closed over a dispute with its landlord.)
But that doesn’t mean “Zionist” bans are always legal. According to Richard Katskee, a professor of law at Duke University with expertise in public accommodation law, the legality depends on how the ban is enforced.
Does the business ask only Jewish or Israeli customers to disclose their views? Does it make assumptions about the politics of customers wearing kippahs? If Jewish customers are being singled out, Katskee said, that would make a finding of illegal discrimination more likely.
Omer Wiczyk, senior counsel at the Brandeis Center, told the Forward that two cases he’s currently litigating cross that line. At a coffee shop in Oakland, California, a customer wearing a Star of David baseball cap was asked on video if he was a Zionist and told to leave. At an eyebrow salon in Northern Virginia, a customer was kicked out after disclosing she was Israeli-American.
Businesses “cannot turn a customer’s identity into objectionable politics, and then invoke that to justify their exclusion,” Wiczyk told the Forward. “Being Israeli is not a political issue. Being a Jew is not a political issue. It’s who you are.”
But if a business required every customer, regardless of their identity, to affirm a particular political position on Israel before receiving service, that could be legal, Katskee said — though enforcing such a policy fairly would inevitably prove difficult in practice.
“It might be legal, like putting up a sign saying ‘Republicans only’ or ‘Democrats only,’” Katskee said.
Jenin Younes, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, argues that businesses have some latitude to refuse service based on customers’ politics. The ADC is currently making that case on behalf of Poetica Coffee, which is fighting a Department of Justice investigation into its decision to publicly bar Rep. Dan Goldman over his support for Israel.
In Goldman’s case, Younes said, his public profile and easily searchable voting record help support the idea that the coffee shop targeted him for his political views.
“It’s harder to make the argument that ‘No, this was really about just not letting Jewish people in’ — because he’s a public figure,” Younes said. “He’s said what he thinks on these issues.”
Even Goldman himself said that the coffee shop incident did not warrant a civil rights investigation because of his status as a public figure.
Younes argues that the same principle applies to situations unrelated to Israel and Zionism.
In 2018, for example, the owner of a Virginia restaurant kicked out White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders citing the Trump administration’s “inhumane and unethical” policies. The restaurant faced social backlash, but no legal consequences.
And last year, a Martha’s Vineyard farmers’ market stand refused to sell lawyer Alan Dershowitz pierogi, citing his legal defense of Jeffrey Epstein and other men accused of sexual assault. Dershowitz threatened legal action, but it appears he never actually filed suit.
“In my opinion, businesses should have the right to exclude people whose views it doesn’t like,” Younes said. “And by the way, I would apply this in the other context: If there’s a pro-Israel coffee shop owner and they wanted to say, ‘We don’t want anyone wearing a pro-Palestine pin in here,’ I think they have that right.”
The law’s limits
Whether businesses have the legal right to exclude certain customers is a different question than whether they should.
Such bans can end up holding ordinary Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government — with the misguided idea that denying them a meal or a cup of coffee will somehow advance the Palestinian cause.
And since “Zionist” means different things to different people, using the label as a litmus test will almost inevitably lead to erroneous assumptions about peoples’ views.
In cases where the law is not a remedy, the free market may be. Businesses that turn away “Zionists” must be so committed to their beliefs that they are willing to refuse a paying customer, risking boycotts and reputational damage.
At the same time, some businesses may believe the publicity will draw in new clientele. Karimi Brows, which turned away the Israeli-American customer, boasted that it gained 40,000 TikTok followers in the month after the incident.
For its part, Sap Sua appeared to backtrack amid intense public pressure, posting to Instagram that it would welcome “every guest who walks through our doors.” (Sap Sua did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.)
But for Lanigan, the damage was done.
“It was one of my favorite restaurants,” Lanigan told the Forward. “But I will never set foot in that place again.”
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