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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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How a wedding in Oklahoma taught a group of police officers and SWAT team members to care about Judaism and Israel
I told the rabbi who was about to officiate at my daughter’s wedding that the guests would be an unusual mix — about 100 law enforcement officers, EMT’s, dispatchers, sheriffs and SWAT team members, many of whom had never met a Jew other than my daughter.
“In fact, they may not know that she is Jewish,” I said, “The other 50 guests will be our family from London, New York, Canada, Israel, a very different crowd.”
My daughter and Zac are both police officers in Oklahoma. Zac isn’t Jewish, but they both had wanted a Jewish wedding. It wasn’t easy finding a rabbi they actually liked who would officiate an interfaith marriage. The wedding was held Sept. 2, 2023. There was an outdoor garden and a bridge that led to the ceremony. The chuppah was constructed from an Amazon set of interlocking wooden bricks that the groom and his father assembled proudly. We decorated it with flowers but it looked like it could tilt over at any moment. The bride was bride-beautiful, a tiny 5’1″ with her handsome groom, a very tall 6’6″.
They were exquisitely happy and stood together as Rabbi Michael conducted the service, making sure to explain everything including the Hebrew parts. At the end of the ceremony, Zac even stepped on the glass and crushed it. The police officers, EMTs, firefighters, and SWAT teams were all riveted.
The party was held in the nearby barn, which was decorated with chandeliers and flowers and a DJ playing a mix of music. We danced the hora and the SWAT team managed to lift Zac and Martine high in the air as is tradition — a novel experience for most of our guests.
Then Oct. 7 happened in Israel.
I got a call from my daughter: “Mom, my phone is ringing with many of the law enforcement people who were at our wedding. They want to know how they can help Israel.”
I was touched; they were responding because of the wedding they had attended.
Later that day my daughter called again: “Mom, I’m at the military supply store downtown, and the owner says she has 27 IFAK emergency medical kits. She wants to help Israel and will give the kits to me at cost. What should I do?”
By now I had heard from my friends in Israel that the government had been unprepared for the attacks and supplies were lacking.
“How much do they cost?” I asked. “Buy them all. While you’re at it, buy a bunch of tourniquets.”
From that moment on we tried to get these professional emergency medical IFAK kits to the IDF. The problem was that there was a backlog at the airport in Tel Aviv; donations were piling up because the IDF hadn’t been able to authorize them yet.
Because I had lived in Israel and had experienced another surprise October war in 1973, I had many Israeli contacts. I spoke to an IDF representative.
“We’re desperate for IFAKs. Yes, we need them,” he said.
“How do we get them to you?” He had no answer.
After a day of trying, I ran out of contacts and let my daughter continue. After all, she’s an excellent police officer and investigator.
Another day passed before I talked to my daughter again.
“Martine, how are you doing with the IFAKs?” I asked.
“Mom, they’re in Israel with a paratrooper unit,” she said.
I was shocked. “How did you get them there?” I asked.
Apparently, she had managed to track down a man who runs a volunteer retired military airlift organization. He wanted to help but said that his planes were flying medical supplies to Ukraine. Understanding the urgency, he gave her the name and contact information for his neighbor Moshe in Texas. Moshe was a retired Israeli commander of paratroopers.
“Take all of your IFAKSs out of their wrappings. Put them in a duffle bag and ship them to this address in Greenwich Village in New York City. Someone there will receive it and get it to a unit in the field in Israel,” Moshe told Martine.
Two months later at Christmas time, my daughter visited me in New York and we had family over for dinner. I urged her to tell the story.
“Well, Mom,” she said, “I have the video of the soldiers that they sent to me as a thank you.” She queued up her cell phone so we could see it.
Two soldiers stood alone in the dark — one held a machine gun and stood guard; the other held a sheaf of papers. “Martine, thank you for sending us the medical kits. We really need them,” he said. “Thanks also for the letters you sent with them. Yes, we will take you and your husband to the club you mentioned in your letter when you come to visit next time.”
Letters?
Martine had sent a long letter in the duffle bag, with others that had been written by police officers who had been at her wedding. They had been in the military before joining the police force. Their letters were short: “We have your backs. We support you and know what you’re going through. We were in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wish you the best.” They had heard about the duffel bag as word spread among the wedding guests and they wanted to do something. They did.
Recently, with antisemitism running rampant, a few of Martine’s police officer friends have quietly approached her. “We’ve been discussing where we would hide you, and protect you if our country turns against its Jews like they did in Germany,” they’ve told her. “You’ll be safe with us.”
One Jewish wedding educated a group of people. At one ceremony. At one party. In one night.
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Germany’s antisemitism czar says slogans like ‘From the river to the sea’ should be illegal
(JTA) — Germany’s antisemitism czar has urged a law to ban pro-Palestinian slogans such as “From the river to the sea,” renewing a fraught debate over the country’s historic allegiance to Israel and freedom of speech.
Felix Klein’s initiative would ban chants that could be interpreted as calling for Israel’s destruction. His proposal has the support of German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and is now being reviewed by the Justice Ministry, he told Haaretz on Wednesday.
“Before Oct. 7, you could have said that ‘From the river to the sea’ doesn’t necessarily mean kicking Israelis off the land, and I could accept that,” said Klein. “But since then, Israel has really been facing existential threats, and unfortunately, it has become necessary here to limit freedom of speech in this regard.”
Klein, the first holder of an office titled “Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism” since 2018, added that he believed the law must be passed even if it is challenged in court for violating free speech.
Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and the subsequent and devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza tore at the seams of Germany’s national doctrines. The war triggered a sharp rise in antisemitic and Isalmophobic incidents across the country. It also exposed charged questions about when Germany prioritizes its responsibility toward the Jewish state, which became central to German national identity after the Holocaust, and when it upholds democratic principles.
The legal boundaries of pro-Palestinian speech are already far from clear-cut. Currently, courts decide whether a person chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in support of peacefully liberating Palestinians or in endorsement of terrorism. In August 2024, the German-Iranian activist Ava Moayeri was convicted of condoning a crime for leading the chant at a Berlin rally on Oct. 11, 2023.
Shortly after the Hamas attacks, local authorities across Germany imposed sweeping bans on pro-Palestinian protests. Berlin officials authorized schools to ban the keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, along with slogans such as “Free Palestine.”
Jewish and Israeli activists were caught up in the crackdown. In October 2023, a woman was arrested after holding a poster that said, “As a Jew and Israeli: Stop the genocide in Gaza.” And police prohibited a demonstration by a group calling themselves “Jewish Berliners against Violence in the Middle East,” citing the risk of unrest and “inflammatory, antisemitic exclamations.”
Earlier this year, German immigration authorities ordered the deportation of three European nationals and one U.S. citizen over their alleged activity at pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Three of the orders cited Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state,” a doctrine enshrining Germany’s defense of Israel as justification for its own existence after the Holocaust.
But that tenet is not used in legal settings, according to Alexander Gorski, who represents the demonstrators threatened with deportation. “Staatsräson is not a legal concept,” Gorski told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in April. “It’s completely irrelevant. It’s not in the German Basic Law, it’s not in the constitution.”
Jewish leaders such as Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, have argued that anger toward Israel created a “pretext” for antisemitism. “It is sufficient cause in itself to fuel the hatred,” Knobloch said to Deutsche Welle in September.
In recent months, two German establishments made the news for refusing entry to Jews and Israelis. A shop in Flensburg, which posted a sign saying “Jews are banned here,” is vulnerable to German anti-discrimination law. Not so for the restaurant in Fürth whose sign read, “We no longer accept Israelis in our establishment,” according to anti-discrimination commissioner Ferda Ataman, who said the law does not apply to discrimination on the basis of nationality.
Klein said he has also initiated legislation to expand that law to protect Israelis and other nationalities.
He has a longstanding relationship with Jewish communities in Germany, starting with his Foreign Office appointment as the special liaison to global Jewish organizations. In that role, he helped create a “working definition” of antisemitism for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016. That definition has sparked contentious debate, as critics argue it conflates some criticisms of Israel with antisemitism.
Klein believes that anti-Zionism does largely fall in the same bucket as antisemitism. “I think in most cases it is — it’s just a disguised form of antisemitism,” he told Haaretz. “When people say they’re anti-Israel, what they really mean is Jews.”
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There’s something missing from John Fetterman’s memoir: Israel
There may be no senator who has committed more fervently to supporting Israel, at a greater personal cost, than Sen. John Fetterman.
In the weeks following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the Pennsylvania Democrat began taping hostage posters to the wall outside his office and wearing a symbolic dogtag necklace. He embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a pariah to many Democrats. As the civilian death toll in Gaza mounted, he posted constantly on social media to defend the war.
The position has cost him followers, friends, staff and perhaps in the future his seat. But it has also made him a hero in parts of the Jewish community. He received awards from Yeshiva University and the Zionist Organization of America and he was brought onstage as a panelist at the national Jewish Federations of North America convention.
Given the centrality of Israel to his focus in office — he was sworn in only 9 months before Oct. 7 — and how often he posts about it on social media, one might anticipate Fetterman giving it a lengthy treatment in his newly released memoir, Unfettered. The title of the memoir, too, seems to promise candor.
Instead, Fetterman dedicates all of three paragraphs to Israel in a book that largely rehashes lore from before his time in the Senate and discusses his struggles with mental health. These paragraphs — which even pro-Israel readers will read as boilerplate — appear in the book’s penultimate chapter, which is about his declining popularity since taking office.
Some have suggested that the reason some of the media and former staffers turned on me was because of my stance on Israel. Others imply that my support of Israel has to do with impaired mental health, which isn’t true. My support for Israel is not new. I was quoted in the 2022 primary as unequivocally stating that “I will always lean in on Israel.”
There’s a paragraph here about sticking to his morals even if it means defying his party, then:
There was no choice for me but to support Israel. I remembered the country’s history — how it was formed in 1948 in the wake of the murder of six million Jews. Since then, the rest of the Middle East, harboring resentments going back thousands of years, has only looked for ways to eradicate Israel. It took less than a day after the formation of the Jewish state was announced for Egypt to attack it. Every day in Israel is a struggle for existence, just as every day is an homage to the memory of the Jews shot and gassed and tortured.
It’s also clear that war in Gaza [sic] has been a humanitarian disaster. At the time of this writing, roughly sixty thousand people have been killed in Israel’s air and ground campaign, over half of them women, children, and the elderly. I grieve the tragedy, the death, and the misery.
Satisfied with this examination of the hypothesis for his growing unpopularity, Fetterman then moves on to another possible reason: his votes on immigration.
It’s strange to read the Israel passages in light of Fetterman’s full-throated advocacy on any number of issues related or connected to the Israel-Hamas war, including the hostages, campus protests, and rising antisemitism. Even if he did not reckon more deeply with his support for a war that brought about a “humanitarian disaster,” he might have talked about meeting the hostage families, or visiting Israel, or his disappointment that some voices within his party have turned against it.
The production of Unfettered was itself a story earlier this year, and may explain the book’s failure to grapple with a central priority.
Fetterman reportedly received a $1.2 million advance for it, roughly a third of which went to Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger to ghostwrite it. But the two apparently had a falling out at some point, according to the sports blog Defector, which wrote in June that “in the process of having to work with Fetterman, Bissinger went from believing the Pennsylvania senator was a legitimate presidential candidate to believing he should no longer be in office at all.”
Bissinger is not credited anywhere in the book, and does not appear to have contributed. (He refused to discuss the book when a reporter called him earlier this year.)
But the mystifying section about Israel may have nothing to do with a ghostwriter or lack thereof. It may instead be explained by a letter his then-chief of staff wrote in May 2024, in which he said Fetterman “claims to be the most knowledgeable source on Israel and Gaza around but his sources are just what he reads in the news — he declines most briefings and never reads memos.”
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