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American rabbis, wrestling with Israel’s behavior, weigh different approaches from the pulpit
(JTA) — Rabbi Sharon Brous began a sermon at her Los Angeles synagogue last month with a content warning. “I have to say some things today that I know will upset some of you,” she began.
That same morning, across the country in New York City, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl was confessing something to her congregants, too: The sermon they were about to hear “kept me up at night.”
Both women — among the most prominent and influential Jewish clergy in the United States — went on to sharply criticize Israel’s new right-wing government, which includes far-right parties that aim to curb the rights of LGBTQ Israelis, Arabs and non-Orthodox Jews.
In taking aim at Israel’s government from the pulpit, the rabbis were veering close to what many in their field consider a third rail. “You have a wonderful community and you love them and they love you, until the moment you stand up and you give your Israel sermon,” Brous told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The phenomenon even has an informal name, she said: “Death by Israel sermon.”
Brous would know: A decade ago, she was the target of sharp criticism after she encouraged her congregants at IKAR, a nondenominational congregation, to pray for Palestinians as well as Jews during a period of conflict in Israel. The incident didn’t end her pulpit, but she has come to understand why many rabbis choose what she called “the path of silence” when it comes to Israel.
Now, she said, American Jews must depart from that path. “I want you to hear me,” she said in her sermon. “There is a revolution that is happening, and this moment demands an awakening on both sides of the sea, an honest reckoning.”
All over the country, non-Orthodox rabbis are making similar calculations in response to Israel’s new governing coalition, which has drawn widespread protests over its policy moves. (Orthodox communities, including their rabbis, tend to be more politically conservative and skew to the right of non-Orthodox communities on Israel issues.) Israel’s government is advancing an overhaul of the legal system that would sap the power of the Supreme Court, and is also contending with an escalating wave of violence.
Some rabbis feel more emboldened to speak aloud what they have long believed. Others are finding themselves reconsidering their own relationship to Israel — and bringing their congregants along on their journey. A few still feel that criticizing Israel from the pulpit is a misguided and even dangerous venture, one that could splinter American Jewish communities.
What cuts across the spectrum is a belief that Israel has been discussed too little from the synagogue pulpit. Brous said the tendency of liberal rabbis not to talk about Israel lest they anger their more conservative congregants has resulted in a painful reality: “American Jews have not developed the muscle that we now need to respond to this regime.”
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City launched a new program called Amplify Israel, which he hopes will encourage Reform movement leaders to embrace Zionism even as they navigate a “deeply problematic and even offensive” new Israeli government. (Shahar Azran/Stephen Wise Free Synagogue)
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, meanwhile, believes today’s rabbis must be vocal in fending off the influence of “competing values” about Zionism from “various organizations that are either cool on Israel or don’t like Israel or just downright anti-Zionist.”
Last year, angered by a letter signed by dozens of rabbinical students denouncing Israel’s actions during its 2021 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Hirsch launched an initiative based at his New York City Reform synagogue to equip rabbis with tools to counter what he said was “the growing influence of an anti-Zionist element” in the next generation of Jewish clergy.
The initiative, Amplify Israel, is housed at his Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, and employs another rabbi, Tracy Kaplowitz, to work full-time to galvanize leaders from across the Reform movement to support Israel. Kaplowitz jokes that her new job won’t be complete “until every Reform Jew is a Zionist.”
Hirsch knows the new coalition is complicating his task. “The new government is going to make our promotion of Israel more difficult in the United States,” he said, noting that the government “has elements in it that are deeply problematic and even offensive to most American Jews.”
He and Kaplowitz contend that it is possible, in their view, for rabbis to criticize aspects of the Israeli government from the pulpit while still remaining broadly supportive of the Jewish state and encouraging their congregants to be the same. They also say the need to build Zionist sentiment within the American rabbinate transcends any particular moment, including this one.
“If we have to transform how we connect to Israel each time there’s an election, we’ll be driving ourselves a little bit batty,” Kaplowitz said.
Rabbi Tracy Kaplowitz is a full-time Israel Fellow at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City. She jokes that her job won’t be finished “until every Reform Jew is a Zionist.” (Ryen Greiss/Stephen Wise Free Synagogue)
Hirsch sits on the advisory board of another new pro-Israel initiative, the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition. Helmed by Stuart Weinblatt, senior rabbi at Conservative Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Potomac, Maryland, the group is an interdenominational network of more than 200 rabbis who advocate to ”strengthen the ties between American Jewry and the State of Israel.”
Weinblatt hews to an early generation’s view of how rabbis should approach Israel from the pulpit. He told JTA that he believes his colleagues should always be supportive of Israel in public, even if they choose to pressure the Israeli government and advocate against certain policies in private — which, he says, is “the appropriate vehicle” for voicing concerns. “My position has always been that support for Israel should be unconditional,” he said.
“If we as rabbis are sharply critical of Israel, the result can often lead to a distancing from Israel, which ultimately may diminish the connection people feel to Judaism and the Jewish people,” he added. “People do not always distinguish and differentiate between opposition to a particular policy and broader criticisms of Israel which can do lasting damage.”
Asked whether the Israeli government could ever conceivably take a step that would necessitate a public response from American rabbis, Weinblatt ruminated for days. He ultimately told JTA that the current debate around proposed changes to the Law of Return, the Israeli policy that allows anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent to claim citizenship, would be such an example, as that is a policy that would have a direct effect on Diaspora Jews.
Tightening who is eligible under the Law of Return is in fact a goal of some elements of Israel’s governing coalition, although the Diaspora minister assured an audience in the United States that, unlike with the proposed changes to the government’s judicial system — which have earned criticism across the political spectrum — there would be an effort to build consensus and no changes would happen overnight.
Still, the prospect of such a change so alarmed Rabbi Hillel Skolnick of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, Ohio, that he traveled to Jerusalem to address the Knesset, Israel’s lawmaking body.
“The members of my congregation and my movement have a spiritual connection with Judaism and also a political connection because we live in a democracy, so they see a Jewish democracy as an ideal that they can look to as a light unto the nations,” he said, in a speech he delivered as a representative of the Conservative/Masorti movement.
“By even questioning the idea of the Law of Return,” he went on, Israel “takes away from both the Jewish connection and the democratic connection they have with this country.”
Skolnick suggested that he was unsure of how to speak to his congregation about the new government and its agenda. “My question to you is, what message can I go home with?” he asked.
Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt, founder and chair of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition, shown with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Weinblatt believes American rabbis’ “support for Israel should be unconditional,” and that disagreements with its government should be hashed out in private. (Courtesy of Stuart Weinblatt)
This week, hundreds of American rabbis will be returning to their congregations with messages honed by a week in Israel. The Reform movement just concluded its biennial convention, which was held there for the first time since before the pandemic. Their visit coincided with major developments in the country’s twin crises: The Knesset advanced the judicial reform legislation, and three people were killed in a Palestinian shooting and subsequent settler riot in the West Bank.
In a sign of the balancing act that American rabbis are navigating, the Reform movement’s leader, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who has been among the earliest and most outspoken critics of the new Israeli government, will also be a featured speaker at Amplify Israel’s conference this May aiming to encourage Zionist sentiment among Reform Jews.
At the convention, the leader of the Central Conference of American Rabbis called for Reform clergy to move away from defining Israel in stark black-and-white terms — an apparent reference to Jews who speak of “pro-Israel” and “anti-Israel” forces.
“In order to connect better with those in our communities around Israel in a nuanced and meaningful way, we must be able to move beyond the pro/con dichotomy which only serves to divide us in ways that are a distraction to the actual issues at hand,” Rabbi Hara Person told the attendees. During the conference, the rabbis attended and voiced support for Israeli protests against their government.
“We are seeing a shift for the better, in my opinion, about how Jews are feeling comfortable critiquing Israel’s policies,” Rabbi Sarah Brammer-Shlay told JTA last fall, before the Israeli elections. Brammer-Shlay was a signer of the 2021 rabbinical students’ letter who graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and today is a rabbi and chaplain at Grinnell College.
That kind of shift has Weinblatt worried. “Sometimes, rabbis are actually out of sync and out of touch with their congregations, who do want to hear messages of support of Israel,” he said.
That may well be the case, particularly at synagogues with aging populations, but survey data suggests that American Jews are moving to the left on Israel at the same time that Israel itself has shifted to the right. The most recent Pew Research Center survey of American Jews, in 2021, found that most have a negative opinion of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; only one-third think Israel is making a sincere effort to achieve peace with Palestinians; and 10% support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel.
While rabbis typically consider what they think their congregants want to hear, they aren’t bound to say it. And some rabbis say this moment is a time to take a stand, even if there is blowback.
Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of Congregation Ansche Chesed, a Conservative congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, announced in December that his congregation would no longer recite the Prayer for the State of Israel, part of most congregations’ Shabbat morning liturgy since 1948. He said the extremism of Israel’s leadership meant the words no longer applied, and replaced the prayer with the more generally worded Prayer for Peace in Jerusalem.
”I couldn’t just say, ‘God, please guide our leaders well,’” Kalmanofsky said, pointing specifically to the fact that extremist politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were now government ministers who would be the beneficiaries of such prayer. “The things that they’re saying cannot possibly represent the Israel that I want to support.”
Kalmanofsky had not previously been outspoken as a critic of Israeli policy. He said he has faced some tough feedback from some in his community, including from those who believe this is a moment that demands more, not less, prayer for Israel — “not an unreasonable response,” he said. But a month into the liturgy change, he said he is confident he has made the right decision.
“Something really meaningful had changed in the public life of the state of Israel,” he said. “That deserved real recognition, and a real response.”
Continuing to focus on preserving a Jewish connection with Israel without “dealing like grown-ups” with its “very serious problems” would render the rabbinical voice irrelevant, Kalmanofsky said. “At best, we’re kind of like, ‘blind love, blind loyalty.’ And at worst, we’re totally obtuse, and have nothing meaningful to say about the real world.”
“If you’re going to have a pulpit,” Kalmanofsky added, “you’re going to have to use it once in a while.”
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Can Netanyahu win again? The secret to his political survival – and why it may finally fail him
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was once dubbed “King Bibi” for his remarkable ability to win elections, starting with his surprise victory in 1996 at age 46. The number of political rivals who have risen and fallen during his decades in power is almost impossible to count.
But with the Oct. 27 election just days away – three years after Israel’s worst security failure under his watch and amid deep divisions at home and declining international support — could this finally be the 77-year-old Israeli leader’s last stand?
Recent polls show Netanyahu’s Likud party trailing former military chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party. Several right-wing and religious parties are also polling below the 3.5% threshold needed to enter the Knesset, threatening to waste thousands of votes that Netanyahu may need to secure a majority. Meanwhile, the opposition appears more organized and motivated than in previous elections, posing a serious threat to his nearly two-decade dominance of Israeli politics.
Netanyahu has spent much of his political career proving predictions of his demise wrong. In 2015, he defied polls and led the Likud Party to a surprise victory after warning on Election Day that Arab voters were heading to the polls in droves. In 2021, after 12 consecutive years as prime minister, he was forced into the opposition by an unlikely coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. He returned to power less than two years later, almost immediately igniting mass protests over his judicial overhaul agenda, which his rivals said would concentrate power and eviscerate Israeli democracy.
Then came Oct. 7, the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Israelis were furious over the security failures that allowed Hamas to breach the border and kill about 1,200 people. Families of hostages demanded the immediate return of their loved ones, and even longtime supporters questioned whether he could remain prime minister after the end of the military campaign in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s political future appeared bleak. Mazal Mualem, a political commentator and author of Cracking the Netanyahu Code, said in an interview that everyone close to Netanyahu whom she spoke with in the weeks after the attack believed it was over. “Bibi was the only one who thought he would survive,” she said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.
But Netanyahu refused to resign. He kept his right-wing coalition together through the war in Gaza, survived nationwide protests and hearings in his ongoing corruption trial. In a remarkable political achievement, he became the first Israeli prime minister in more than 50 years to lead a government through its full four-year parliamentary term — something he himself had never accomplished before in his long career.
How did Netanyahu survive?
In interviews with the Forward, Mualem and another Netanyahu biographer, Anshel Pfeffer, reflected on how Netanyahu has survived when his political career appeared doomed. They offered different explanations, but agreed on one thing: Netanyahu can never be counted out.
Pfeffer, a correspondent for The Economist and author of Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, said that while there’s “no equivalent” to his political instincts and campaign skills, Netanyahu also lacks certain human instincts, including “shame” and “introspection,” that might otherwise have forced him to step aside. “He has no shame,” Pfeffer said.
Netanyahu’s ability to hold on to power, Pfeffer added, also relied on a political system he spent decades building, in which the political careers and financial interests of his allies are tied to his success. That helped him keep far-right partners such as Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, along with the Haredi parties, in his coalition despite disagreements over the war and military draft exemptions.
Mualem sees another reason Netanyahu survived: He transformed. “It’s almost as though he killed the old Bibi and a different person was born,” she said.
Netanyahu, once known for his risk-averse doctrine and being at times moderate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, became more willing to take bold military action. Under his leadership, Israel killed the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, launched strikes against Iran and expanded its military presence in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. Mualem argued that this transformation helped Netanyahu win back voters who had turned against him after Oct. 7 and strengthen his standing among his political base. “He went to war for himself and for the country,” she said. “He didn’t give up.”
Can he do it again?
Netanyahu is now counting on those same political skills to carry him through another difficult election.
Recent polls show the parties in the anti-Netanyahu bloc holding an average of 55 seats, short of the 61 needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. The two Arab lists — the United List, a coalition of three Arab Israeli parties, and Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas — are generally counted outside either bloc. But their projected 13 to 15 seats could determine whether Netanyahu’s opponents can form a minority government or at least unite to elect a Knesset speaker from their ranks, giving them significant influence over the legislative agenda. Opposition leaders remain divided over whether they should cooperate with Arab lawmakers.
With little chance of winning over voters firmly opposed to him, Netanyahu is focusing on right-wing voters who supported him in previous elections but are now considering staying home. His goal is to convince them that the alternative to his leadership is too risky.
Netanyahu’s campaign slogan, “It’s the right or Palestine,” is tapping into post-Oct. 7 fears about the establishment of a Palestinian state, warning that an Eisenkot-led government dependent on Arab support will lead to Palestinian statehood. He made a similar claim in 1996 when he suggested Shimon Peres would divide Jerusalem.
Mualem said Netanyahu is approaching this race as if it were his first campaign. “Netanyahu’s secret isn’t magic,” she said. “It’s hard work and a refusal to give up. He never raises his hands in surrender.”
Shalom Lipner, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program, said Netanyahu has another important advantage: As prime minister, he can largely shape the national conversation. When attention turns to issues that expose his political weaknesses, including Haredi military exemptions or his government’s responsibility for Oct. 7, Netanyahu can redirect the focus to Hamas, Iran or other security threats.
Lipner, who served under seven consecutive Israeli prime ministers between 1990 and 2016, compared it to President Donald Trump’s political style. Both leaders, he said, are skilled at drawing attention to issues that favor them.
Earlier this week, Trump endorsed Netanyahu for reelection, giving his longtime ally another opportunity to highlight their partnership in confronting Iran. “If Israel has the wrong leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Netanyahu seized on the endorsement to rally his base and try to persuade undecided voters that his close relationship with Trump is essential to Israel’s security. “We have a job to finish,” he told Trump during a phone call that was turned into a campaign clip.
Lipner believes Netanyahu’s tactics face greater limits than in previous elections because Israeli voters have become increasingly skeptical and entrenched in their views.
Still, Netanyahu has little reason to stop trying.
Israeli political commentator Amit Segal suggested that the statement about working with Trump for the coming two years was aimed at swing voters tired of Netanyahu, but who “will find it easier to support him for final arrangements for one last job,” with the implicit expectation that this would be his final term.
The day after the election
For both Netanyahu and his opponents, winning more votes on Election Day is only half the battle. The bigger challenge is finding a way to form a government afterward.
Under Israel’s electoral system, the 37 parties running in this election cycle must win at least 3.25% of the national vote to enter the Knesset. Votes cast for parties that fail to cross that threshold do not translate into seats, potentially costing their political allies crucial seats available for redistribution.
That makes the fate of smaller right-wing parties, including one led by retired general Ofer Winter and a reservist-backed, economy-focused party led by former minister Yoaz Hendel, particularly important in determining the balance of power.
Voter turnout and first-time voters will therefore be critical to the makeup of the political map.
Even if Netanyahu does not win 61 seats, he could still benefit if the opposition cannot agree on a government. Polls show that a majority of voters want a different prime minister, but those voters are spread across parties with sharply different ideologies and priorities.
Eisenkot has suggested establishing a minority government with Arab lawmakers abstaining to allow it to be sworn in without formally joining the coalition. Other opposition figures, particularly Avigdor Lieberman, are opposed to alliances with Arab members.
These divisions are Netanyahu’s greatest hope. If the opposition can’t come to an agreement, that could set the stage for another election, leaving Netanyahu as prime minister until a replacement government is sworn in.
Is this his last stand?
All three experts said it is too early to predict whether this election will mark the end of Netanyahu’s career.
“At one point it’s going to be your last stand,” Lipner said. “I just don’t know if this is it.”
“Netanyahu has found so many ways to come back against all the odds against him,” Pfeffer said. “So you certainly can’t count him out, and I’m not going to try to.”
Mualem suggested that even if Netanyahu loses power, he may simply return to the opposition and wait for his rivals to fail. “Netanyahu doesn’t have another life,” she said. “Politics is the only life he has.”
The post Can Netanyahu win again? The secret to his political survival – and why it may finally fail him appeared first on The Forward.
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While AIPAC’s critics rejoice as lobby shifts strategy, its defenders push back
(JTA) — AIPAC’s critics gloated on Thursday after the pro-Israel lobby announced that it was ending direct contributions and candidate endorsements. But defenders of the storied Washington institution pushed back at that characterization, saying instead that the organization had made a smart course correction amid strong political headwinds stoked at least in part by antisemitism.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee announced the decision in a letter to its members on Wednesday, explaining that the lobby would now shift its focus to mobilizing individual donors. The abandonment of direct PAC contributions and candidate endorsements marks a significant reversal in a strategy that AIPAC launched in 2021, ahead of the 2022 election cycle. The letter informed donors that AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, also launched in 2021, would continue to operate.
The move came in an increasingly tense political cycle for AIPAC, which it called “one of the most challenging environments in recent memory.” The lobby has become a target for progressive candidates, particularly Democratic Socialists of America members, who have sharply criticized candidates who receive donations from AIPAC. In turn, the organization has become a symbol of undue political influence among some voters.
The DSA responded to the lobby’s policy shift by saying that “AIPAC has realized what we all already knew: working people do not want their tax dollars to fund apartheid and genocide.”
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and a staunch Israel critic, wrote that AIPAC’s decision shows that “candidates don’t want its backing,” while the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace posted that AIPAC was now deeming itself “too toxic.”
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal pro-Israel lobbying group J Street, which has frequently tangled with AIPAC on social media, argued in a statement that “AIPAC can’t save its brand by folding its PAC.” Describing AIPAC as “a once-revered organization,” he said the lobby became toxic not due to its support of candidates but “because of the policies it asks those candidates to defend.”
But those with ties to AIPAC defended the move as one that will actually help the lobby fortify its impact. “It’s a marker of institutional health when they can look around at the reality, see it for what it is and change themselves accordingly,” Jonathan Greenberg, director for combatting antisemitism at Defending Education and a former AIPAC staffer, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“They recognized that their political ground had shifted and that they needed to change with that shift,” added Greenberg, who served as AIPAC’s Midwest political director until 2011 and ran for state office in Illinois as a Republican a year later.
Calling out what he described as a “horrifying demonization campaign” against AIPAC in Washington, he said he believes that the lobbying group made this strategic decision in an effort to continue operating amid widespread antisemitism.
“The pro-Israel community is still going to be deeply involved in campaigns,” added Greenberg, who identifies as a political conservative but no longer a Republican. “AIPAC is just wisely understanding that the way the organization operates can change, so that it can still be the voice that it’s always been on Capitol Hill.”
Recognizing that the U.S. political landscape is undergoing profound changes amid deep dissatisfaction across party lines, a former AIPAC spokesperson who requested anonymity to speak freely pointed out that institutions must evolve to stay effective. Other major interest groups, such as the pharmaceutical, hospital and real estate industries, are advancing their priorities with a variety of tactics, including lobbying, direct contributions, super PACs and networks of donors, the person noted.
In fact, one point of agreement on Thursday between AIPAC’s supporters and detractors was that the 72-year-old institution wasn’t going anywhere. “Mobilizing greater resources for AIPAC, pro-Israel candidates, and our super PAC is critical,” the AIPAC letter stressed, as it pledged to reinvest in its long-standing network of members nationwide.
“AIPAC staff and local leaders will continue working with you on political fundraising efforts, recommending contributions to candidates who are worthy of your support, and ensuring your resources are deployed in the most effective ways possible,” the letter added.
Indeed, opponents of the lobby indicated that the change in approach did little to satisfy them – and potentially opened up new lines of attack. DSA charged that AIPAC would “try to bankroll the same candidates under a different name.”
“You can’t hide AIPAC,” the DSA added. “The world has woken up.”
J Street’s Ben-Ami maintained that AIPAC’s decision to keep its super PAC even as it dropped its PAC “only doubles down on the dark money politics that helped create its problem in the first place.” Traditional PACs can contribute a maximum of $5,000 to individual candidates in each race, while super PACs can spend unlimited funds to independent political communications that serve to support or oppose candidates. Both have to disclose their donors, but super PAC donors aren’t always transparent about the origins of their money.
Tali deGroot, J Street’s vice president of political and digital strategy, likewise assessed that AIPAC’s influence wouldn’t disappear in the next election cycle.
“Instead, AIPAC’s donors and its super PAC will keep spending heavily in our elections, only now voters will have a harder time seeing where that money comes from,” deGroot said.
Defending Education’s Greenberg acknowledged that AIPAC’s choice to increase its reliance on its super PAC could fuel even more opposition to the lobby.
“But I don’t think fashioning ourselves to placate antisemites gets us anywhere,” he continued. “What we know about antisemites, from thousands of years of dealing with them, is that if we don’t give them this reason, they’ll find another reason.”
The former AIPAC spokesperson said the jury was out on whether the AIPAC pivot would improve its public image. “The question is whether AIPAC’s shift reflects a broader evolution in how organizations and interest groups engage politically, and whether changing its approach will change how the public perceives its influence,” the former spokesperson noted.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post While AIPAC’s critics rejoice as lobby shifts strategy, its defenders push back appeared first on The Forward.
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UK adopts sweeping measures against antisemitism in schools
(JTA) — The U.K. has adopted sweeping measures to combat antisemitism in English schools, prompting pushback from the country’s largest teachers’ union.
The move came after a new government-commissioned review found that three in five Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism in English schools. The most common incidents were jokes, stereotypes and comments about Jewish people. About half of respondents who witnessed or experienced antisemitism said the incidents were not reported, most often because they did not think they would be taken seriously.
The government on Wednesday accepted 27 recommendations from the report, including dedicated antisemitism training for leaders and staff, improved recording of antisemitic incidents and moves to build a better understanding of Jewish life, identity and contemporary antisemitism.
The government commissioned the report following a spate of high-profile attacks on Jews in Britain, including an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year that left two men dead.
The report’s author, Sir David Bell, the vice chancellor of the University of Sunderland and former chief inspector of schools in England, recommended addressing antisemitism distinctly from other forms of racism. He argued that antisemitism was a “uniquely complex” problem because of intertwined racial and religious dimensions, since Jewish identity can encompass both an ethnicity and a religion, along with expressions of prejudice that hold all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.
The government will also encourage English schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition is supported by many mainstream Jewish organizations and has been adopted by 47 countries, including the U.K., but critics say that it conflates some forms of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
British Education Secretary Lucy Powell called Bell’s review a “generational moment” and said that “implementation is now my priority.”
However, the National Education Union, the largest union representing teachers, lecturers, teaching assistants and support staff in the United Kingdom and Europe, raised concerns on Wednesday about recommending the IHRA definition for schools. NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said in a statement that the definition “risks deepening the problem rather than tackling it, and actively undermining efforts to confront antisemitism.”
“The IHRA’s contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza, leaving teachers with uncertainty when they need clarity,” said Kebede. He cited a risk that “children who cannot critically explore issues through classroom discussion will instead seek their answers in online and unsafe groups.”
Kebede also encouraged Britain’s Department for Education to strengthen guidance on all forms of racism, not only antisemitism, saying that 65% of teachers report they have not received any antiracism training in the past year.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella organization for British Jewish communities, celebrated the antisemitism report and the government’s adoption of its proposed measures. The group specifically praised the report’s “clear recommendations that schools and local authorities follow government guidelines by adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a tool to deepen understanding of contemporary antisemitism.”
“We remain concerned about undue external influence on schools driven by narrow political agendas, and tendentious materials seeping into schools and increasing disharmony, and we will continue to press for vigilance against this,” said the Board of Deputies.
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