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How a deeply religious Christian artist captured the spirit of the Jewish holy land
I was briskly walking down the main drag of a swanky neighborhood in Seattle when I saw a faded, old-timey lithograph in the window of an art store. It was a landscape with a fortress built into the cascading side of a massive, dry and desolate canyon. The location was as far from green and leafy western Washington on that drippy spring day as one could imagine. In the foreground, a group of men wearing exotic clothes were standing and sitting outside the fortress.
I did a doubletake — I knew that place; it was Mar Saba, an ancient monastery in the middle of nowhere.
I went into the store and talked with the owners who told me the artist’s name was David Roberts. He was a contemporary of a couple of men named Charles: Dickens and Darwin. David Roberts started his career by painting sets for the London theater. After that, he developed an interest in landscapes and toured western Europe drawing historic churches and later found his way to southern Spain where he drew the famous sites of Moorish architecture.
Then, he did something truly extraordinary, especially for someone living in London at that time. In 1838, he sailed from England all the way to Egypt. Almost no one in Europe had traveled there since Napoleon and his army invaded in 1798. He toured Cairo and sailed up the Nile to the temples, tombs and relics of the pharaohs, detailing them in his sketches.
After returning to Cairo, Roberts embarked upon another excursion even more daring than his Egyptian adventure. A deeply religious Christian, he succumbed to the urge to see the Holy Land. The easiest way to do that would have been to sail down the Nile to the Mediterranean and follow the coast to the east. Or, he could have gone by horse or camel along the Via Maris, the ancient road that follows the coast. Both routes would have taken him only a few days to complete.
Instead, Roberts made a totally radical and potentially dangerous choice. He hired Bedouin tribal guides to take him by camel across the eastern desert of Egypt and through the length and breadth of the Sinai Desert, following the route the Hebrews took during their 40-year journey we now refer to as the Exodus. In the Torah, the book of Exodus is called BaMidbar which means “In the Wilderness,” which is exactly what the forbidding Sinai is like. Life can easily be lost if one is not careful due to lack of water or the threat of bandits.
Once Roberts finally reached Israel, he toured almost all the places mentioned in the Bible and continued on to Lebanon, drawing everything he saw. Upon his return to England, Roberts made lithographs of his drawings and collected them into three jam-packed volumes. Being a shrewd businessman, the artist sold his collection to subscribers. It was an instant hit. His first subscription was purchased by Queen Victoria.
A refuge from the outside world
Years ago, when my wife and I were visiting Israel, we took a bus from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. After visiting the popular sites in that city, we hired a taxi which took us down a one-lane, dusty, rutty, partially paved “road” atop a narrow, steep ridge to its literal end. This road led us deep into the Judean Desert where Jesus spent time and where King David hid from his rebellious son, Absalom, who almost succeeded in having his father assassinated.
Mar Saba sits precariously on the shoulder of the canyon, called a wadi by the locals, in the hills above the nearby Dead Sea. Even though it was mid-October, the air was so hot that a local shepherd and his goats were sheltering in the shade of one of the high walls of the fortress.
We approached the main gate and knocked. A low voice inside answered. It was one of the monks. We were lucky he spoke English. However, we were not so lucky with what he said. He told us my wife could not enter because she was the wrong gender and would have to wait outside. However, he let me in.
Inside the main gate, the compound was crowded with ancient sand-colored stone structures. The monk first showed me the chapel, which was cool and dark in striking contrast to the veritable furnace outside. What it lacked in size, it made up for in ornamentation. The floor had a complex pattern of symmetrical pieces of colored marble. The altar had an elaborate filigree of gold. Most impressive were the walls up to the domed ceiling which were completely covered with icons of various saints, all of which appeared to have been made a very long time ago. Even the inside of the dome was covered with painted images of saints.
I followed my guide to a nearby stone building and was dumbfounded by what I saw. This was the monastery’s sepulcher room. On display on wooden tables under glass were dozens of skulls and bones. The monk explained that when a monk dies, he is buried in the monastery’s cemetery and remains there for several years. After that, the bones and skull are removed and placed on display in this room. He said that many of the remains belonged to martyred monks who were murdered when the Persians invaded in 614 CE.
In what I supposed to be the dining hall, the monk gave me a drink and proceeded to tell me he was from Greece. He seemed to feel free enough to unload his feelings because he went on to elaborate about the corruption and iniquity of the outside world and how his community of believers cherish their refuge from all of that behind the high walls of their little world.
Once I exited the main gate, I found my wife sitting on a rock in the shade waiting for me. Her only company was an old Arab man who was likewise escaping the withering glare of the sun. Her only consolation was that I had taken so many photos of the interior of Mar Saba that I had made a visual record of everything I saw inside the walls.
An island at the end of the world
When I was in the art store in Seattle two years later, the experience of Mar Saba came flooding back and I wound up purchasing the lithograph. I can tell you it is a pretty accurate depiction of what we saw. The place has not changed at all in more than 175 years since the artist was there. I doubt the place has changed much at all since its founding in the fifth century CE.
After learning more about Roberts, where he traveled and what he did, I began collecting more of his lithographs, including a drawing of the Tower of David, which I saw regularly when I was a college student in Jerusalem.
The Tower of David, next to the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, functioned in ancient times as the citadel of the city. It was originally built during the Hasmonean dynasty who descended from the Jewish Maccabees of Hanukkah fame. I should mention that the Tower had nothing to do with King David as it was constructed by the Romans after their conquest hundreds of years later. When Roberts made his drawing, the road outside the Tower was just a narrow, dusty, dirt path. Now, it is a busy, well-paved, four-lane highway leading from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Hebron.
Roberts also drew a panorama of the Old City viewed from high atop the Mount of Olives. After my wife and I climbed the steep road up the Mount, past the old Jewish cemetery, which is where legend says the Messiah will appear and raise the dead on Judgment Day, we saw the same precise view that Roberts recorded for posterity. I believe Roberts took some artistic license with his work since he sketched a bridge over the Kidron Valley, even though there never was one.
Roberts drew the Isle of Graia where I traveled with a friend, Andy, when we were on spring break and took a trip to Eilat. At that time, Eilat was extremely remote, and it took hours to get there. The only other passengers on our bus from Jerusalem were workers headed to construction jobs building new hotels. As we got close to our destination, the other passengers pulled knives and guns out of their luggage.
Eilat, located where the Negev desert ends and the Sinai begins, was not much of a town back then. Surrounded by high hills, it is not a pretty landscape of undulating sand dunes; the terrain is rocky and almost completely devoid of any living thing. While Andy and I were there, we heard about an island further down the coast. We hitched a ride with some soldiers in a jeep who were headed down the coast. After about two dozen kilometers, they dropped us off at a place called Hof Almogim, or Coral Beach in English.
It was a beautiful beach without a soul there. It seemed as if we had reached the end of the world. The only thing on the beach was a small shack where the lone proprietor sold Cokes and rented snorkeling gear. Off in the distance was the island. On the opposite coast were the mountains of biblical Edom, in today’s kingdom of Jordan.
When Roberts was there, he was heading north with his local Bedouin guides in a caravan. I believe he included himself, dressed in Ottoman style-clothes, in the lower right corner of his picture drawing the scene; you can see him holding some kind of paper and his writing kit and an umbrella are on the ground in front of him.
When we showed up many, many years later, the weather was scorching, so we did what anyone else would do— we rented masks, pipes and fins and waded into the water. It didn’t matter that I had never gone snorkeling before. It took me a little time to get the hang of it, but I figured it out. The Red Sea’s temperature was like bath water, so we plunged right in and crossed into another world.
Not far from shore, we encountered a multi-colored coral reef that, from the shore, looks distinctly red, which is where the Red Sea gets its name. In stark contrast to the aridity of the land, the sea was alive. The reef was covered by lots of sponges that looked like colorful human brains. It was surrounded by swarms of shimmering, iridescent, palm-sized fish in different hues. As we maneuvered through them, they darted here and there, moving in unison liked flocks of birds.
The coral was razor sharp, so I was careful to keep my distance as we passed over it, at which point the sea floor dropped to 60 feet below us. Suddenly, it was devoid of life and it was hard to see the bottom.
It took almost an hour to reach the island. It has an impressive stone castle which was originally built by the invading Crusaders who wanted to protect the pilgrimage routes in the area and defend their kingdoms centered in Jerusalem. Later, during the Crusades, the Christians lost control of the fortress to Muslim forces. When we were there, Israel controlled the area, having conquered it in the Six-Day war. The Sinai now belongs to Egypt as a result of the 1979 Camp David peace agreement.
When Andy and I reached the beach, the weather was blistering. We could not explore the castle since our only footgear consisted of the fins we had on our feet. So, we did not stay long. On our return, the sun was sinking on the horizon. It was becoming noticeably colder. Sea creatures were emerging from their hiding places; a pink bubble the size of my fist floated directly toward me. It had tentacles that hung down from the body. Instinctively, I turned to avoid it. I later learned it was a Portuguese man o’ war, a type of jellyfish, which carries an evil sting.
Upon reaching the mainland, darkness smothered us, and Andy and I camped on the beach. The next morning, we checked our belongings for scorpions and caught a ride back to Eilat. Today, luxury resort hotels have sprouted on that once-lonely beach. The commercialization of that former paradise is heartbreaking.
Epilogue
Quite a few years have passed since those travels and David Roberts’ lithographs now hang in honored places in our home. Once in a while, I pause in front of one of them and marvel at the precision with which the artist captured the mood of his subject. Some of these locations, such as the ones in Jerusalem, I have been intimately familiar with. Others I merely passed through as a tourist just as Roberts did, albeit under far more primitive and dangerous circumstances. I almost wish I was able to go back in time and travel with him in that caravan.
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Archaeologists uncover a 300-meter section of ancient aqueduct in Jerusalem
(JTA) — JERUSALEM — Israeli archaeologists have uncovered a 300-meter (984-foot) section of Jerusalem’s ancient Lower Aqueduct, providing another window into how engineers about 2,000 years ago ensured that the city would have an adequate supply of water for residents and pilgrims.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) began the dig three months ago in advance of the planned construction of a new neighborhood in East Jerusalem, at the city’s edge. Such “salvage excavations” are often carried out prior to major construction projects in Israel to ensure that any ruins discovered at the site can be mapped and protected even if they aren’t excavated at the time.
Believed to have been built in the Hasmonean period in the second and first centuries B.C.E., this engineering system carried spring water from the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank, through Solomon’s Pools south of Bethlehem, to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It remained in intermittent use until the early 20th century.
Although parts of the aqueduct have been uncovered in previous excavations, this is the first time such a large section will be made permanently accessible to the public, Benyamin Storchan, an IAA archaeologist and the excavation’s co-director, told the Jewish Telegraphic Authority.
Based on earlier discoveries and a wide range of research, archaeologists had strongly suspected where the newly uncovered section was located.
“We were able to work with municipal urban planners to ensure that the shape of the new neighborhood will be determined not only by its natural topography, but based on the antiquities found there,” Storchan said.
The aqueduct, the discovery of which was made public on Sunday, will be preserved as a promenade/archaeological park at the entrance to the future neighborhood by the IAA and Israel Land Authority.
Bringing Water to Jerusalem
Before the aqueduct was built, the landlocked city of Jerusalem relied on the Gihon Spring and rainfall runoff for its entire water supply, Storchan said. Under Hasmonean rule, Jerusalem’s population grew and the need for water increased. That was especially true during Jewish festival times, when pilgrims doubled or even tripled the population.
The solution involved transporting water from springs in the Gush Etzion region, a hilly area more than 800 meters above sea level. Spring water had to be channeled to collection areas, and then toward Solomon’s Pools, an extensive water-storage complex built south of Bethlehem. From there, two major aqueducts, the Lower Aqueduct and the Upper Aqueduct, carried water toward Jerusalem – a distance of more than 20 kilometers (12 miles).
The Lower Aqueduct, which appears to predate the Upper Aqueduct, “is an engineering marvel,” Amit Re’em, the IAA’s Jerusalem district archaeologist, said in a press statement. “Even today, with all our modern technology, building such a system would require extensive planning and effort. The thought that, about 2,000 years ago, they managed to bring water to Jerusalem this way is astonishing.”
Its route had to follow the contours of the rugged topography while maintaining a gentle gradient for the water to flow by gravity alone, without mechanical pumps. Along most of its route, the water dropped just one meter in elevation per kilometer.
“The newly exposed section reveals the various stages in the history of the water system,” the IAA said. “Initially, the water flowed in a built, plastered channel. Then, about 500 years ago, during the Ottoman period, ceramic pipes were installed within the original channel, the outer face of the aqueduct wall was plastered and small stones were pressed into the plaster while still wet.”
Used for about 2,000 Years
One of the aqueduct’s most remarkable characteristics was its longevity. Believed to be constructed during the Hasmonean period, it was repaired and reused through successive eras, including the Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
The fact that various kingdoms and rulers decided to repair and not replace the water system “is one of the most fascinating parts,” Storchan said of the waterway. Rather than repurposing an older structure for a different use, successive rulers retained the aqueduct’s original purpose.”, “here we see a single installation being reused again and again for its original function.”
The aqueduct was used until about a century ago, when modern water infrastructure, including electric pumping stations, proved more efficient. Its long history of repairs, however, complicates archaeological dating, Storchan said. Those who repaired it over the millennia added plaster, repaired collapsed sections and modified the channel, sometimes obscuring evidence of the original construction.
Utilizing modern technology
Still, the latest excavation gives researchers an opportunity to reexamine longstanding questions with advances in scientific dating methods.
“Today, technology is more advanced than it was then. We’re working with all kinds of specialists to pinpoint the dating of the original construction,” Storchan said.
One such method is optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), which can estimate when mineral grains in sediment were last exposed to sunlight. Combined with the analysis of mortar, plaster and archaeological layers, the technique may help narrow the dates associated with different stages of the system’s development.
For Storchan and his colleagues, every new insight is a cause for celebration.
“Our job as archaeologists,” he said, “is to fill in another piece of the puzzle.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Mamdani faces growing pressure over Jewish NYPD Commissioner Tisch and over Israel from left flank
(JTA) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing increasing pressure from some on the leftmost flank of his voting coalition, and an ICE shooting Thursday led democratic socialist allies to add their voices to a major demand: dump police commissioner Jessica Tisch.
“The NYPD’s Strategic Response Group must be disbanded as quickly as possible, and Commissioner Tisch must step down,” said Darializa Avila Chevalier, who won her Democratic primary with Mamdani’s endorsement. The democratic socialist, who is expected to join Congress next year representing Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, was referring to the heavily armed police department unit that often responds to protests.
The calls for Tisch’s removal follow strident criticism of the mayor from pro-Palestinian activists on Wednesday night who called him names, including “traitor” and “Ziohran,” when he showed up at an Oct. 7 Israeli peace vigil mourning the loss of both Jewish and Palestinian lives. The demonstrators assailed him for not doing more to advance the pro-Palestinian agenda that has long been central to his political beliefs, raising questions over whether he could lose parts of his base as he pledges to be a mayor for all New Yorkers.
The demand for Tisch’s removal came after an ICE agent shot and wounded a Dominican man in his car on Thursday afternoon while his 5-year-old son was in the back seat. Avila Chevalier, who joined protests against ICE on Thursday, wrote on X that the NYPD “spent more time protecting a militia that just shot someone than protecting New Yorkers.”
Mamdani’s decision last year to retain Tisch — a self-described “proud Zionist” who comes from a prominent Jewish family — was seen as a reassuring move by moderates and establishment Jewish organizations including UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council. (70 Faces Media, the parent company of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and New York Jewish Week, receives UJA funding.)
A number of progressives were skeptical of the decision at the time, citing her background as an appointee of Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, and her past criticism of campus pro-Palestinian protests. Some viewed her as an impediment to criminal justice reform.
Meanwhile, some on the left have dinged him for not yet following through on campaign promises 10 months into his term, including dissolving the Strategic Response Group, or backing down from his vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a plan which he later said he did not have the power to execute.
Anti-Zionist groups including Pal-Awda, Within Our Lifetime and a number of student organizations who rallied against Mamdani at the Oct. 7 vigil accused him of succumbing “to Zionist pressure.” Protesters called him a “traitor” and a number of chants rang out including, “Mayor Mamdani you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” drowning out speakers at the vigil and forcing the organizers to move it behind police barricades to keep the protesters from overrunning the event.
Among those protesters’ many gripes with the mayor was his decision to retain Tisch. One sign at the demonstration depicted Mamdani with the text, “Chief Executive of the NYPD SRG” with a Star of David in the middle, and a name tag on the mayor’s chest reading, “Ziohran.”
Criticism was also directed at Mamdani for not stopping Israeli real estate events at synagogues, and for his strategy to combat antisemitism, released last week, which allocates funds to a number of community-based organizations aimed at preventing hate crimes. Some critics have charged that some of the funding will aid Zionist organizations.
“The Jewish community is a large part of New York and it should be cherished. But you cannot fund these Anti-Defamation Leagues that prioritize Zionism over Judaism,” a John Jay College student protester, who declined to be named, told JTA during the demonstration.
On Thursday, the Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter — which Mamdani has called his “political home” — wrote that Tisch “must end NYPD complicity with ICE” and that if she “cannot put a stop to these injustices, she must be fired.”
“Abolish ICE. Disband the SRG. Fire Tisch,” wrote Illapa Sairitupac, a fellow democratic socialist who won the Democratic nomination for a Lower Manhattan State Assembly district. Mamdani endorsed both Sairitupac and Avila Chevalier this past year.
While some protesters at the vigil said they were Mamdani voters — and one speaker even identified herself as a former intern for the now-mayor — some of the mayor’s allies have stressed that the crowd protesting him was not representative of his base.
“If I had to gamble, I would gamble that the vast majority of them were people who never supported him,” activist Abby Stein told JTA on Thursday night, during the Mazals gala held by left-wing group Jews for Racial & Economic Justice. Mamdani was due to attend the JFREJ event, but because of the ICE shooting was instead in the Bronx, where he denounced the federal agency and demanded that it cease its operations in New York City.
Many of the signs excoriating Mamdani at Wednesday’s protest outside of City Hall were signed with the name of the Maoist Communist Union, an organization that opposed Mamdani before he took office. Some protesters were handing out copies of Spartacist, the Trotskyist International Communist League’s journal.
“We certainly didn’t support Mamdani or vote for him,” said Erica Jones, among the Trotskyist protesters. “We knew he was running as a Democrat and he would be as big of a sellout as AOC and Bernie Sanders and all the rest of those who claim to have, at one time, stood for socialism but in reality, stand for the capitalist masters who are oppressing us all.”
Stein, a member of the DSA in addition to JFREJ, called out some of the protesters’ rhetoric and the choice to crash the Israelis for Peace Oct. 7 vigil. But she also acknowledged that there was overlap between their demands and her views, including over the police commissioner.
“There are things that people are upset over that I think are legit — like keeping Jessica Tisch on, for example,” Stein said. “A lot of us were not very happy about it.”
Ultimately, Stein said there is “always going to be something to protest” with any politician, and pointed to a quote from New York’s mayor in the 1970s and ‘80s, Ed Koch: “If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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A planned non-Zionist Jewish school in Boston hopes to ride the momentum of the left
(JTA) — BOSTON — In the middle of a conversation about her future children, it dawned on Leah Robbins that the school she imagined for them did not exist.
Robbins envisioned a Jewish school where children studied Jewish texts, history and observance, as she did at the school run out of her Conservative synagogue in northern Florida. But having long ago rejected the allegiance to Israel that was entwined with her education, she could not fathom sending her children to a school that promoted Zionism — which ruled out all the Jewish day schools she knew.
“I was just overwhelmed with a sense of grief that my kids could be less Jewishly educated than I was,” Robbins, who has lived in Boston for 10 years, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I would never ever consider sending my kids to any of the local day schools because of total values misalignment.”
Four years after that conversation, Robbins is building her own institution for the children she hopes to have. She plans to open Achvat Olam, a “diasporist” day school whose name translates to “global solidarity” in Hebrew, in the Boston area in fall 2029. The school aims to launch with eight to 10 families, starting with a kindergarten and adding grade levels until ultimately becoming a K-8 school.
Achvat Olam is fiscally sponsored by Beloved Builders, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that supports progressive Jewish projects. Robbins, who has a background in fundraising for Jewish nonprofits, hopes to raise $625,000 for the launch. She said she has met about 20 local families who expressed interest, and will start formal recruitment efforts, including focus groups and open houses, next year.
Achvat Olam will teach about Jewish history, cultures and languages outside of Israel, while engaging with Hebrew and Israel’s history from a non-Zionist perspective. The school’s website includes a page on “Israel/Palestine,” saying its community will share a belief that “the pursuit of justice, dignity, and thriving for all people is a Jewish moral imperative.”
“This includes an age-appropriate, honest confrontation with Zionism and the ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people,” the website says, using the Arabic word for the displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians at the time of the State of Israel’s founding. The school also says that students will consider “the complicity and support of the US government and Diaspora Jews.”
Micah-Shalom Kesselman is the parent of a 4-year-old in Medford, Massachusetts, and participates in local left-wing Jewish groups such as the Boston Workers Circle. He’s disappointed that his son Oren will age out of Achvat Olam by the time it is scheduled to open as a kindergarten. “I would super want Oren to attend something like what Achvat Olam is shaping up to be,” he said.
Kesselman, who studies Yiddish with his son, explained that he would like Oren to be steeped in Jewish traditions and culture. But as a parent who is “not a supporter of Zionism,” he said he has found few Jewish educational opportunities that match his beliefs.
Diverse day school histories
Jewish day schools have historically encompassed a range of orientations toward Israel, according to Jonathan Krasner, a historian of American Jewish education at Brandeis University. The modern day school movement was born in the 1920s and initially dominated by orthodox schools, some of which did not emphasize Zionism. In the 1950s, secular Yiddishist schools taught varied attitudes toward Israel. Some yeshivas in the orthodox Haredi movement still today oppose Zionism on religious grounds, believing that Jewish sovereignty should only be established through the coming of the Messiah.
But Krasner could not name another day school that has Achvat Olam’s goal: education for Jewish families who disavow the current-day political realities of Israel and Zionism. In the aftermath of the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, many day schools went the opposite direction, adding curricula to strengthen solidarity between Diaspora Jews and Israel.
“The initial response of the organized Jewish community was, understandably, to circle the wagons and to reinforce their connections to Israel and to the Israeli people,” Krasner said.
Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, isn’t convinced that Achvat Olam will change that trend. He said he was “highly skeptical” that Robbins could attract enough families to sustain a school. According to historical data, he said, Jews who lean more politically left tend to be less engaged in Jewish life.
“From what I know, the overwhelming majority of parents who are interested in sending their children to Jewish day schools are pro-Israel,” said Wertheimer.
Nonetheless, Robbins believes that the market for her school is growing. Survey after survey has captured a drop in Americans’ support for Israel since the Gaza war, and Jews are not an exception to the trend. After decades of being treated as fringe in many of their communities, left-wing Jews who are anti-Zionist — or simply do not see Israel as part of their identity — say that instead of adapting to their congregations and Jewish schools, the institutions should adapt to them.
There are signs that this group makes up a substantial portion of Jews in the United States. About 30% of Jewish adults believe that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, according to a June poll of 1,022 Jews from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which had a 5% error margin. Less than 40% said that “supporting Israel” was crucial to their Jewish identity.
Younger Jews emphasize traditions
At the same time, among adults who identified as religiously Jewish, younger people said they emphasized Jewish traditions more than their older counterparts. Younger Jews were more likely than older ones to say that “celebrating Jewish holidays” and “celebrating or marking Shabbat” were important to them, while Jews over 45 placed more emphasis on “remembering the Holocaust” and “supporting Israel” than younger ones.
This finding could reflect the growing share of younger Jews who are Orthodox. It also comes amid a boom in Jewish leftist organizations that explicitly ground their activism in religious tradition. IfNotNow, an anti-occupation group that has grown from 1,000 dues-paying members in 2023 to 7,000 this year, says it is “growing a community rooted in Jewish values and ritual.” The anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, which has amassed 32,000 dues-paying members, often frames its protests through Jewish holidays, texts and prayer.
Robbins is betting that a significant pool of younger Jews, many of them now parents to young children, are seeking avenues to both protect their Jewish traditions and reset their community’s relationship with Israel for the next generation. Instead of supporting Israel, Achvat Olam says that its students will learn a curriculum of “collective liberation at home, globally, and in Israel/Palestine.”
“This is a very experimental moment in Jewish history. The Jewish left is growing by leaps and bounds,” said Robbins, referencing estimates of dozens of anti-Zionist congregations and prayer groups sprouting across the country. “There is hunger for this.”
Boston is a hub for such new organizations. Since 2024, the city has hosted the Conference on the Jewish Left at Boston University, a gathering of left-wing Jewish scholars, students, activists and faith leaders. The first annual meeting drew 300 people, the second 700, and the third in February saw more than 900 participants. A poll of Greater Boston by Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the central fundraising arm of Boston’s Jewish community, found earlier this year that 38% of Jews aged 18 to 29 identified as “anti-Zionist,” and another 30% said they were “uncommitted” to Zionism or anti-Zionism.
Rabbi Greg Hersh left his congregation at Temple Emmanuel in Wakefield, north of Boston, in 2024. He said he became increasingly alienated from his congregants after Oct. 7. Hersh felt that the congregation, focused on supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism locally, did not share his anguish about the deaths of Palestinians.
Last year, Hersh founded V’ahavtah, a mostly Cambridge-based congregation devoted to “practicing Judaism beyond Zionism.” V’ahavtah joined Jews, like him, who felt uncomfortable with the norm of Israeli flags flying inside synagogues. Their Shabbat services regularly draw 30 to 40 people, numbers he said he never saw in Wakefield. He believes that is proof of growing demand for non-Zionist Jewish institutions.
“You take Israel out of the equation and the Jews will show up, and that’s what happened with V’ahavtah,” said Hersh. “My expectation is Achvat Olam is going to be very well poised to fill that void.”
On the ground, Robbins faces formidable obstacles to funding Achvat Olam. Jewish day schools struggle across the country to attract enrollment in the face of tuition that many families can’t afford, along with budgets strained by economic uncertainty and heightened spending to ward off security threats. Earlier this year, MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham, a suburb of Boston, shuttered and said that its “model of highly individualized Jewish day school education is no longer sustainable.”
Heavy investments from local philanthropies have helped day schools offset high costs. Prizmah, a national network of 305 day schools, recently reported that it saw enrollment rise across denominations for the first time last year, thanks in large part to philanthropy.
But many groups that fund Jewish education hold values that are antithetical to Robbins’ — including CJP, which calls itself a “pro-Israel, Zionist organization.” Prizmah and CJP declined requests for comment from JTA.
The individual donors who fund Jewish schools also tend to be older, more conservative than Robbins and more motivated by support for Israel, according to Krasner.
“The people who are most likely to be in a financial position to support day schools with generous philanthropic gifts are demographically very different from the population that Leah is trying to attract,” he said.
Robbins admitted that funding challenges meant the success of Achvat Olam was not “any sort of inevitability.” But she believes there is inevitability to the political momentum that could drive families toward such a school. “Something I want to convey to people is that the train has already left the station,” she said. “There is no stemming the tide of the growth of the Jewish left.”
Robbins has turned to funding from left-wing organizations, which already siphon much of their resources to grassroots activism, legal defense and awareness campaigns.
“It can be hard to get in the face of people to make the case for something that requires long-game thinking,” she said. “I’m trying to make the case, when the last fire has been put out, what’s going to be left if we’re not building it right now?”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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