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Israel at 75: How Israel’s political crisis took center stage at a major American Jewish conference
KIBBUTZ MAAGAN MICHAEL, Israel (JTA) — About a dozen Jewish leaders from North America and beyond clustered at the edges of a courtyard on this kibbutz by Israel’s northern coastline, standing silent as a two-minute siren rang out in memory of the country’s fallen.
Afterward, young Jews from around the world, some of whom will soon enter the Israeli military, read memorial passages and led the crowd in the singing of Israel’s national anthem. The scene, emblematic of Diaspora support for Israel, delivered the kind of feeling that the Jewish Federations of North America hoped to evoke when it held its marquee conference in Israel this week, and timed it for the country’s Memorial Day and 75th birthday.
It was also a stark contrast from the atmosphere at the conference a day earlier where — even as Jewish leaders emphasized unity in the face of adversity — it was hard to avoid the political strife over the Israeli government’s effort to significantly limit the Supreme Court’s power. A raucous session in the morning was filled with screaming, and other panels touched on hot-button issues such as Israel’s treatment of non-Orthodox Jews as well as human rights groups.
“We’re also living at a time of so many crises and so much painful brokenness,” Rabbi Marc Baker, CEO of the Boston area’s Jewish federation, said in a short address on Monday afternoon to the conference’s 2,000 attendees, while discussing the importance of Jewish learning. “It can feel like things are falling apart, like at best, as leaders, we’re just trying to hold things together.”
The drama did not exactly surprise organizers of the gathering, called the General Assembly, or GA, who had expected protesters to show up and even encouraged their cause. But it pointed to the challenge facing the Jewish Federations, which had hoped to put on a traditionally exuberant celebration of Israel despite the conflict rocking its streets.
Those traditional commemorations and festivities did happen, and sessions covered a range of issues, from racial diversity to philanthropy in Israel. But they were mixed in with anguish over the state of Israeli society, which some attendees and panelists portrayed in urgent terms.
“For the first time, at Israel’s 75th birthday, a government is trying to fundamentally alter the definition of a Jewish state,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think tank, said at the tumultuous Monday morning panel, referring to efforts to restrict immigration to Israel and other proposals.
He added, “If this cluster of changes, the coalition agreements, would be implemented, I’m not sure that in the 80th year of our national birthday, the GA will decide again to conduct its event here.”
The departure from business-as-usual was evident from the get-go, when hundreds of protesters came to the gates of the conference to protest a planned speech on Sunday night by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who canceled in the face of the demonstrations. Israeli President Isaac Herzog did speak that night.
Julie Platt, the Jewish Federations’ board president, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that she found out about the cancellation earlier on Sunday. Netanyahu’s office told the staff of the Jewish Federations that day of the cancellation, and the news became public shortly afterward. Netanyahu did not reach out personally to Platt or to Eric Fingerhut, the Jewish Federations’ CEO, to let them know he would not be coming.
“We were preparing for weeks and months for the opportunity to have here the duly elected prime minister,” Platt said on Monday. “We were disappointed that he wasn’t part of our celebration.”
Tensions peaked on Monday morning during a session where anti-government protesters repeatedly interrupted far-right lawmaker Simcha Rothman with shouts and chants, and in which Rothman and Plesner verbally sparred onstage. Multiple protesters were removed by security personnel, and the panel took an unplanned five-minute break to cool tempers.
“They’re our brothers, they support us,” said Erez Elach, who protested Rothman at the event, regarding Diaspora Jews. Elach is a member of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a group made up of military reservists opposed to the judicial overhaul.
Elach said he was protesting in order to honor Diaspora Jews who were killed while serving in the Israel Defense Forces. “We lost friends who served with us, who came from those same places,” he said.
Fingerhut told JTA that the protests of Rothman were “a taste of what’s happening in Israel today,” though he added, “I don’t think anyone benefits from that kind of disruption.”
“As the GA grew closer, we knew that the judicial reform issues and the divisions it’s creating in Israel would necessarily be a significant topic,” he said. “By time we were finalizing our plans, we expected it to be a major issue, and it was.”
But he said that he still felt the conference conveyed the importance of celebrating Israel and its ties to global Jewry. “On Sunday night and Monday, we focused on Israel’s history and our contribution to that history. That was not overshadowed,” he said. The battle over the judicial overhaul, he said, “added an agenda item, but it didn’t detract in any way.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid speaks at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Tel Aviv on April 24, 2023. (Courtesy of JFNA/Amnon Gutman)
Yizhar Hess, the vice chair of the World Zionist Organization, also said on Monday that things were going well — because of the arguments, not despite them. Hess pointed to the three large gatherings of establishment Jewish groups — the General Assembly, the Jewish Agency for Israel Board of Governors’ meeting and the World Zionist Congress — each of which saw fierce debates or disruption stemming from the judicial overhaul fight.
“This week has been dramatically successful particularly because it’s been so turbulent,” Hess said directly after the session with Rothman. “Zionism and the state of Israel are a subject that stirs up the Jewish people and is at the heart of the argument. That’s a good thing. … Zionism is more relevant than ever, particularly because Jews are fighting over its character.”
Bucking its usual practice of not commenting on internal Israeli politics, the Jewish Federations has made its position on the overhaul relatively clear. The group issued a statement objecting to one of the overhaul’s provisions, praised a decision to pause the legislation, said it was “awed” by the anti-overhaul protesters and organized a “fly-in” earlier this year, in which federation leaders traveled to Israel to share their concerns about the effort with Israeli officials.
Deborah Minkoff, an executive board member at the Madison, Wisconsin, Jewish federation, participated in the fly-in and said she had lobbied to exclude all politicians from the General Assembly stage. She attended sessions where anti-overhaul activists spoke and felt that being in Israel for the conference gave her an opportunity to stand with the protesters.
“I think it’s going to be easier to sell Israel to our community because of this fight for democracy,” she said. “As we articulate what it means to be a free, equitable, democratic society, I think it resonates with the community who has been critical of Israel in the past.”
Attendees gave a warm reception to Yair Lapid, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, whose easy manner suggested that he felt the crowd would be receptive to his words. “I’m happy to be here, unlike some others,” he said to laughter from the audience.
“Don’t give up on us,” Lapid told the crowd. “I know how many people here feel about this current government. I know it doesn’t represent your values. It doesn’t represent mine either. But this government isn’t all of Israel… Today, maybe more than ever, we need you to rally around us.”
But not everyone at the conference was keen to protest. Beto Guzman, a Jewish professional who came to the conference from Helsinki, said the Finnish Jewish community tends not to protest Israeli policies because, given its small size, its involved members value having a positive relationship with Israeli emissaries in the country and do not want to blame them for the government’s policies. He also objected to protesters disrupting conferences, though he said the issues at the heart of the debate should be discussed.
“In Helsinki we don’t really have any protests or anything like this, because the community is very small and everybody has their own relationship with Israel,” he said. “For us that connection is very different. We really like the people from the Jewish Agency, their emissaries, and the embassy, they are very nice to us. So for us to put what is going on in the government on them would be unfair.”
Sandi Seigel, the president of Naamat Canada, a branch of a global Jewish women’s rights organization, said she was troubled by raucous debate she saw at the World Zionist Congress, which had taken place at the end of the previous week. She particularly worries that young delegates to the congress, one of whom she recalled seeing crying, would leave disheartened by the fighting.
“It’s almost like people feel it’s an existential threat for Israel, and so you’re passionate,” she said. “But there used to be an ability to have healthy debate and say, ‘OK, we’re not going to agree on this, OK, but I respect your right to have your opinion. And I think some of that is gone.”
At the same time, Seigel does not feel that the General Assembly was too focused on the debate over the judicial overhaul, which she framed in existential terms.
“If you have something, and you don’t know, if this doesn’t get resolved, [whether] Israel will be Israel anymore, or it won’t be the Israel that I can live in — there are a lot of things to talk about, but if you don’t deal with that, you can’t talk about anything else,” she said. “Because there’s nothing left to talk about.”
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The rabbi’s son who drew an antisemitic mural on Wilshire Boulevard
The mural went up in a day in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles. By Thursday morning, Los Angeles Jews who saw it expressed outrage, calling it hateful and incendiary. The artist who drew it, meanwhile, told me he is the son of a Jewish father who didn’t mean to offend, just start a conversation.
Welcome to the bizarro world of antisemitism, circa 2026.
The 40-foot by 12-foot mural depicts Jews dancing on caskets and holding missiles above the heads of grieving mothers, rows of tanks and a sign that reads: “Buy More Things,” alongside images of diamonds and televisions.
One section depicts parents who appear to be Muslim holding their children and weeping. Five bodies of children are laid out on an altar-like table beside a figure with a yarmulke holding a missile. As your eyes move to the left, there’s a dollar sign and the words, “Freedom has Never Been Free.”
The piece, drawn in chalk against painted slate on a long panel of plywood construction fencing, combines the graphic scope and drama of Picasso’s “Guernica” with antisemitic caricatures straight out of the pre-World War II Nazi periodical Der Sturmer.
I’ve seen photos and videos of the mural, located at 5376 Wilshire Blvd. between Cloverdale Street and S. Detroit Street next to The Heart LA Church and just a few blocks from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. My wife, Rabbi Naomi Levy, received the video via an urgent text message on Thursday from a congregant who came across it on her morning walk.
The “grotesque expressions on their faces, surrounded by images of war/suffering/greed,” the congregant wrote, play into “the worst antisemitic propaganda imagery.”
She’s not wrong. The congregant reported the mural to the city’s 311 complaint line. The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles confirmed it also fielded complaints.
The location is close to L.A.’s Orthodox Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood and just over a mile east of the headquarters of the city’s Jewish Federation and Shalhevet, a large Jewish day school.
The mural isn’t signed by the artist, but a phone number appears in the same chalk on an adjoining panel. David Sabastian, long a fixture in the L.A. fashion, music and art scene, posts the same phone number on his Instagram account bio.
So I called him.
“Right now there’s people who are offended by you simply saying ‘Free Palestine’,” he told me. “So can somebody be offended? Hell yeah! I offend people when I go to Whole Foods sometimes and I’m like wearing shorts. People get offended for everything.”
Sabastian said he doesn’t see the mural as antisemitic, or even that political.
“I’m not some radical pro-Palestine or pro-anything,” he said. “I’m an artist who simply illustrates my human experience.”
Sabastian told me he likes art that provokes conversation and stands for something. That’s one way to describe the mural. Another is that it crosses the line to hate.
“That would be a vast exaggeration and an irresponsible one,” he said. “But it is art. It could be interpreted in many ways, but I don’t think that way.”
When I pointed out that Jews I spoke with took offense, he told me he didn’t see it as representing all Jews.
“My father was a Hasidic rabbi,” he said.
Sabastian’s given name is David Miklatski. A 2016 profile of Sabastian in the L.A. Weekly reported that his father was a gallery owner who had recently died. Sabastian told me his father had a brief liaison with his mother, who lived in Watts. Then his father became very religious. He led a synagogue in the Pico-Robertson district — Sabastian couldn’t recall the name — and then moved to Israel.
“That story goes deep,” said Sabastian, who is in his late 30s. “He pretty much disowned me when I was a child.”
I told him there was a long history of antisemitic cartoons fueling hate and violence, and many people would see what he drew as offensive, just as they would stereotypical images of Blacks or Latinos. What does he see as the line between symbolism and vilification?
He answered me with a question of his own.
“I’ve lived the Black experience growing up in Los Angeles, right?” he said. “If I wanted to paint a picture that kind of dealt with that human experience of racism, and I chose to include a white person in it, am I villainizing all white people?”
I brought up George Floyd. The images that spread after his murder, a white foot or a white hand on Floyd’s neck, were clearly about the officers who killed him. They weren’t an indictment of all white people.
But his mural, I said, reads as an indictment of all Jews when it’s the Israeli army fighting the war.
“If you know who are murdering and slaughtering Palestinians, is it Mexicans? Is it Chinese?” he said. “It’s the Israeli army. Do the majority of them happen to be Jewish? Sure. So that’s just the drawing. If it was Black people doing it, then I would draw Black people or whatever the case may be. It’s simply like a political cartoon.”
Of course, it’s not so simple, given the way antisemitic images get weaponized to incite violence against Jews.
In our conversation, Sabastian himself wasn’t sure who he was targeting. He called the dancing figures “Jews,” not “the Israeli army.” Then, defending the piece, he said he’s drawing “the Israeli army” and that most of them “happen to be Jewish.” That shift from Israeli army to Jews and back is the exact line that is so easily blurred when criticism of Israel bleeds into antisemitism.
If that’s a matter of interpretation, it’s clear from the comments in Sabastian’s Instagram post of the mural how others are reading the artwork, which he titled, “Palestina.”
“You forgot to put them on there the ancient families that pull the strings while everyone fights on religion color or where they were born,” wrote one commenter.
“Now do a star of David symbol with a swatzika [sic]and a heart,” read another, followed by laughing emojis.
No word yet on any institutional response, but the social media popularity the mural has already garnered — more than 2,000 likes shortly after he posted it — will complicate any attempt to address it, to say the least.
So much of antisemitism these days comes down to a judgment call, especially when it comes to the line between criticizing the government of Israel and attacking all Jews. This mural, even if Sabastian didn’t intend for it to endanger Jews, isn’t a close call. That puts Jews in the no-win position of living with a work in their neighborhood that regurgitates and broadcasts age-old antisemitic tropes, or being seen as the enemies of artistic freedom.
It’s not a simple problem. Just consider the rapper Macklemore — who received massive support and attention for saying “Free Palestine” at an Ed Sheeran concert. Macklemore, by the way, follows Sabastian on Instagram.
The post The rabbi’s son who drew an antisemitic mural on Wilshire Boulevard appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Vote him out’: Israeli-Americans rally against Netanyahu, plan to return to Israel to vote against him
Gripping Israeli flags in Union Square, a crowd of roughly three dozen chanted “Vote him out,” as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to speak before the United Nations on Thursday.
“It’s really an embarrassment that he’s even at the U.N.,” said Israeli-American protester Steve Lax, who is planning to fly to Israel to vote in the upcoming election.
UnXeptable, an organization founded by Israeli expats who say they are striving to save Israeli democracy, organized the demonstration. While those protesting opposed the Netanyahu government, the rally was intended more broadly to support change in Israel as the election looms. Roughly three dozen Israelis, Israeli-Americans and Jewish-Americans joined the protest.
Lax, who splits his time between Israel and America, said he supports Yair Golan and the Democrats. The main issues driving his vote are government corruption, settler violence in the West Bank and “the lack of hope for peace.”
“Jewish terrorism is creating more Arab terrorism,” said Lax, chairman of Naot Worldwide. “The settlers are totally out of control, and unfortunately some of the Israeli army, and certainly [Itamar] Ben-Gvir, have been supporting the settlers in what they’re doing.”
Israeli citizens living abroad may vote in the election if they are physically in the country to cast their ballots and have resident status. This is different from America, where citizens can vote by absentee ballot while outside the U.S.
Change, for those at the protest, means supporting one of the many opposition blocs. Offir Gutelzon, the Israeli-American co-founder of UnXeptable, is supporting the Gadi Eisenkot bloc. Critics of Eisenkot question what significant changes he will bring, as he aligns with Netanyahu on opposing Palestinian statehood. However, Gutelzon said Eisenkot’s stance on internal issues is what really matters to Israelis.
These include opposing judicial overhaul, setting term limits for prime ministers and drafting the Haredim into the military.
“I know that from the outside, everyone is looking at what will be different with Palestinians, what will be different in Gaza,” Gutelzon, who moved to America in 2011 for business reasons, said. “Most Israeli voters don’t think about that right now. They want to secure the country as a Jewish and democratic state, and then start talking about other things.”
But for Israeli-American Leora Agron, Gaza is one of the main reasons she is flying back to vote.
“Innocent people are dying,” she said. “Let them live. Give them support to do it, because everything is broken.”
Agron moved to Argentina in 1987 at age 30 to be with her husband. The couple considered moving back to Israel when they had children, but were discouraged by then opposition leader Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, which inflamed tensions with Palestinians.
What’s at stake?
Gutelzon is confident Netanyahu won’t remain in power. Even so, he says the stakes couldn’t be higher, and that if the PM doesn’t change, the country will slip into a “messianic theocracy.” This is in part due to brain drain, the concept of highly educated citizens emigrating.
Nearly 300,000 Israelis have left the country for at least three months since 2023, suggesting a mass emigration trend, according to a study from Tel Aviv University. Professor Itai Ater, who led the study, said the country is currently able to sustain itself despite these numbers. However, if the trend continues, emigration will severely harm the nation’s security and economy.
“We see that it’s many, many physicians, engineers, tech people and academics,” Ater told i24 News. “This is the best of Israel in a sense. The Israeli economy depends on human capital.”
Citing Ater’s study, Gutelzon noted healthcare would be impacted by physicians leaving, along with education if academics emigrate. Additionally, this group of people is paying the highest taxes, he said. They also serve in the military, and are needed given the exemption for Haredim.
Yonatan Schwartz, 19, participated in the protest and said he is reconsidering immigration to Israel. Schwartz, an American with two Israeli parents, attended the UnXeptable protest and said he had been planning to join the Israel Defense Forces. But if Netanyahu is reelected – or a different “right-wing extremist” wins – he said he’ll likely stay in America and go to college instead.
Supporting Israel, not the government
UnXeptable was initially inspired by the 2020 Balfour protests when hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to streets and bridges demanding Netanyahu resign after he was indicted on corruption charges.
“The Balfour protests started with a very simple statement that said that an indicted prime minister is unacceptable,” said Gutelzon, explaining how UnXeptable got its name.
The Bay Area-based organization wanted to show Israelis back home that those in the diaspora supported them. So they demonstrated at their own bridge, the Golden Gate.
Now, the protests have gone beyond showing solidarity with Israelis back home. As Gutelzon puts it, UnXeptable wants to show the world “the other Israel,” one that’s looking “for change.”
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A candy crisis has cast a pall on upcoming bar and bat mitzvahs
Ahead of my New Jersey synagogue’s first bar mitzvah this weekend, we learned that Sunkist Fruit Gems, the popular sacred confection lovingly lobbed at the end of many services to shower the b’nai mitzvah boy or girl with sweetness, had been discontinued by its candy maker.
I dreaded delivering this news to my son and daughter, Max and Rose, who are beginning to celebrate their classmates’ bar and bat mitzvahs and prepare for their own. For children, even those on the brink of adulthood, fruit-flavored gummies matter.
This also deals a blow to a silent protest that had already begun to percolate last spring when I celebrated my own bat mitzvah. When my classmates and I asked where we should take cover when our fans pelted us with the traditional fruit-flavored gummies, we were promptly informed that candy had been banned from the sanctuary.
A candy ban? I audibly gasped.
“This is unacceptable,” Rose declared when I told my kids the news. “We have to do something.”
The Los Angeles-based Ben Myerson Candy Company introduced Fruit Gems in 1955 after working with Sunkist on pectin candies, or natural fruit gels. Sunkist began putting its name on the label in 1966.
To focus more attention on wine and spirits, the Myerson family sold the candy business in 2006 to Jelly Belly Candy Co., which 17 years later was acquired by The Ferrara Candy Company. Apparently, Fruit Gems could not compete with Ferrara’s other products, which include Atomic Fire Balls, Fun Dip, Nerds, Pixy Stix and Lemonheads. And so, in May, Ferrara retired the Gems.
But an Atomic Fire Ball to the head is no way to celebrate a job well done. And lightweight Pixy Stix can not be lobbed hard enough to clear 10 rows of pews and hit their target. In fact, none of those confections can truly replace the sugar-coated, cellophane-wrapped Fruit Gem, which by the way, is also kosher.
While tossing sweets isn’t a sacred ritual, it does add a dose of cathartic joy for children at the end of a two-hour religious service and for the bar or bat mitzvah and their family at the end of a stressful occasion. Scholars trace the practice back to a passage in the Talmud, which mentions throwing grains and nuts at a couple during wedding celebrations.
As other milestones have taken on greater importance, a similar custom has spread to bar and bat mitzvahs in which jelly candy is used to bestow joy and sweetness on the teen as they transition into maturity.
I asked Kenneth Feibush, our temple’s former cantor, how the tradition there started. Now the cantor of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston where no one throws sweets, Feibush said it’s actually more common in Conservative and Orthodox congregations than Reform temples. But a handful of families at Temple Sholom introduced it on their own and it caught on. He had seen it before at a temple in Alaska where he had interned. There, the bar or bat mitzvah would don a helmet or open a parasol to shield themselves from the projectiles.
When I asked our spiritual leader, Rabbi Laurence Groffman, how the tradition ended, he said Temple Sholom prides itself on being an inclusive congregation but there are limits. “Unfortunately, ants don’t make the cut,” he said.
Turns out ants had infested the piano ahead of our Purim spiel last year. And as our temple readied for a costly renovation to our sanctuary, the powers-that-be said no more food fights.
So now that Sunkist Fruit Gems are no longer an option, is the protest against the candy ban a moot point? Is there a way to do a symbolic Gatorade dump to salute the sweat that went into the proverbial win? That’s precisely what our religious school director Cara Moroze recommended.
“I like a good compromise,” she said. “How ‘bout Rose dumps all the candy at once over her brother’s head? Then the kids come up to get the candy. No errant Twizzlers buried in a piano.”
I warned her that she had just reignited the protest movement.
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