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Prominent Jewish leaders add to drumbeat of criticism of Israel’s new government
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A slate of 169 prominent American Jews, including former leaders of major mainstream Jewish organizations, called on U.S. politicians not to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, a signal of worsening relations between the new far-right Israeli government and the U.S. Jewish community.
The statement Wednesday signals increased anxiety among Jewish leaders about how to maintain support for Israel when it is led by a government promoting policies alien to the values of an overwhelmingly liberal American Jewish community. It also departs substantially from a pro-Israel community that has sought to label various forms of criticizing Israel as antisemitic.
It comes just days after 134 historians of Jewish and Israeli history, based both in Israel and the United States, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of threatening the country’s existence through his agreement to far-reaching reforms advocated by his coalition partners on the far right.
It also comes just weeks after hundreds of rabbis from Reform, Orthodox and Conservative congregations said they would not allow extremist ministers in the new Cabinet to address their congregations and would encourage their Jewish communities to boycott them as well.
The statement by the prominent American Jews addresses the newly installed Congress, and anticipates increased U.S. Jewish criticism of Israel because of the new government in Jerusalem. Among its signatories are past leaders of mainstream Jewish organizations that have traditionally shied from Israel criticism, among them the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish federations system, as well as past leaders of the Reform and Conservative movements.
Notably absent are current leaders, who have been reluctant to speak out about new members of the Israeli government who want to greatly expand Jewish settlement in the West Bank, curb advocacy for minority rights and weaken Israel’s Supreme Court.
“As the 118th Congress begins its work, we believe it is important to state our concerns — which are widely shared by supporters of Israel here and around the world and by a significant number of Israelis — regarding some of the policies proposed by members of Israel’s new government,” the statement says.
It lists among those policies proposals by Netanyahu’s new government to weaken the independence of the judiciary, add restrictions to the Law of Return determining Jewish immigration, restrict non-Orthodox religious practice in Israel and expand Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.
“Our criticisms emanate from a love for Israel and a steadfast support for its security and well-being,” said the statement. “Some will try to dismiss their validity by labeling them antisemitic.” Instead, the statement said, the criticisms “reflect a real concern that the new government’s direction mirrors anti-democratic trends that we see arising elsewhere — in other nations and here in the U.S., rather than reinforcing the shared democratic values that are foundational to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
The statement notably appends a guide to detecting what is and isn’t antisemitic in discourse about Israel that differs markedly in its emphasis from a definition adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
The IHRA definition, which pro-Israel organizations have sought in recent years to introduce into legislation in the United States and elsewhere, focuses on Israel criticism that its authors deem antisemitic; the guide attached to Wednesday’s statement focuses instead on criticism of Israel that does not merit being called antisemitic.
“Mistaking political disagreements about Israel for antisemitism is counterproductive,” it says. “It diverts the debate away from the substance to whether something is — or is not — antisemitic. It hinders policy debate about Israel. It distracts from addressing real instances of antisemitism and bigotry.”
The guide issued alongside the statement also says anti-Zionism and Israel boycotts may in some instances not be antisemitic, a sharp difference from ministers of the new Israeli government who say unequivocally that those things are always antisemitic.
“Boycotting goods made in the West Bank and/or Israel is not antisemitic unless it specifically singles out Israel because of its Jewish character,” said the statement. Anti-Zionism can be antisemitic if it specifically denies the Jewish right to self-determination or it employs an antisemitic trope. But opposition to Zionism in and of itself is not necessarily antisemitic.”
Among the signatories are Tom Dine, the executive director of AIPAC in its period of massive growth in the 1980s; Alan Solow, who chaired the Conference of Presidents during the Obama presidency; Rabbi David Ellenson, the former president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, the chancellor emeritus of The Jewish Theological Seminary.
Other signatories include Rabbi David A. Teutsch, the former president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Rabbi David Saperstein, formerly the longtime head of Reform’s Religious Action Center; Joel Tauber, a former chairman of United Jewish Communities and the United Jewish Appeal, and Joe Kanfer, a former chairman of the Jewish Federations of North America.
Earlier this week, a slate of 134 historians of Jewish and Israeli history in Israeli American universities accused Netanyahu’s new government of “endangering the very existence of the State of Israel and the Israeli nation.” The statement said Netanyahu and his allies are dismantling the protections against government overreach that Israel’s founders deliberately put into place.
“Israel can be likened to a ship sailing the high seas,” the statement says. “The current government is taking out the keel, consciously dismantling the state’s institutions.”
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Loudest Anti-Israel Voices in US Congress Silent on Gaza Ceasefire, Hostage Deal
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are seen before a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 21, 2024. Photo: Craig Hudson/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Many of Israel’s most vocal critics in the US Congress have been silent following Wednesday night’s announcement that Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a US-brokered ceasefire and hostage-release deal to end the war in Gaza.
As of Thursday afternoon, outspoken anti-Israel lawmakers such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), among others, have not released public statements regarding the peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The silence is striking as each of these lawmakers has, for at least the past several months, consistently called for a ceasefire while accusing Israel of war crimes or “genocide” in Gaza.
Under the deal reached on Wednesday, Hamas will release the remaining Israeli hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, while Israel will withdraw troops in Gaza to a fixed line and free about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange. The agreement, brokered through indirect talks in Egypt with the help of Qatar, Turkey, and other mediators, is slated to take effect once Israel’s government formally ratifies it on Thursday night.
Observers have noted that many questions remain over Gaza’s future and reconstruction, especially regarding the plan’s call for Hamas to disarm and for Gaza to be totally demilitarized. However, leaders around the world cheered the development as a step toward peace.
Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Pressley, and Sanders have all erroneously accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza, claiming that the Jewish state has indiscriminately targeted civilian population centers and inflicted a famine in the beleaguered enclave. Van Hollen has also accused Israel of purposefully withholding food from Palestinian civilians and lying about well-documented claims that Hamas has stolen humanitarian aid. Sanders and Van Hollen have both spearheaded legislation to block offensive weapons transfers from the US to Israel.
However, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of the most strident opponents of Israel in Congress, acknowledged the ceasefire deal while simultaneously accusing Israel of “genocide” and calling for Israeli officials to be punished for “war crimes.”
“For the sake of humanity, let’s hope this will be a lasting and permanent ceasefire. While this is a hopeful step, we must demand accountability for every war crime committed during this genocide and continue to call for an end to the occupation,” Omar said in a statement.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the lone congressional Republican to accuse Israel of committing a genocide, also welcomed the news of the ceasefire deal.
“Thank you, President Trump!!” Greene wrote in response to the announcement.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
Another challenge for Israel has been Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom Signs K-12 Antisemitism Bill on Oct. 7 Anniversary
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks on Aug. 14, 2025. Photo: Mike Blake via Reuters Connect
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill into law which requires the state to establish a new Office for Civil Rights for monitoring antisemitism in public schools at a time of rising anti-Jewish hatred across the US.
“California is taking action to confront hate in all its forms,” Newsom said in a statement issued on Tuesday, the second anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The Oct. 7 atrocities perpetrated by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists unleashed a global surge in antisemitic incidents, which have reached record levels in the US and other Western countries over the last two years.
“At a time when antisemitism and bigotry are rising nationwide and globally, these laws make clear: our schools must be places of learning, not hate,” Newsom added in his statement.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the bill confronted Newsom, a Democrat rumored to be interested in running for US president in 2028, with a politically fraught decision, as it aims to limit the extent to which the state’s ideologically charged ethnic studies curricula may plant anti-Zionist viewpoints into the minds of the 5.8 million students educated in its public schools.
With Newsom’s signature, state officials may now proceed with establishing an Antisemitism Prevention Coordinator, setting parameters within which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be equitably discussed, and potentially barring antisemitic materials from reaching the classroom. However, the measure has been lambasted by anti-Israel partisans and key constituents of the Democratic Party.
Pro-Hamas groups, left-wing nonprofits, and teachers unions have emerged to denounce the legislation, which passed the California legislature last month, even as it declined codification of the widely recognized International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism — the exclusion of which constitutes a significant compromise for Jewish and pro-Israel activists. Additionally, it remains to be seen what the law’s ultimate effect on ethnic studies will be.
Amid these challenges and uncertainties, the bill’s supporters praised the news of Gavin’s signing as an indication of progress in the fight against antisemitism.
“StandWithUs is grateful that Gavin Newsom has signed AB 715, a bill to fight antisemitism in K-12 schools. We are proud to be part of the largest coalition of Jewish organizations ever to support a California state bill,” said StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights advocacy group. “Much remains to be done if California is going to earn back the trust of Jewish students, families, and educators. Going forward, we will continue to use all tools at our disposal to fight antisemitism in K-12 public schools across the state.”
Maya Bronicki, education director of the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, added, “With the signing of this bill, California’s leaders publicly recognize that antisemitism is a grave problem in our schools and have taken an important step towards protecting Jewish students and other protected groups.”
Antisemitism in K-12 schools has increased every year of this decade, according to data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In 2023, antisemitic incidents in US public schools increased 135 percent, a figure which included a rise in vandalism and assault.
In September 2023 some of America’s most prominent Jewish and civil rights groups sued the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) in California for concealing from the public its adoption of ethnic studies curricula containing antisemitic and anti-Zionist themes. Then in February, the school district paused implementation of the program to settle the lawsuit.
One month later, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, StandWithUs, and the ADL filed a civil rights complaint accusing the Etiwanda School District in San Bernardino County, California, of doing nothing after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was assaulted, having been beaten with stick, on school grounds and teased with jokes about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In other California news, a court recently cleared the way for students and their parents to sue school districts across the state over the adoption of ethnic studies curricula containing antisemitic components which discredit Jewish self-determination in Israel while promoting harmful tropes.
The Algemeiner was notified of the decision by The Deborah Project, a legal nonprofit that filed the lawsuit which precipitated the ruling. In that case, the organization sued the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) over its using ethnic studies materials, which fostered aggressively discriminatory beliefs about Israel and the Jewish community, without offering parents the chance to review and approve of its contents.
The Superior Court of California, Alameda County ruled that the materials could be discriminatory and illegal to the extent that they violate civil rights laws, establishing what The Deborah Project described as a “landmark” precedent for future litigation.
“Jewish parents have been waging battle against antisemitic ‘instructional materials’ and instructors that expose their children to harm and hated,” Deborah Project legal director Lori Lowenthal Marcus said in a statement. “This is the first judicial decision addressing claims that the use of biased material violates the law. Now it’s clear: indoctrinating kids that Jews are evil oppressors discriminates against Jews; districts can be held to account and forced to stop doing it.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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EU, UN Push for Gaza Deal to Lead to Two-State Solution as France Irks Israel With ‘Day After’ Meeting
French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot at the Ministerial meeting on the implementation of the Middle East peace plan at the Quai d’Orsay in Paris, France, Oct. 9, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
As world leaders hail Israel and Hamas’s agreement to a US-backed peace plan to end the war in Gaza, European leaders are pressing to make the ceasefire a steppingstone toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the newly signed deal, reaffirming France’s commitment to advancing peace, as Paris prepared to host a conference on Gaza’s postwar governance and reconstruction — a move Israeli leaders have denounced as the latest anti-Israel initiative for excluding them from the talks.
“Great hope for the hostages and their families, for the Palestinians in Gaza, and for the entire region,” Macron wrote in a post on X.
“This agreement must mark the end of the war and the beginning of a political solution based on the two-state solution,” the French leader said.
Just hours after the two sides agreed to a ceasefire deal, France brought together top diplomats from several Arab countries — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates — alongside European counterparts from Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, to discuss plans for Gaza’s postwar security, governance, and reconstruction.
Turkey’s foreign minister and European Union representatives also took part in the discussions.
The meeting “will work to gather concrete contributions to ensure that the second phase of [US President Donald Trump’s] plan is implemented, specifying the details of a collective commitment based on the main parameters for the ‘day after,’” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement before the gathering.
After the meeting, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters that participants “discussed the major fields to which we intend to contribute: security, governance, reconstruction, and humanitarian aid.”
Without elaborating, he said countries had identified contributions that they were willing to handle in post-conflict Gaza.
“We will share them with the United States so that they can integrate them,” Barrot said.
However, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar criticized France’s new initiative, saying it unfolded behind Israel’s back and describing it as “unnecessary and harmful” to the peace process.
“The invitation of openly hostile governments toward Israel — such as the Sánchez government — to discuss Israel’s affairs is especially outrageous,” Saar wrote in a post on X, referring to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Just one day earlier, Spanish lawmakers had approved the enshrinement in law of an arms embargo on Israel that Sánchez introduced to end what he called “the genocide in Gaza.”
“The participants may of course discuss whatever topics they wish — but there will be no arrangements in Gaza formulated without Israel’s consent,” the top Israeli diplomat said.
“Today we make it clear: nothing about Israel without Israel!” Saar continued. “Israel will not agree to the internationalization of the conflict!”
While the US works with several Middle Eastern countries to advance peace in the region, Israeli and Jewish leaders have criticized Europe and the UN for pursuing initiatives that they say accomplish little in practice.
In an interview with Euronews on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized EU member states for their recent moves to recognize a Palestinian state, calling the bloc “absent” from peace-making efforts and “irrelevant.”
Macron on Thursday warned that expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank would pose an “existential threat” to a Palestinian state and undermine efforts for peace in the Middle East.
Announced overnight by Trump on his Truth Social account, the newly signed peace deal will secure the release of all remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, with Israel set to free nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, allow more humanitarian aid into the war-torn enclave, and partially withdraw its forces.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the deal, emphasizing the EU’s readiness to assist with recovery and reconstruction, while continuing to advocate for a two-state solution as part of the peace process.
“Today’s opportunity should be seized. It’s the opportunity to forge a credible political path toward lasting peace and security. A path firmly anchored in the two-state solution,” the top EU official wrote in a post on X.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also welcomed the agreement, taking the opportunity to push for renewed efforts toward a lasting two-state solution.
“I urge all stakeholders to seize this momentous opportunity to establish a credible political path forward towards ending the occupation, recognizing the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, leading to a two-state solution to enable Israelis & Palestinians to live in peace & security,” Guterres posted on X.
Europe’s latest push for a two-state solution comes after several Western countries — including France, the UK, Australia, and Canada — recognized a Palestinian state at last month’s UN General Assembly, a move Israeli and US officials have criticized as rewarding terrorism.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also joined European leaders in their calls for a two-state solution, expressing hope that the Gaza deal “will serve as a prelude to achieving a sustainable political solution that ends the Israeli occupation and leads to the establishment of a Palestinian state along the June 4, 1967, borders.”
However, Netanyahu warned on Sunday that the creation of a Palestinian state would be “the ultimate reward for Hamas after doing the greatest massacre against the Jews since the Holocaust.”
Israeli officials have noted that they in effect gave the Palestinians a state in Gaza in 2005, when Israel completely withdrew all military and civilian personnel from the enclave. Hamas, an internationally designated Islamist terror group, was subsequently elected to power in parliamentary elections and then violently seized total control of Gaza in 2007.