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The hora, the hora! How Jewish wedding music got that way
(JTA) — When my wife and I were planning our wedding, we thought it might be cool to hire a klezmer band. This was during the first wave of the klezmer revival, when groups like The Klezmatics and The Klezmer Conservatory Band were rediscovering the genre of Jewish wedding music popular for centuries in Yiddish-speaking Eastern Europe.
Of course we also wanted to dance to rock ‘n’ roll and needed musicians who could handle Sinatra for our parents’ benefit, so we went with a more typical wedding band. Modernity won out over tradition.
Or did it? Musician and musicologist Uri Schreter argues that the music heard at American Jewish weddings since the 1950s has become a tradition all its own, especially in the way Old World traditions coexist with contemporary pop. In a dissertation he is writing about the politics of Jewish music in the early postwar period, Schreter argues that American Jewish musical traditions — especially among secularized Conservative and Reform Jews — reflect events happening outside the wedding hall, including the Holocaust, the creation of Israel and the rapid assimilation of American Jews.
That will be the subject of a talk he’ll be giving Monday for YIVO, titled “Yiddish to the Core: Wedding Music and Jewish Identity in Postwar New York City.”
Because it’s June — and because I’m busy planning a wedding for one of my kids one year from now — I wanted to speak to Schreter about Jewish weddings and how they got that way. Our Zoom conversation Wednesday touched on the indestructibility of the hora, the role of musicians as “secular clergy” and why my Ashkenazi parents danced the cha-cha-cha.
Born in Tel Aviv, Schreter is pursuing his PhD in historical musicology at Harvard University. He is a composer, pianist and film editor.
Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
I was struck by your research because we’re helping to plan a child’s wedding now. It’s the first wedding we’ve planned since our own, and we’re still asking the same questions, like, you’ve got to make sure the band can handle the hora and the Motown set and, I don’t know, “Uptown Funk.” Your research explores when that began — when American Jewish weddings began to combine the traditional and secular cultures.
In the period that I’m talking about, post-World War II America, this is already a fact of life for musicians. A lot of my work is based on interviews with musicians from that period, folks now in their 80s and 90s. The oldest one I have started playing professionally in 1947 or ’48. Popular American music was played at Jewish weddings as early as the 1930s, but it’s a question of proportion — how much the wedding would feature foxtrots and swing and Lindy Hop and other popular dance tunes of the day, and how much of it is going to be klezmer music.
In the postwar period, most of the [non-Orthodox] American Jewish weddings would have featured American pop. For musicians who wanted to be in what they called the “club date” business, they needed to be able to do all these things. And some “offices” — a term they used for a business that books wedding bands — would have specialists that they could call on to do a Jewish wedding.
You’re writing about a period when the Conservative movement becomes the dominant American Jewish denomination. They have one foot in tradition, and the other in modernity. What does a wedding look like in 1958 when they’re building the big suburban synagogues?
The difference is not so much denominational but between the wide spectrum of Orthodoxy and the diverse spectrum of what I describe as “secular.”
Meaning non-Orthodox — Reform, Conservative, etc.?
Right. Only in the sense that they are broadly speaking more secular than the Orthodox. And if so they are going to have, for the most part, one, maybe two sets of Jewish dance music — basically a medley of a few Jewish tunes. You might have a wedding where it could be a quarter of the music or even half would be Jewish music, but this would be for families that have a much stronger degree of attachment to traditional Jewish culture, and primarily Yiddish culture.
There’s a few interrelated elements that shape this. Class is an important thing. For lower class communities in some areas, and I am talking primarily about New York, you’d have communities that are a little bit more secluded, probably speaking more Yiddish at home and hanging out more with other Jewish people from similar backgrounds. So these kinds of communities might have as much as a third or half of the music be Jewish, even though they consider themselves secular. It’s actually very similar to an Orthodox wedding, where you might also have half and half [Jewish and “American” music].
Jews in the higher socioeconomic class might, in general, be more Americanized, and want to project a more mainstream American identity. They might have as little as five minutes of Jewish music, just to mark it that they did this. Still, it’s very important for almost all of them to have those five minutes — because it’s one of the things that makes the wedding Jewish. I interviewed couples that were getting married in the ’50s, and a lot of them told me, “You need to have Jewish dance music for this to be a Jewish wedding.”
Composer and pianist Uri Schreter is pursuing his PhD in historical musicology at Harvard University. (Nicole Loeb)
When I was growing up in the 1970s at a suburban Reform synagogue on Long Island, klezmer was never spoken about. I don’t know any parents who owned klezmer albums. Then when I got married a decade later, it was in the middle of the klezmer revival. Am I right about that? Were the ’50s and ’60s fallow periods for klezmer?
You’re definitely right. Up until the mid-1920s, you still have waves of immigration coming from Eastern Europe. So you still have new people feeding this desire for the traditional culture. But as immigration stops and people basically tried to become American, the tides shift away from traditional klezmer.
The other important thing that happens in the period that I’m looking at is both a negative rejection of klezmer and a positive attraction to other new things. Klezmer becomes associated with immigrant culture, so people who are trying to be American don’t want to be associated with it. It also becomes associated with the Holocaust, which is very problematic. Anything sounding Yiddish becomes associated for some people with tragedy.
At the same time, and very much related to this, there’s the rise of Israeli popular culture, and especially Israeli folk songs. A really strong symbol of this is in the summer of 1950, when the Weavers record a song called “Tzena, Tzena,” a Hebrew Israeli song written in the 1940s which becomes a massive hit in America — it’s like number two in the Billboard charts for about 10 weeks. Israeli culture becomes this symbol of hope and the future and a new society that’s inspiring. This is all in very stark contrast to what klezmer represents for people. And a lot of the composers of Israeli folk song of its first decades had this very clearly stated ideology that they’re moving away from Ashkenazi musical traditions and Yiddish.
So the Jewish set at a wedding becomes an Israeli set.
At a typical Conservative wedding in the 1950s and ’60s, you might hear 10 minutes of Jewish music. The first one would be “Hava Nagila,” then they went to “Tzena, Tzena,” then they would do a song called “Artza Alinu,” which is today not very well known, and then “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem.” They are songs that are perceived to be Israeli folk songs, even though if you actually look at their origins, it’s a lot murkier than that. Like two of the songs I just mentioned are actually Hasidic songs that received Hebrew words in pre-state Palestine. Another probably comes from some sort of German, non-Jewish composer in 1900, but is in Hebrew and is perceived to be a representation of Israeli culture.
But even when the repertoire already represents a shift towards what’s easier to digest for American Jewry, the arrangements and the instruments and the musical ornamentation are essentially klezmer. The musicians I spoke to said they did this because they felt that this is the only way that it would actually sound Jewish.
That is to say, to be “Jewish” the music had to gesture towards Ashkenazi and Yiddish, even if it were Israeli and Hebrew. As if Jews wanted to distance themselves from Eastern Europe — but only so far.
Someone like Dave Tarras or the Epstein Brothers, musicians who were really at the forefront of klezmer in New York at the time, were really focused on bringing it closer to Ashkenazi traditions. Ashkenazi Jewish weddings in America are not the totality of Jewish weddings in America, and Israeli music itself is made up of all these different traditions — North African, Middle Eastern, Turkish, Greek — but in effect most of the really popular songs of the time were composed by Ashkenazi composers. Even “Hava Nagila” is based on a melody from the Sadigura Hasidic sect in Eastern Europe.
Of course, if you’re a klezmer musician you’re allergic to “Hava Nagila.”
Then-Vice President Joe Biden dances the hora with his daughter Ashley at her wedding to Howard Krein in Wilmington, Delaware on June 2, 2012. (White House/David Lienemann)
You spoke earlier about Latin music, which seemed to become a Jewish thing in the 1950s and ’60s — I know a few scholars have focused on Jews and Latinos and how Latin musical genres like the mambo and cha-cha-cha became popular in the Catskill Mountain resorts and at Jewish weddings.
Latin music is not exclusively a Jewish thing, but it’s part of American popular culture by the late 40s. But Jews are very eagerly adopting it for sure. In the Catskills, you would often have two separate bands that alternated every evening. One is a Latin band, one is a generic American band playing everything else. And part of that is American Jews wanting to become American. And how do you become American? By doing what Americans do: by appropriating “exotic” cultures, in this case Latin. This is a way of being American.
Jews and Chinese food would be another example.
And by the way, in a similar vein, it also becomes very popular to dance to Israeli folk songs. A lot of people are taking lessons. A lot of people are going to their Jewish Y to learn Israeli folk dance.
I’ve been to Jewish weddings where the “Jewish set” feels very perfunctory — you know, dance a hora or two long enough to lift the couple on chairs and then let’s get to the Motown. Or the Black Eyed Peas because they were smart enough to include the words “Mazel Tov!” in the lyrics to “I Gotta Feeling.”
So that’s why we always hear that song! I will say though, even when the Jewish music appears superficial, it does have this deeper layer of meaning. It’s very interesting how, despite all these changes, and despite the secularization process of American Jewish weddings, the music still connects people to their Jewishness. These pieces of music are so meshed with other religious components. Of course, most people see this as secular. But a lot of people connect to their Jewish identity through elements such as Jewish music, Jewish food, certain Jewish customs that are easier to accommodate in your secular lifestyle, and the music specifically has this kind of flexibility, this fluidity between the sacred and the profane.
That’s beautiful. It sort of makes the musicians secular clergy.
It’s interesting that you say that. In his history of klezmer, Walter Zev Feldman refers to the klezmer — the word itself means “musician” — as a kind of a liminal character, an interstitial character between the secular and the mundane. The music is not liturgical, but when the klezmer or the band is playing, it is an interval woven with all these other religious components and things that have ritual meaning.
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These major Jewish groups have sponsored the NYC mayor’s interfaith breakfast before. Not this year.
(JTA) — Zohran Mamdani is set to host the mayor’s interfaith breakfast on Friday, keeping alive an annual tradition that brings together hundreds of religious leaders — but Jewish involvement in the event will look different this time around.
That’s because at least three groups who’ve sponsored the last few editions of the event — UJA-Federation of New York, the New York Board of Rabbis and the Anti-Defamation League — are not sponsoring this year’s.
UJA and the New York Board of Rabbis did not confirm why they are not sponsoring, nor whether the mayor’s office reached out about sponsoring; a City Hall spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
But a local ADL director said that the group was not given a choice.
“For years, ADL has proudly sponsored the NYC Mayor’s annual Interfaith Breakfast as a vital opportunity to build bridges and foster understanding across New York City’s diverse faith communities. This year, ADL was not invited to attend,” said Scott Richman, regional director of ADL New York and New Jersey.
He continued, “While a breakfast itself does not ultimately matter, protecting every Jewish New Yorker does. We call on Mayor Mamdani to serve the entire Jewish community, especially in this time when violent antisemitism is surging.”
Mamdani has had a contentious relationship with the ADL, which established a “Mamdani monitor” that would serve as a public tracker of his policies and personnel appointments, and whose leader, Jonathan Greenblatt, inaccurately accused Mamdani of having never visited a synagogue.
While it’s unclear whether Mamdani’s team invited other groups like UJA and NYBR, what is apparent is that the event, and the Jewish groups involved in it, reflect a broader shift in which progressive-leaning Jewish organizations have a greater role in New York City politics than they did under Adams.
Left-wing group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice confirmed that it will co-sponsor the event, which it has never previously done. New York Jewish Agenda, a progressive advocacy group, is also sponsoring — and its outgoing leader, Phylisa Wisdom, is expected to make her first public appearance as executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism.
Rabbi Marc Schneier, a vocal critic of both Mamdani and his choice of Wisdom, said he is declining the mayor’s invitation to attend.
“I will not attend a public forum in support of a mayor who continues to bifurcate Israel from the Jewish community,” he said, adding that he would be “aghast” if groups like the UJA, NYBR and ADL “were to support this interfaith breakfast” because of Mamdani’s anti-Zionism.
Others who have been critical of Mamdani are still planning to attend.
Elliot Cosgrove, the senior rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue who spoke out against Mamdani and endorsed Andrew Cuomo during the election, said he intends to go. He said he was unaware of the event’s past or present sponsorship.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of New York and Sephardic Community Federation have been among the sponsoring groups in past years. Neither organization responded to questions about whether they were involved this year, nor did a Mamdani spokesperson.
The mayor’s interfaith breakfast, which was established as an annual tradition by Mike Bloomberg in 2002, usually draws more than 300 religious leaders from around the city. It’s been the subject of political dissent in the past, such as when about a dozen Muslim leaders boycotted Bloomberg’s breakfast amid accusations of police surveillance of Muslim communities.
Adams made headlines at the breakfast in 2023 when he dismissed the need to separate church and state. He gave a “campaign-style speech” last year that focused on his upbringing and ability to face criticism as mayor.
A press release from City Hall for this year’s event did not include a list of sponsoring organizations or speakers but said that the breakfast, held at the New York Public Library’s flagship building, would “bring together faith leaders from across the five boroughs to honor the city’s religious, spiritual, and cultural diversity.”
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Jewish leaders escalate concerns about unclear political conditions on federal security grants
(JTA) — The federal government distributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year to houses of worship to protect them from violent attacks, such as the synagogue arson in Jackson, Mississippi, last month or the car ramming at the Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn last week.
But would a synagogue that declares itself a sanctuary for refugees — and refuses to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — be eligible for that funding under the Trump administration? What about a congregation that runs afoul of the administration’s anti-DEI push by offering programs aimed at making Jews of color, Jews with disabilities or LGBTQ Jews feel more welcome?
After more than six months of inquiries by Jewish organizations and members of Congress, the answer remains unclear: The federal government has not provided a definitive explanation of what conditions will apply to the funding. With the application deadline now passed, congregations that applied despite the uncertainty are waiting to find out whether they will receive an award.
“We are facing real threats against our communities,” Amy Spitalnick, the CEO, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said in a statement. “Yet — as we’ve been warning for months — we’re now seeing this vital program thrown into chaos and politicized in dangerous ways — from the delayed rollout, to confusing and contradictory guidance, to new conditions that force communities to choose between their values and their security.”
The latest effort to keep the security funding untethered from ideological or political conditions came Thursday in a letter signed by a bipartisan group of members of Congress set to be sent to Kristi Noem, the U.S. secretary of homeland security, who oversees the program.
The letter was organized by Jewish Federations of North America, which for the first time is publicly calling to remove the conditions.
In the letter, lawmakers urge DHS to keep the Nonprofit Security Grant Program focused on its core purpose and free of unrelated policy requirements.
“In this time of rising antisemitic terror attacks and violence against diverse faith-based institutions, we believe it is crucial that NSGP remains a critical resource for all who seek to worship in safety and free from partisan politicization,” the letter says.
According to Eric Fingerhut, JFNA’s president and CEO, some Jewish institutions decided not to apply for the funding this year, though there is no estimate of how many.
“We continue to encourage every Jewish institution with heightened security needs to apply for these funds,” said in a statement. “We have also heard from our community that the current terms and conditions have had the unintended effect of deterring some organizations from applying, which is why we believe they should be updated appropriately.”
The letter follows a more forceful appeal sent last month by members of the Congressional Jewish Caucus — which is composed entirely of Democrats — organized by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. That letter raised similar concerns about political and ideological conditions being attached to the grants.
The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to the Congressional Jewish Caucus letter has not answered requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency since August.
Created more than 20 years ago, the program provides grants to nonprofits deemed at high risk of terrorism or extremist violence, helping them pay for “target hardening” and other physical security upgrades. Eligible expenses typically include cameras, access controls, alarms, locks and protective barriers. Congress allocated $274.5 million in each of the last two years and raised funding to $300 million for 2026. In 2024, lawmakers also approved a one-time $400 million infusion to address a surge in threats against houses of worship and nonprofit organizations following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Demand has far outpaced available funding. In 2024, roughly 7,600 applicants sought nearly $1 billion in grants, and only 43% were approved. Jewish institutions have historically comprised a significant share of the recipients.
When the federal nonprofit security grants were first proposed in 2004, they triggered a sharp debate inside the Jewish community: the Union for Reform Judaism, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee opposed the idea on church-state grounds, warning that direct federal support for houses of worship risked crossing a constitutional line.
That argument was echoed by prominent Jewish lawmakers during Senate consideration of the “High-Risk Non-Profit Security Enhancement Act.” Sen. Carl Levin backed an amendment to bar aid for security improvements to houses of worship, and Sen. Frank Lautenberg argued that even with safeguards, federal funding for religious sites “crossed a line,” citing a letter from Reform and Reconstructionist leaders that said such aid “seriously weakens the wall separating church and state.”
Over time, however, particularly as threats against Jewish institutions intensified, opposition within the Jewish community largely subsided. For many, the urgent need to protect lives outweighed earlier worries. The program was increasingly described by Jewish leaders and lawmakers as a rare bipartisan success: a lifesaving initiative that strengthened security at synagogues and other institutions without leading to government interference in religious affairs.
That consensus began to fray last year under the Trump administration, which introduced new grant terms that Jewish groups say extend beyond security into matters of values and policy.
The revised rules require grant recipients to make broad certifications related to immigration enforcement and diversity practices, prompting concerns that synagogues could risk losing funding for declaring themselves sanctuaries, declining to cooperate with immigration authorities, or offering inclusion-focused programming.
In August, an open letter signed by faith-based groups criticized the revised grant conditions and urged organizations to reconsider participation in the program as long as the conditions are in place.
“We are unified in refusing to capitulate to conditions that would require us to sacrifice the safety and dignity of our community members, neighbors, and partners in order to receive funding,” the letter said.
Signatories included progressive Jewish advocacy groups such as Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and, Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as congregations such as Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn, Kehilla Community Synagogue in Oakland, and Temple Beth El in Stamford, Connecticut.
Groups like JFNA and JCPA that have long championed the program took a different tack. They advised Jewish institutions and congregations to apply for funding while they worked behind the scenes to push for changes, noting that if the conditions were still in place when grants were offered, applicants could then decline the money.
In November, DHS told JCPA that the immigration cooperation requirements do not apply to nonprofit security grants, though the official funding notice has not been revised to reflect the change and the applications nevertheless required applicants to disclose whether their work or mission involves supporting immigrants. Language barring what the administration defines as “illegal DEIA” activities remains in effect.
The uncertainty is underscored by a government FAQ that asks whether accepting nonprofit security grant funding could allow the federal government to impose restrictions “in any other area of policy that may contradict the religious and/or other beliefs” of a recipient. Rather than offering a clear answer, the guidance advises applicants to consult legal counsel — a response advocates have flagged as concerning.
A related dispute is also unfolding in federal court. In October, a judge in Rhode Island ruled in Illinois et al. v. FEMA that the Trump administration could not require states to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement as a condition of receiving certain homeland security grants, ordering those requirements stripped from grant agreements.
But a subsequent DHS memo notes that the ruling applies only to the 21 states and jurisdictions that sued, and that the administration will reinstate the conditions if it prevails on appeal.
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Jews who support Israel often do not identify as ‘Zionists,’ new JFNA survey finds
(JTA) — Only one-third of American Jews say they identify as Zionist, even as nearly nine in 10 say they support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and Democratic state, according to a new survey conducted by Jewish Federations of North America.
The findings of the survey reveal that American Jews do not have a mutually agreed-upon definition of Zionism — with those identifying as anti-Zionist and those identifying as Zionist ascribing sharply different meanings to the term.
For example, about 80% of anti-Zionist Jews say “supporting whatever actions Israel takes” is a tenet of Zionism, while only about 15% of self-identified Zionists share the belief, according to the survey.
The survey marks the most detailed assessment of the sentiments of American Jews about Zionism by a major Jewish organization in the United States, finding that 14% of Jews ages 18 to 34 identify as anti-Zionist and that the only demographic with a majority of self-identified Zionists was Millennials between 35 and 44.
The survey comes as tensions following the Oct. 7 attack, Israel’s war in Gaza and the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani have put a sustained spotlight on the tenor of American Jewish support for Israel — and divided Jewish communities.
The divisions, JFNA is concluding based on the data, are real but often overstated — a matter of concern as Jewish communities and institutions decide whether and how to engage with Jewish critics of Israel.
“If we misread the trend about ‘Zionism’ to mean that large numbers of Jews, especially young Jews, are turning against the existence of Israel itself, we will draw the wrong conclusions and take the wrong actions,” Mimi Kravetz, JFNA’s chief impact officer, wrote in an essay about the survey’s findings. “We risk responding with anger when the moment calls for steady leadership, pulling away when the moment calls for connection, and defensiveness when the moment calls for listening and understanding.”
Kravetz’s comments add JFNA, the umbrella organization of hundreds of local Jewish federations in the United States and Canada, to an emerging group of Jewish leaders calling to open dialogue with Jews who have recently taken stands against Israel or in support of its opponents. JFNA would continue to define itself as Zionist, Kravetz noted, “in large part because we adhere to the historic definition,” but she conceded that the term had undergone “definition creep.”
Conducted in March 2025 by the research firm Burson, the survey posed a variety of questions to more than 1,800 Jewish and more than 4,100 total respondents about their relationship to Israel and Zionism, as well as about their beliefs about the definition of Zionism.
It was new territory for studies of American Jews. While a major 2021 survey of American Jews by the Pew Research Center had polled Jews on their relationship to Israel, that survey had avoided the use of the word “Zionism.” Other major Jewish groups that conduct population surveys have in the past typically avoided closely interrogating Jewish opinions about Zionism. JFNA’s venture into this territory came as part of the umbrella group’s series of post-Oct. 7 Jewish trend studies, which have also revealed what the group has termed a “surge” of Jewish engagement.
Overall, more than 70% of Jewish adults who responded to JFNA’s survey agreed that “I feel emotionally attached to Israel,” and 60% said Israel made them proud to be Jewish. At the same time, nearly 70% also agreed that “I sometimes find it hard to support actions taken by Israel or its government.”
One of the survey’s big sticking points emerged around self-identified Zionists. Only 37% of Jews surveyed said they identified as Zionist, while 7% labeled themselves anti-Zionist and another 8% said they were non-Zionist. Another 18% said they weren’t sure, while 30% said none of the labels described them.
At the same time, 88% of surveyed Jews believed that “Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, Democratic state” — traditionally one of the most historically accepted definitions of Zionism. Seven percent of Jews disagreed with that sentiment, equal to the number who consider themselves anti-Zionist.
Respondents were also quizzed on what views they believed constituted “a part of Zionist beliefs.” Among Jews, 36% said Zionism only meant “the right of the Jewish people to have a Jewish state.” More than one in four Jewish respondents said they thought Zionists were expected to be “supporting whatever action Israel takes,” and 35% said Zionism meant “believing Israel has a right to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
Smaller numbers of Jews indicated that they thought “believing Palestinians are a made-up population” and “believing Jews are superior to Palestinians” were also core Zionist tenets.
To Kravetz, these results indicate that some Jews “are not rejecting Israel’s existence or the idea of a Jewish state. They are reacting to an understanding of Zionism that includes policies, ideologies, and actions that they oppose, and do not want to be associated with.”
That is especially true for younger Jews, according to the survey, which shows stark differences along age lines. Less than half of Jews under 44 agreed that “in general, Israel makes me feel proud to be Jewish.” The lowest share of Jews who agreed that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish and Democratic state came from the same age group — though even then about three in four, a sizable majority, agreed with the statement.
Uneasiness in describing oneself as Zionist held true across nearly every age range, with only around 35% of Jews in most demographics using the term to describe themselves.
Of the Jewish respondents, 37% were Reform, 17% were Conservative, 9% were Orthodox and 30% identified as other or as no particular denomination. Survey results shared with JTA broke down respondents by age range, but not by other factors such as denomination; individuals were randomly assigned to receive certain questions.
The debate over Zionism remains fraught. The last few years have seen increased demonization of “Zionists,” alongside shifting definitions of the term, among progressives and far-right figures on social media and college campuses. At the same time, new advocacy groups like The Jewish Majority and the Movement Against Antizionism have called for shunning those expressing anti-Zionist or anti-Israel sentiment from Judaism’s big tent.
Still, more Jewish researchers are looking to better understand the intra-Jewish divide over Zionism and the various ways Jews understand the term.
For The Sake of Argument, an organization that promotes “healthy arguments” and works with several mainstream Jewish groups including JFNA, recently undertook its own interview series with Jewish anti-Zionists. Co-directors Robbie Gringas and Abi Dauber Sterne plan to soon publish findings from their conversations with about 30 participants.
“It’s great that people are starting to talk about the elephant in the room,” Gringas told JTA from Israel. “We, the Jewish world, don’t yet know what to do with this. And in the meantime, we have to find a way to not break each other’s hearts as much as we have been.”
The pair’s main takeaway from their interviews, Gringas said, was that Jewish anti-Zionists were “sad, if not brokenhearted, about the ways in which they not only find no expression for their Judaism, but also find the Judaism that they’re meeting very challenging.” He added, “The people we met were very knowledgeable about Israel and about Judaism. They were rich human beings.”
The fact that more institutional Jewish groups are interested in learning about what motivates Jewish anti-Zionism is a positive step, Gringas said, adding that it fits the current challenges of the Jewish moment.
“We need to recognize that the world’s changed. We’re in a different time,” he said. “We’re not in a transition. We’re in a rupture. And we need to confront it and think about it carefully.”
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