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These states want to ban the term ‘West Bank’ and replace it with ‘Judea and Samaria’
When it comes to discourse surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, fights over word choice can be as charged as fights over the facts themselves. Is it “occupied territories” or “disputed territories”? A “security fence” or an “apartheid wall”? “Terrorist” or “militant”?
These terms often signal a speaker’s allegiances — and which historical narrative they accept as true.
Now, that semantic divide is moving from rhetoric into law.
Tennessee passed a bill last week banning the use of “West Bank” in official state documents, instead favoring the biblical names, “Judea and Samaria.” Gov. Bill Lee is expected to sign the bill into law, applying the mandate to state educational materials including textbooks and course descriptions, according to state Sen. Mark Pody, a co-sponsor of the bill.
“The use of the term ‘West Bank’ is a deliberate attempt to erase the Jewish identity of Judea and Samaria,” the bill reads, “and to obscure the deep historical, religious, and legal connections of the Jewish people to the land.”
The measure is part of a broader push by Republicans to recognize Israel’s claim to land widely considered unlawfully occupied under international law. Last year, House Republicans launched the “Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus,” a group of Christian lawmakers who promote Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. Meanwhile, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton introduced a federal bill — with the unwieldy title “Retiring the Egregious Confusion Over the Genuine Name of Israel’s Zone of Influence by Necessitating Government-use of Judea and Samaria Act,” an acronym for “recognizing” — though the bill never made it out of committee.
Now, states are taking on the fight. Jason Rapert, founder of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers and a former Arkansas state senator, has said he is working to pass similar bills nationwide, with 15 states expressing interest so far. Among the states that introduced such legislation this year: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia.
The flurry of bills comes as violence against Palestinians in the West Bank intensifies and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accelerated the expansion of settlements, entrenching Israeli control of the region and further dimming prospects for a future Palestinian state.
That reality is now colliding with U.S. state politics, as legislators argue over the legitimacy of Israeli and Palestinian claims to the land — and how far state law should go in shaping that debate.
Each term is “loaded with political context, loaded with real significance for a dispute where people are dying,” said state Senator Jeff Yarbro, a Democrat, who testified against the bill during the Tennessee legislature’s deliberations. “We are compelling [the] use of one of those political terms. That’s a choice. It is mandated political speech, effectively.”
The bill’s origins
Yossi Dagan, head of the Shomron Regional Council, which oversees Israeli settlements in the West Bank, has spent years building support among American evangelicals to formally recognize “Judea and Samaria.”
“The lie about the ‘West Bank’ or ‘occupied territory’ must end,” Dagan said at a conference of conservative state legislatures in Indianapolis last July. “We must put the truth on the table: Judea and Samaria are the heart of Israel.”
Dagan has close ties with U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and has hosted him for multiple visits to “Samaria” as part of a broader effort to bring American officials to the region.
Sen. Pody said he was inspired to cosponsor Tennessee’s bill after taking such a trip last year with Huckabee.
“They were talking about a bill that had passed that was very similar out of Arkansas, and how that was really inspiring to the people over there [in Israel],” Pody told the Forward. “And so after we left, we knew that we wanted to do something like that in Tennessee.”
The Tennessee bill mirrors model legislation promoted by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers and leans heavily on biblical justification, stating that “the return of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria in modern times constitutes the fulfillment of numerous biblical prophecies” — referring to the Christian Zionist idea that the Jewish state is a precursor to Jesus’ return.
“Eighty percent of the Bible stories that we read occurred in Judea Samaria,” Rapert told the Tennessee legislature. “Can you imagine someone not wanting to call Tennessee, ‘Tennessee’?”
Rapert did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition to biblical reasoning, advocates for the name “Judea and Samaria” often point out that the region was not known as the “West Bank” until relatively recently. The name was popularized after Jordan annexed the territory in 1950, a move the Arab League condemned as illegal at the time. Israel took control of the territory in the 1967 War and has administered it since, with varying degrees of Palestinian self-rule in some areas.
“The more traditional things that we’ve had, that have been around for centuries, is something that I think we’re going to be more comfortable with using,” Pody said. “The West Bank has been more recent terminology.”
Today, the U.S. State Department — which uses the term “West Bank” — estimates that roughly 3 million Palestinians live in the region, alongside an estimated 465,400 Israeli settlers, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, which does not include Israelis who live in East Jerusalem in their tally.
Many Palestinians view the West Bank as core to any future Palestinian state, while Netanyahu has said “Judea and Samaria” is part of Israel’s “ancestral homeland.”
‘Co-opting Judaism’
Asked by a state representative about who opposes his bill, Rapert said those who resist using the term “Judea and Samaria” are typically “folks that support Hamas.”
But efforts to ban the term “West Bank” in official documents have drawn pushback from a broad range of voices — including some Jewish leaders who say they were never consulted on the matter.
“This is not something that has been on the agenda of the Jewish community whatsoever,” Civia Tamarkin, president of the National Council of Jewish Women Arizona, told the Arizona Mirror. She added that Arizona’s resolution on the topic amounted to “co-opting Judaism and antisemitism for a Christian nationalist agenda.”
Maeera Shreiber, a rabbi and English professor at the University of Utah, voiced similar concerns about Utah’s bill, which did not make it out of committee. She said the effort appeared rooted in “a kind of sympathy for the Jewish community,” but failed to account for the diversity of views Jews hold. As a professor at a public university, she also worried about how such language mandates could shape course materials.
“If we replace it with Judea and Samaria, it really obscures the presence of Palestinian claims to the land as well,” Shreiber told the Forward. “These things happen out of misinformed, misguided goodwill, and people often don’t understand the long, dark reach.”
In Tennessee, critics raised similar concerns about erasing Palestinian identity. Anwar Irafat, an imam in Memphis who grew up in Gaza and the West Bank, said the bill ignored the millions of Palestinians who live on the land.
“I’m here because this bill tells me and my family that we do not exist,” Irafat told lawmakers during their deliberations.
State Sen. Charlane Oliver, a Democrat who voted against the measure, questioned why lawmakers were focused on the issue at all, raising concerns about the separation of church and state.
“This is not a congregation,” Oliver said on the Senate floor. “We are not here to debate scripture.”
The post These states want to ban the term ‘West Bank’ and replace it with ‘Judea and Samaria’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention appeared first on The Forward.
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Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song
(JTA) — Boy George has withdrawn from his run as King Herod in London’s West End revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” days before he was due to take the stage and 24 hours after releasing “We Will Dance Again,” dedicated to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival in Israel.
The 80’s pop star was scheduled to appear at London’s Palladium starting Monday as part of the production’s rotating cast playing King Herod, the Judean king who is best known by Jews for his expansion of the Second Temple and to Christians for his efforts to stave off the arrival of a challenger — the story of which is reflected in the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Boy George will be replaced by actor Richard Armitage in the London production.
In announcing the cast change, Paul Kelmsley, the singer’s manager, did not directly mention the blowback the former Culture Club frontman was receiving for releasing a pro-Israel song but alluded to it.
“George has never been afraid to stand by his personal convictions, and I have always respected him for that,” he said. ”In this instance, I felt it was right to step aside, allowing the production to remain the focus, while ensuring everyone involved can move forward with mutual respect and goodwill.”
Boy George is defending his decision to release the song, saying he believes artists should be free to express their views even when they are unpopular. In “We Will Dance Again,” the singer rejects claims of genocide against Israel and proclaims, “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.”
Earlier Friday, Boy George lashed back at the vitriol he was getting online. “What is most shocking is the amount of gay folk attacking me, ” he posted on X. “If you support terrorism you can in the words of Divine ‘Take your toolkit and go f—_ a garage,’” he said, referring to a quote attributed to the taboo-breaking transgender artist.
“When I say ‘they want to kill every last one of us’ I am also talking about us queers, not just the Jewish community,” Boy George said. “When will you wake up?”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song appeared first on The Forward.
