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Why a liberal Zionist rabbi isn’t taking to the streets over Israel’s judicial reform plan
(JTA) — Israel’s 75th anniversary was supposed to be a blowout birthday party for its supporters, but that was before the country was convulsed by street protests over the right-wing government’s proposal to overhaul its judiciary. Critics call it an unprecedented threat to Israel’s democracy, and supporters of Israel found themselves conflicted. In synagogues across North America, rabbis found themselves giving “yes, but” sermons: Yes, Israel’s existence is a miracle, but its democracy is fragile and in danger.
One of those sermons was given a week ago Saturday by Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of Manhattan’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, expressing his “dismay” over the government’s actions. Hirsch is the former head of ARZA, the Reform movement’s Zionist organization, and the founder of a new organization, Amplify Israel, meant to promote Zionism among Reform Jews. He is often quoted as an example of a mainstream non-Orthodox rabbi who not only criticizes anti-Zionism on the far left but who insists that his liberal colleagues are not doing enough to defend the Jewish state from its critics.
Many on the Jewish left, meanwhile, say Jewish establishment figures, even liberals like Hirsch, have been too reluctant to call out Israel on, for example, its treatment of the Palestinians — thereby enabling the country’s extremists.
In March, however, he warned that the “Israeli government is tearing Israeli society apart and bringing world Jewry along for the dangerous ride.” That is uncharacteristically strong language from a rabbi whose forthcoming book, “The Lilac Tree: A Rabbi’s Reflections on Love, Courage, and History,” includes a number of essays on the limits of criticizing Israel. When does such criticism give “comfort to left-wing hatred of Israel,” as he writes in his book, and when does failure to criticize Israel appear to condone extremism?
Although the book includes essays on God, Torah, history and antisemitism, in a recent interview we focused on the Israel-Diaspora divide, the role of Israel in the lives of Diaspora Jews and why the synagogue remains the “central Jewish institution.”
The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: You gave a sermon earlier this month about the 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding, which is usually a time of celebration in American synagogues, but you also said you were “dismayed” by the “political extremism” and “religious fundamentalism” of the current government. Was that difficult as a pulpit rabbi?
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch: The approach is more difficult now with the election of the new government than it has been in all the years of the past. Because we can’t sanitize supremacism, elitism, extremism, fundamentalism, and we’re not going to. Israel is in what’s probably the most serious domestic crisis in the 75-year history of the state. And what happens in Israel affects American Jewry directly. It’s Israeli citizens who elect their representatives, but that’s not the end of the discussion neither for Israelis or for American Jews. At the insistence of both parties, both parties say the relationship is fundamental and critical and it not only entitles but requires Israelis and world Jews to be involved in each other’s affairs.
For American Jewry, in its relationship with Israel, our broadest objective is to sustain that relationship, deepen that relationship, and encourage people to be involved in the affairs in Israel and to go to Israel, spend time in Israel and so forth, and that’s a difficult thing to do and at the same time be critical.
American Jews have been demonstrating here in solidarity with the Israelis who have been protesting the recent judicial overhaul proposals in Israel. Is that a place for liberal American Jews to make their voices heard on what happens in Israel?
I would like to believe that if I were living in Israel, I would be at every single one of those demonstrations on Saturday night, but I don’t participate in demonstrations here because the context of our world and how we operate is different from in Israel when an Israeli citizen goes out and marches on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv. It’s presumed that they’re Zionists and they’re speaking to their own government. I’m not critical of other people who reach a different perspective in the United States, but for me, our context is different. Even if we say the identical words in Tel Aviv or on West 68th Street, they’re perceived in a different way and they operate in a different context.
What then is the appropriate way for American Jews to express themselves if they are critical of an action by the Israeli government?
My strongest guidance is don’t disengage, don’t turn your back, double down, be more supportive of those who support your worldview and are fighting for it in Israel. Polls seem to suggest that the large majority of Israelis are opposed to these reforms being proposed. Double down on those who are supportive of our worldview.
You lament in your book that the connections to Israel are weakening among world Jewry, especially among Jewish liberals.
The liberal part of the Jewish world is where I am and where the people I serve are by and large, and where at least 80% of American Jewry resides. It’s a difficult process because we’re operating here in a context of weakening relationship: a rapidly increasing emphasis on universal values, what we sometimes call tikkun olam [social justice], and not as a reflection of Jewish particularism, but often at the expense of Jewish particularism.
There is a counter-argument, however, which you describe in your book: “some left-wing Jewish activists contend that alienation from Israel, especially among the younger generations, is a result of the failures of the American Jewish establishment” — that is, by not doing more to express their concerns about the dangers of Jewish settlement in the West Bank, for example, the establishment alienated young liberal Jews. You’re skeptical of that argument. Tell me why.
Fundamentally I believe that identification with Israel is a reflection of identity. If you have a strong Jewish identity, the tendency is to have a strong connection with the state of Israel and to believe that the Jewish state is an important component of your Jewish identity. I think that surveys bear that out. No doubt the Palestinian question will have an impact on the relationship between American Jews in Israel as long as it’s not resolved, it will be an outstanding irritant because it raises moral dilemmas that should disturb every thinking and caring Jew. And I’ve been active in trying to oppose ultra-Orthodox coercion in Israel. But fundamentally, while these certainly are components putting pressure on the relationship between Israel and Diaspora Jewry, in particular among the elites of the American Jewish leadership, for the majority of American Jews, the relationship with Israel is a reflection of their relationship with Judaism. And if that relationship is weak and weakening, as day follows night, the relationship with Israel will weaken as well.
But what about the criticism that has come from, let’s say, deep within the tent? I am thinking of the American rabbinical students who in 2021 issued a public letter accusing Israel of apartheid and calling on American Jewish communities to hold Israel accountable for the “violent suppression of human rights.” They were certainly engaged Jews, and they might say that they were warning the establishment about the kinds of right-wing tendencies in Israel that you and others in the establishment are criticizing now.
Almost every time I speak about Israel and those who are critical of Israel, I hold that the concept of criticism is central to Jewish tradition. Judaism unfolds through an ongoing process of disputation, disagreement, argumentation, and debate. I’m a pluralist, both politically as well as intellectually.
In response to your question, I would say two things. First of all, I distinguish between those who are Zionist, pro-Israel, active Jews with a strong Jewish identity who criticize this or that policy of the Israeli government, and between those who are anti-Zionists, because anti-Zionism asserts that the Jewish people has no right to a Jewish state, at least in that part of the world. And that inevitably leads to anti-Jewish feelings and very often to antisemitism.
When it came to the students, I didn’t respond at all because I was a student once too, and there are views that I hold today that I didn’t hold when I was a student. Their original article was published in the Forward, if I’m not mistaken, and it generated some debate in all the liberal seminaries. I didn’t respond at all until it became a huge, multi-thousand word piece in The New York Times. Once it left the internal Jewish scene, it seemed to me that I had an obligation to respond. Not that I believe that they’re anti-Zionist — I do not. I didn’t put them in the BDS camp [of those who support the boycott of Israel]. I just simply criticized them.
Hundreds of Jews protest the proposed Israeli court reform outside the Israeli consulate in New York City on Feb. 21, 2023. (Gili Getz)
You signed a letter with other rabbis noting that the students’ petition came during Israel’s war with Hamas that May, writing that “those who aspire to be future leaders of the Jewish people must possess and model empathy for their brothers and sisters in Israel, especially when they are attacked by a terrorist organization whose stated goal is to kill Jews and destroy the Jewish State.”
My main point was that the essence of the Jewish condition is that all Jews feel responsible one for the another — Kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh. And that relationship starts with emotions. It starts with a feeling of belongingness to the Jewish people, and a feeling of concern for our people who are attacked in the Jewish state. My criticism was based, in the middle of a war, on expressing compassion, support for our people who are under indiscriminate and terrorist assault. I uphold that and even especially in retrospect two years later, why anyone would consider that to be offensive in any way is still beyond me.
You were executive director of ARZA, the Reform Zionist organization, and you write in your book that Israel “is the primary source of our people’s collective energy — the engine for the recreation and restoration of the national home and the national spirit of the Jewish people.” A number of your essays put Israel at the center of the present-day Jewish story. You are a rabbi in New York City. So what’s the role or function of the Diaspora?
Our existence in the Diaspora needs no justification. For practically all of the last 2,000 years, Jewish life has existed in the Diaspora. It’s only for the last 75 years and if you count the beginning of the Zionist movement, the last 125 years or so that Jews have begun en masse to live in the land of Israel. Much of the values of what we call now Judaism was developed in the Diaspora. Moreover, the American Jewish community is the strongest, most influential, most glorious of all the Jewish Diasporas in Jewish history.
And yet, the only place in the Jewish world where the Jewish community is growing is in Israel. More Jewish children now live in Israel than all the other places in the world combined. The central value that powers the sustainability, viability and continuity of the Jewish people is peoplehood. It’s not the values that have sustained the Jewish people in the Diaspora and over the last 2,000 years, which was Torah or God, what we would call religion. I’m a rabbi. I believe in the centrality of God, Torah and religion to sustain Jewish identity. But in the 21st century, Israel is the most eloquent concept of the value of Jewish peoplehood. And therefore, I do not believe that there is enough energy, enough power, enough sustainability in the classical concept of Judaism to sustain continuity in the Diaspora. The concept of Jewish peoplehood is the most powerful way that we can sustain Jewish continuity in the 21st century.
But doesn’t that negate the importance of American Jewry?
In my view, it augments the sustainability of American Jewry. If American Jews disengage from Israel, and from the concept of Jewish peoplehood, and also don’t consider religion to be at the center of their existence, then what’s left? Now there’s a lot of activity, for example, on tikkun olam, which is a part of Jewish tradition. But tikkun olam in Judaism always was a blend between Jewish particularism and universalism — concern for humanity at large but rooted in the concept of Jewish peoplehood. But very often now, tikkun olam in the Diaspora is practiced not as a part of the concept of Jewish particularism but, as I said before, at the expense of Jewish particularism. That will not be enough to sustain Jewish communities going into the 21st century.
I want to ask about the health of the American synagogue as an institution. Considering your concern about the waning centrality of Torah and God in people’s lives — especially among the non-Orthodox — do you feel optimistic about it as an institution? Does it have to change?
I’ve believed since the beginning of my career that there’s no substitute in the Diaspora for the synagogue as the central Jewish institution. We harm ourselves when we underemphasize the central role of the synagogue. Any issue that is being done by one of the hundreds of Jewish agencies that we’ve created rests on our ability as a community to produce Jews into the next generation. And what are those institutions that produce that are most responsible for the production of Jewish continuity? Synagogues, day schools and summer camps, and of the three synagogues are by far the most important for the following reasons: First, we’re the only institution that defines ourselves as and whose purpose is what we call cradle to grave. Second, for most American Jews, if they end up in any institution at all it will be a synagogue. Far fewer American Jews will receive a day school education and or go to Jewish summer camps. That should have ramifications across the board for American Jewish policy, including how we budget Jewish institutions. We should be focusing many, many more resources on these three institutions, and at the core of that is the institution of the synagogue.
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Young Jews aren’t disengaging, they’re finding Jewish meaning in different ways than their parents and grandparents did
The Jewish community for years has worried about young adults drifting away. It’s true that people in their 20s and 30s are less likely to go to synagogue regularly or belong to a congregation or other Jewish communal institutions, which can make it look like young adults are disengaging from Jewish life.
But new research suggests that many of them aren’t abandoning Jewish life at all. They’re practicing it at home with friends and family, often through food, culture, and meaningful conversation. This development speaks to a broader evolution that will shape the Jewish future. While young adults still crave Jewish meaning, identity, and belonging, they increasingly expect to find them in ways and places different from their parents and grandparents.
The Jim Joseph Foundation recently commissioned Project Prism, a study of more than 2,000 Jewish Americans ages 22 to 40 in 49 states over 40 weeks, conducted in partnership with Sense Worldwide, and with NORC at the University of Chicago. The research included a nationally representative survey alongside qualitative and cultural research, and included many people whose lives rarely, if ever, intersect with Jewish institutions.
What we found complicates the conventional story about religious disengagement. Three out of four Jewish young adults say they do something Jewish regularly. But 45% of all respondents say their Jewish participation occurs exclusively in informal settings. That includes celebrating Jewish holidays with friends and family, engaging in Jewish cooking and food traditions, and discussing Jewish topics or current events with people close to them. Others express their Jewish identity through music, books, humor, and media, or by observing Jewish rituals and traditions at home.
In other words, a young adult who rarely sets foot in a synagogue or other Jewish institution may still consider Judaism a meaningful part of their life. They aren’t abandoning Judaism; they’re simply engaging in it in places and ways that are comfortable for them, reflect the home-based component of Jewish ritual, and bring them meaning.
What communities can do
The research is the starting point for understanding how young adults navigate life. For example, many Jewish young adults feel that they have a strong sense of purpose or direction in their lives, but a much smaller percentage say that being Jewish plays a strong role in creating that sense of purpose. Instead, they draw meaning from helping others, personal growth, their careers, and family. So rather than wondering why young adults are not going to existing Jewish spaces, families and community leaders might ask how Jewish tradition can deepen the things they already find meaningful. Helping a neighbor, caring for family, sharing a meal, and contributing to one’s community are deeply embedded in our teachings and rituals. Thankfully, our community has many existing organizations committed to these experiences. There is more work to do to help young adults find and connect with these existing offerings, and our community should also strive to design new, innovative offerings that don’t yet exist.
At the same time, the research shows that participation alone isn’t enough to create positive outcomes. When a young adult feels a sense of belonging, an experience is much more likely to have a lasting positive impact. Immersive and socially intensive experiences are especially effective. As people are increasingly worried about loneliness and social isolation, it’s important to recognize that simply getting people through the door cannot be the end goal. We need to think about how we help them build relationships and feel a part of something bigger once they arrive.
We also need to remember that these immersive experiences, as powerful as they are, attract only a minority of Jewish young adults. The vast majority are engaging on their own or in smaller groups. For Jewish families and organizations seeking to reach them, the research offers some practical guidance.
Young adults say Jewish experiences would be more appealing if they were more cultural and less religious, offered low-pressure opportunities to participate without a major commitment, fit their schedules, and allowed them to engage alongside people they already know. That could mean a casual Shabbat dinner, a Jewish cultural event that welcomes friends and family, or a gathering where participants can explore Jewish identity without feeling judged or pressured to participate in a particular way. These approaches recognize that young adults are navigating busy schedules, competing demands, and a polarized environment, while still seeking connection and meaning.
At their best, Jewish communities and institutions can provide exactly what these young adults are looking for — relationships, opportunities for meaning, and places where they feel part of something larger than themselves. But doing so may require thinking differently about how and where Jewish life happens. A generation that celebrates a holiday around a friend’s dinner table, talks about Jewish identity with family, and seeks community outside traditional institutions is constructing Jewish life differently than previous generations did, and can still create a meaningful Jewish life.
Rather than expecting young adults to come to them, Jewish organizations can help support the experiences young adults are already creating, whether by providing resources for home-based celebrations, partnering with informal groups, or making existing programs more flexible and welcoming.
Our community can continue offering the powerful immersive experiences that resonate with some while also embracing the more informal expressions of Jewish life that resonate with many others. In doing so, we can help more young adults experience Judaism as a meaningful part of their lives — wherever and however they choose to engage.
The post Young Jews aren’t disengaging, they’re finding Jewish meaning in different ways than their parents and grandparents did appeared first on The Forward.
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Kristallnacht survivor calls on German police to stand firm against hate
(JTA) — One of the last surviving Jewish witnesses of Kristallnacht told German police leaders they have an “enormous responsibility” to learn the lessons of the past.
George Shefi, 94, this week returned to the city of his birth to share his story with senior law enforcement representatives from Germany, the United States, and other European countries at the city’s New Synagogue, a target of the Nazi-spurred mobs on Kristallnacht. The event held Thursday, titled “Not on Our Watch: Operationalizing Never Again,” marked the 88th anniversary of the pogrom.
“I have come here at this time to say that Germany’s responsibility to preserve the memory of the Holocaust is eternal,” Shefi told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview before the event. He does not believe today’s generations of Germans are “guilty of what happened,” but nonetheless said they “have an enormous responsibility and a duty to learn from the past to ensure that it never happens again.”
Shefi was almost seven when the Nazis unleashed violent pogroms across Germany on the night of Nov. 9, 1938, in which the Berlin synagogue that housed his school was burned to the ground.
Months later, his mother sent him alone to safety in Britain on the Kindertransport. He would never see her or her sister again. They were murdered at Auschwitz.
The New Synagogue, like many others across Germany, was set on fire that night, but it was not completely destroyed thanks to the bravery of Wilhelm Krützfeld, the head of the local police precinct, who called the fire brigade. One of the few Germans to stand up to the violent antisemitism on Kristallnacht, his memory was honored at the event on Thursday night.
The event was an initiative of the International March of the Living, in collaboration with several other partners including Germany’s largest police trade union. It is part of a wider international educational program which sends senior police representatives on the annual march in Poland to deepen their understanding of the Holocaust and protect global Jewish communities.
Shefi, who immigrated to Israel in 1949, has shared his personal story with more than 12,000 German students over the past two decades and also spent years volunteering with the Israeli police. Last year he received Germany’s Federal Order of Merit for his commitment to Holocaust education.
“There is special significance in giving my testimony before them [the police] in the very synagogue that was saved from burning on Kristallnacht thanks to a police officer who did the right thing. He was a human being. He did not stand by, and he did not allow the flames of hatred to spread,” Shefi told JTA.
“I call on police officers in Germany to learn from him and draw inspiration from his courageous act,” he said. “If he could act that way under Nazi rule, police officers today must also act and refuse to stand by in the face of hatred.”
Shefi recalled the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht in an onstage interview with Revital Yakin Krakovksy, the March of the Living Israel CEO. He said that when he woke up the following day, his mother told him there was no school but gave no explanation.
It was only three days later that he saw the result of the carnage. He recalled seeing the remains of a vandalized hat shop close to his house.
“The windows were broken,” he said. “Glass was everywhere. Hats were thrown around, and half of them were probably stolen. That’s one picture I’ll never forget.”
He also recalled antisemitic graffiti daubed on the side of a store belonging to a Jewish man and his Christian wife. “The Nazis didn’t break their store, but on the sidewalk they wrote in big letters: ‘This store belongs to a Jewish pig who is married to a German swine.’” He said that while someone tried to clean up the abuse, dozens of people stood around “yelling and screaming.”
A day before the event, Shefi returned to the area where he was brought up to see the stolpersteine, memorial stones, laid for his mother and aunt. Last month a town in Germany voted to ban the stones, something which Shefi said had to be “fought tooth and nail.”
“That’s the way things start,” he said. “You start out with a law which looks very mild and very quickly grows, and people have to wake up to it. If you want to keep this country democratic, you have to start immediately to fight against such situations.”
Stressing the importance of the stones, which have become a feature of remembrance in Germany and other countries that had been occupied by the Nazis, he said: “That’s the only symbol we have that there was a Jewish community here, and they always will be if the police protect that right.”
The event came at a time of heightened antisemitism globally. According to a new report published by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Fighting Antisemitism, 244 incidents targeting synagogues, Chabad centers and worshipers in their vicinity were documented across 34 countries between Oct. 7, 2023, and Oct. 21, 2026.
Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, the president of the International March of the Living, told JTA that remembering Kristallnacht is important because it was a “critical warning sign of what was to come”.
“Had the world acted to stop the violence and persecution at that time, the devastating consequences might have been different. We do not see Kristallnacht merely as a lesson in history, but as a reminder and a warning about antisemitism today,” she said.
“This year, we chose to hold the event in Berlin, where the pogrom took place, in a synagogue that survived thanks to the courage and humanity of one police officer, Wilhelm Krützfeld, who prevented the mob from setting it on fire,” Heideman said. “Our message to the senior police officials attending this event is clear: learn from his example. Do not stand by in the face of antisemitism and hatred. Do what is right, and protect those who need your protection.”
Jochen Kopelke, the federal chairman of the German Police Union (GdP) and president of the European Federation of Police Unions, lit a torch dedicated to combating antisemitism at this year’s march in April.
“The Federal Republic of Germany bears immense guilt,” he said. “It cannot absolve itself of that guilt, now or ever. Our enduring obligation is to remember the unimaginable atrocities of the Holocaust.
“In view of the alarming increase in antisemitic acts in Germany, I feel compelled, as a citizen, as a democrat, as a trade unionist, as a police officer and, above all, as a human being, to use every means at my disposal to confront the terrible, deeply troubling and unmistakable rise of homegrown German antisemitism,” Kopelke said
Paul Goldenberg, who served as a police officer in New Jersey for more than 25 years, heads up the “Operationalizing Never Again” initiative.
He said its lessons apply not just to German police but also to their colleagues worldwide. Livestreaming of the event was made available to a majority of major police associations across North America.
“It would be a serious mistake for police leaders elsewhere to regard these lessons as Germany’s responsibility alone,” he told JTA. “No country is immune from the politicization of policing, prejudice, or an institutional culture in which people stop questioning improper decisions. As an American police leader and chair of this international delegation, I believe we must bring the same scrutiny to our own institutions that we ask of others.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Kristallnacht survivor calls on German police to stand firm against hate appeared first on The Forward.
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Thousands of students, many Jewish, are joining the Young DSA on campuses across the country. Here’s why.
As early results streamed in on Election Day, many democrats felt hope and excitement, but the night was more complicated for Maria Franzblau, the Jewish 24-year-old co-chair of the Miami chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, who began her foray into socialist politics in the DSA’s youth movement.
In Florida’s Senate race, former state Rep. Angie Nixon, a DSA member, lost narrowly to Republican incumbent Ashley Moody. The state’s voters also approved Amendment 3, a property tax cut that DSA members opposed.
“It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster at first with the Florida results, that quickly gave way to a lot of exuberance and excitement as we saw how the rest of the country had gone,” Franzblau told the Forward.
DSA backed candidates won at least six seats in the House, wins that are expected to grow the organization’s influence within the Democratic Party’s progressive wing.
Franzblau took an interest in socialist politics at an early age, during Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run for president. When she enrolled in Florida International University in 2020, she knew she wanted to join a political student club; the question was which one. A few months into her first year, she found the Young Democratic Socialists of America.
YDSA is the youth and student wing of the DSA. The organization has grown rapidly in recent months from 1,800 members last year to 5,200 dues-paying members now across 169 chapters, according to YDSA co-chair James Hernández. The largest chapters are based at University of Maryland at College Park, which has one of the largest Jewish student populations; Georgia State University; University of California, Berkeley; University of Oregon; University of Cincinnati and Binghamton University.
Hernández, who uses all pronouns, leads YDSA with their co-chair Mae Bracelin. They credit the increased interest to the “Zohran moment,” the rise of DSA-backed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
What is the YDSA?
YDSA is based primarily on high school and college campuses, though it also has citywide chapters, and you don’t have to be a student to join. It started in the early ‘80s with a small presence at private schools, then interest spiked during Sanders’s first run for the presidency, and by 2020, the organization had grown to more than 130 chapters across the country.
Membership requires paying dues to the DSA, with a “pay what you can” model. The DSA directly funds YDSA, providing chapters with support for flags, buttons, and pamphlets, and the parent group pays the youth organization’s national leaders.
The DSA is a staunchly anti-Zionist organization, and YDSA members who spoke to the Forward said that Palestinian rights issues are core to the movement.
“It’s been so central to us because of how it’s played out on our universities,” Franzblau said. “Questions of safety on campus, questions of academic freedom and free expression, questions of how our universities use our money, all can get viewed or analyzed through this lens of Israel and Palestine.”
Current and former members of YDSA said that affordability, LGBTQ+, labor organizing and reproductive rights issues initially spurred their interest in the organization. Today, YDSA campaigns range from pushing universities to provide free laundry services to forming sanctuary campuses to protect undocumented students from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But current and former members of YDSA who spoke with the Forward said they were also all active in their schools’ pro-Palestinian encampments and campaigns. And that was complicated — because many of them are Jewish.
Jewish involvement in YDSA
The co-chairs said young Jews are active in the movement, and many participated in the pro-Palestinian encampments following Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza. Bracelin, who attended the University of Oregon and spearheaded the university’s YDSA chapter there, said there is often overlap in its membership and involvement with Jewish Voice for Peace.
“YDSA chapters have become sort of like homes for anti-Zionist Jews on campus who are seeking a community,” Bracelin said.
Franzblau noted that at first, she didn’t feel inclined to involve her Jewish identity in her political activism, but that changed after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the war in Gaza, when YDSA’s central organizing became focused on the Palestinian cause.
At one point, a Jewish community leader at FIU told Franzblau that the pro-Palestinian groups were using her as a “token Jew.” She was also doxxed after Oct. 7, when someone found out she helped draft a campus ceasefire resolution. These reactions led her to start sharing that she is Jewish when speaking on Palestinian issues, in an effort to show that Jews are not a monolith.
Former YDSA member Gabe Karsh, who has continued as a DSA member since graduating, was also active in Macalester College’s Mac for Palestine and IfNotNow chapters in 2023.
After Oct. 7, Karsh found themselves in the position of mediating between YDSA members and other pro-Palestinian groups on one side, and the school’s Jewish community on the other.
Karsh, who has family in Israel, would talk with pro-Palestinian groups about how “de-emphasization of the hostages” was “problematic.” Talking with those in the Jewish community, Karsh would share why they thought Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza was a genocide that needed to be protested. Though some were “unhappy” with Karsh during this time, they said, the conversations often proved productive.
“Rather than being the ideological bulwark of my side, I found myself much more inclined to try to find a workable solution for everybody,” Karsh said. “I think I still needed that outlet to express my politics and my rage and grief and fear about what was happening in Gaza, and that’s when YDSA and Mac for Palestine became an outlet for that, when doing that work inside of the Jewish community became much more fraught and less appealing.”
Jewish YDSA member Roxy Satowitz, who serves on the organization’s National Coordinating Committee, worked alongside Karsh at Macalester. She pointed to the history of Jewish socialists in the Labor movement, particularly the General Jewish Labour Bund, as something that inspires her work.
Being Jewish, she said, grounds her approach.
“I think knowing your story and knowing your family history is really important as an organizer, because I think the way that human beings communicate is in a narrative, and the way that we learn, like the way that we talk to ourselves, is in a narrative,” she said.
How big is the tent?
Members often describe YDSA as a “big tent organization,” noting that ideological dissension is allowed in the organization, to a point. Hernández noted expulsions from the organization do happen if members drift too far from the core tenets of the movement, but declined to list examples.
Recently, internal disagreements took center stage in New York. Two days before the third anniversary of Oct. 7, multiple New York City YDSA chapters shared a social media post promoting a protest against Mamdani for, in their view, failing the Palestinian cause.
The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America told the student groups to take down the posts and threatened to cut their funding, according to the student groups. The posts disappeared, but multiple chapters later reposted the protest flyer.
The protest, which included numerous other organizations, began outside City Hall and culminated with a march to Union Square, where demonstrators crashed a vigil held by the progressive organization Israelis for Peace, recognizing the victims of both Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza. Mamdani attended the vigil and stood silently as protesters called him a traitor and chanted, “Mamdani, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.”
The next day, five YDSA chapters shared an online statement accusing the NYC-DSA of trying to stifle their participation in the protest.
“Our commitment is to Palestine, not any elected official,” the statement read. It concluded with the words “Long live the intifada.”
The organization United Jewish Teachers was outraged over the use of the word “intifada,” and took issue with it being shared by a YDSA chapter at New York City’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School. The post has since been deleted by Stuyvesant’s YDSA but remains up on the pages of chapters at Hunter College, Lehman College, City College of New York and The New School.
Hernández said there had been a misunderstanding between NYC-DSA and the YDSA chapters that has since been resolved.
“I don’t necessarily politically agree with the aims of that protest,” Hernández said. “I think that’s a political decision the chapter had the right to make, even if I disagree with it. There’s room for people who are more to the right of even me, and there’s room for people who are more to the left of me.”
For Hernández, the disagreements are part of the give-and-take of fostering a diverse movement, but the divisions are something the DSA at large will have to contend with, especially as it gains power while growing a pipeline from the YDSA. What concessions and compromises — especially on Israel — will it be asked to make by younger, newer members? Will it continue to hold standards that even Mamdani, some believe, can’t reach?
For now, they’re united in celebration.
“In a time when many were losing hope, these victories are a brilliant light,” Hernández said of the midterm elections. “Our task now is to build a movement capable of confronting the institution to deliver on our working-class agenda.”
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