What the Jewish-Led Protests Against Israel’s Actions Look Like Right Now
“Any American Jew attending this rally is not a Jew—yes I said it!”
So tweeted the Trump administration’s U.S. ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, about a rally and protest held in Washington on Monday. “American Jews Say: CEASEFIRE NOW!” the graphic promoting the rally read. “STOP GENOCIDE OF PALESTINIANS.”
Monday’s protest—a rally at Farragut Square, followed by a walk to the White House to disrupt business as usual—was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group, and IfNotNow, which describes itself as “a movement of American Jews organizing our community to end U.S. support for Israel’s apartheid system.” The demonstration followed other Jewish left–led protests (among others) across the country, from New York to California.
It also followed messages from several Israelis who had survived Hamas’ attack or lost a loved one to it, and who called for an end to violence anyway. Yonatan Ziegen, son of missing peace activist Vivian Silver, said his mother would be “mortified” by what’s happening in Gaza. A similar sentiment was shared by Noy Katsman, brother of Chaim Katsman, the anti-occupation activist killed by Hamas. Maoz Inon, a peace activist who lost both his parents, told the BBC, “We must stop the war.” Thirty Israeli human rights groups came together for a statement calling for “an end to the bombardment of civilians in Israel and Gaza.”
Monday’s protest also came amid reports that Israeli airstrikes and tank fire have killed more than 2,000 people in Gaza. On Tuesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 500 people were killed by a strike on a hospital, a particularly fatal and tragic attack following a week of bloodshed in Gaza. The ministry, overseen by Hamas, blamed an Israeli airstrike; Israel, for its part, blamed the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
That strike, and the protest before it, came as many on the Jewish left are coalescing around the term genocide to describe what is happening in Gaza, a case made most forcefully by Israeli historian Raz Segal, who directs the holocaust and genocide studies master’s program at Stockton University and who wrote last week in Jewish Currents that “the assault on Gaza can also be understood … as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.”
Not all agree the term is appropriate: For example, Dov Waxman, professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, made the case that although some of its rhetoric has been genocidal, the Israeli government has actually been engaged in forced displacement (which could become ethnic cleansing) to prepare for an invasion, and that using the term genocide obscures Israel’s objective. “Our words matter. We need to be as accurate as we can in understanding what’s taking place and in understanding why Israel is doing what it’s doing,” he told me in a phone interview Monday evening. “That doesn’t mean we have to agree with that or we can’t condemn it. But we shouldn’t mischaracterize what Israel is doing.”
Nevertheless, these twin messages—stop weaponizing our grief over our lost friends and family in Israel; stop genocide in our name—anchored Monday’s protest by left-wing American Jews and those who came to mourn, and shout, with them.
“Jewish grief is being used as a weapon to call for the imminent destruction of Gaza—by politicians, by so-called justice organizations. And mainstream media largely conveys the false narrative that all Jewish people support the state of Israel and its actions,” explained Hannah Wolfman-Arent, the baker behind Velvel Breads (from which, in the interest of full disclosure, I purchase my weekly challah).
Wolfman-Arent shared the rally’s announcement on Velvel Breads’ Instagram page. “As a Jewish anti-Zionist and a person with a publicly Jewish business, I needed to use that platform to convey another message—that I am one voice in a massive chorus of Jewish people that will not let our names or our grief or our historical trauma be used to justify genocide in Palestine.”
Jesse Rabinowitz, who stood outside the White House in a prayer shawl, said that it was important to him to show up fully as an American, as an observant Jew, and as a progressive. He quoted Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who spoke of protest for civil rights as “praying with his feet.” “My Jewish values lead me to peace,” Rabinowitz said.
Attendees also nodded to related discussions and debates on the Jewish left over how to respond to news of Hamas’ attack, and how central Jewish grief should be in discussions and debates in the days thereafter, but as one speaker said, the day’s rally was not organized for debate. They were united in calling for a cease-fire, present to “mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
“There is a need for American Jews to speak out, to hold the incredible pain and grief that has shattered Jews around the world,” Simone Zimmerman, IfNotNow’s co-founder, told me before joining the walk to the White House. People have lost loved ones, friends, and families. “And also, [there is a need for American Jews] to not let that grief paralyze us or stop us from standing up to stop a genocide.
“I think what we’re doing here today is we’re saying: ‘American Jews, we know you’re in agony. We’re also in agony.’ And we are modeling the type of movement that we want to see represented in our politics.”
There were at least hundreds (organizers said thousands) of attendees who spoke and chanted and sang. Their signs read, “Not in Our Name,” “Jews Against Genocide,” and “How dare you use my grief to justify killing innocent civilians in my name?” Another common placard: “My Grief Is Not Your Weapon.”
“It felt powerful to be in grief with community, with people who are able to mourn both Israeli and Palestinian dead,” Rabinowitz said.
It did feel powerful. It felt powerful to hear people chanting, “Not in our name,” to hear a crowd recite the mourner’s kaddish, to hear them sing “Lo Yisa Goy (Lay Down Your Arms).” But feeling powerful is one thing; having power is another. The people in front of the White House were gathered there to demand action from the truly powerful. And the truly powerful were saying something very different.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who on Monday vowed, “Let me tell you, Mr. Secretary, this will be a long war. The price will be high, but we are going to win—for Israel, for the Jewish people, and for the values that both [our] countries believe in.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, fresh off a trip to Tel Aviv, said Monday that he would make sure to “help Israel in every way we can.” That day, 13 House Democrats called for a cease-fire; last week, all but 13 announced support for a resolution to stand with Israel that made no mention of Palestinian civilians. That majority appears to be backed by American public opinion: According to a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 44 percent of Americans think Israel’s response has been about right, while roughly an additional quarter believes that Israel hasn’t gone far enough.
There are Jewish groups besides IfNotNow and JVP that stress the need to center humanity and human dignity in this conflict. T’ruah, a network of 2,300 rabbis, said in a recent statement, “We stand up in this moment for the lives of innocent Palestinians—not in spite of being Jewish but with deep commitment to our most central Jewish value.” Many other Jews, however, staunchly disagree with those who would call for a cease-fire, and numerous recent statements from Jewish organizations and groups say nothing about the toll this war is taking on people in Gaza.
“I think this is a time where there’s that tendency of groups to kind of pull together, and that means that any dissent within the group is really not tolerated,” Waxman said. Many Jews in the United States and Israel may say Israel has the right to defend itself in principle but disagree with what it is doing in practice. But “the deepest fears” of many Jewish people have been activated, he said. “That really reinforces that group dynamic.” The case of supporters of the Israeli government physically attacking parents of hostages protesting in Tel Aviv was just one particularly ludicrous example.
Still, back in Washington, before the crowd marched from the protest to the White House, a man introduced as Yotam stood up before the crowd to go over the logistics of the day. He explained that the point of the demonstration was for people to make their demand for a cease-fire heard, and that that meant interrupting the status quo. Protesters were to block the entrances, and some had already agreed that they’d be willing to be arrested if necessary. (Before the end of the day, some were.)
Nevertheless, the White House stayed in operation. A cease-fire wasn’t immediately called. That evening, it was announced that President Joe Biden would visit Israel later in the week. “We’re gonna shut this shit down,” Yotam had told the group before they marched to the White House. They didn’t—at least not on Monday. But standing there and listening, one might be forgiven for thinking that maybe they could.
