Shed Light on Champions of Israeli Democracy
This Chanukah, let's stop the zealots from winning.
Chanukah’s centered on the true story of the Maccabees who successfully overthrew Syrian Greeks who sought to snuff out Jewish life in the Land of Israel. It’s a holiday commemorating survival and successfully resisting oppressors.
Yet the story’s much more complicated. Here’s a grossly oversimplified and imperfect addendum: The Maccabees were zealots who murdered Hellenized Jews, an ancient type of many non-Orthodox Jews today. Their own extremism planted the seeds for the collapse of Jewish sovereignty over the Jewish homeland for 2,000 years until Israel’s establishment, a pyrrhic victory with millennia of consequences.
Chanukah’s confluence with the announcement of Israel’s most right-wing government in its history - a government full of true zealots - that threatens Israel’s existence as we know it from within gives us the opportunity to shed light upon the champions of Israeli democracy.
We have the chance to stop history from repeating itself, to stop the zealots.
Fortunately, there’s no shortage of Israeli champions of democracy. Join me in supporting these champions:
New Israel Fund: The vast majority of Israeli civil society would struggle to get off the ground if not for NIF. From ending the Occupation to monitoring human rights abuses to fighting for a shared society among Palestinian Arabs and Jews in Israel itself, NIF was made for this moment.
Standing Together: An NIF grantee, Standing Together is Israel’s largest joint Jewish-Palestinian/Arab grassroots partnership seeking to change politics within Israel, shifting the left-right political divisions that are currently based on the I-P conflict and moving it to economic, social, and climate justice issues that have profound unity across Israel’s polarized population.
I met two of its leaders, Sally Abed and Alon-Lee Green (pictured above) earlier this month, and am inspired!
Darkenu: Israel’s largest civil society NGO, Darkenu focuses on instilling democratic values while mobilizing the Israeli moderate majority. I wrote about their work in the J. following my 2018 visit to Israel.
Listen to “Start the Revolution With Me” with Darkenu CEO Rachel Azaria, a former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and former MK
Check out their Palestinian counterpart, Zimam
ACRI: Israel’s ACLU. Enough said!
IRAC: The Reform Movement’s Israeli advocacy arm, which includes the fight for recognition of non-Orthodox rights (conversions included) and its groundbreaking Racism Crises Center.
Bibi’s new government wants to restrict immigration of non-Orthodox Jews, just as antisemitism is on the rise. He’s giving a middle finger to those of us who may face antisemitism in response to Israeli government actions (let alone authoritarian white nationalism here at home), yet denying many of us - or our loved ones - the ability to flee there if necessary.
Peace Now: Started by former IDF generals in 1978, Peace Now is Israel’s indigenous peace movement, monitoring settlement growth and demanding that Israel’s governments swap land for peace.
My late Israeli cousin, Uri Masad, once worked as the West Coast Director of Americans for Peace Now, its US partner.
Abraham Initiatives: This NGO seeks to build shared society between Jewish and Palestinian/Arab Israelis.
A Wider Bridge: AWB provides impact grants for Israel’s robust LGBTQ community infrastructure, including for The Aguda (think Israel’s HRC), Israel Gay Youth, and Jerusalem Open House
ALLMEP: The Alliance for Middle East Peace is the largest network of Israeli and Palestinian peace makers.
The above NGOs are just the tip of the iceberg - there are so many more to invest in!
Groups like AIPAC, RJC, and the ZOA not only empower Israel’s right-wing extremists, but also give hundreds of millions of dollars and political power to antisemitic anti-democracy forces in the U.S. every year. Federations and community foundations too often sign off on funding to extremist settlement groups.
That’s why supporting NGOs that reflect the views of the majority of American Jews and Americans writ large deserve our support, too: J Street, Truah, Americans for Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum, OneVoice Movement, and Jewish Democratic Council of America need us.
Tempting as it may be to walk away from Israel and Palestine because the subject’s so painful, polarizing, and often difficult to understand, doing so only empowers those who perpetuate the endless cycle of violence.
Do you really want to cede ground to Dr. Miriam Edelson, Sheldon’s widow?!
Yes, the Occupation’s now 55 years-old. Yes, there have long been right wing forces in power. Yes, human rights abuses abound.
Yes, even if Israel rights all those wrongs, there will always be people who think the country shouldn’t exist at all. Yes, there will always be people who think that all Jews support whatever the Israeli government does (yes, that’s antisemitic). Yes, there will always be people who would rather assume Israel’s just one massive specter of rightwing doom than lift a finger to help Israelis and those in the Diaspora fighting for democracy and human rights now matter how often they’re hit over the head with columns like mine.
Literally none of those wrongs make it right, and to use such a debate as a matter of deflection is a grotesque abdication of human decency and moral responsibility as American taxpayers and/or Jewish. Walking away from the issue is as much of an abdication.
All those wrongs are done in our names with our political and financial capital.
With Israel’s 75th birthday upon us next year, Jewish communal professionals should use the opportunity to elevate the voices of Israelis fighting for democracy and shared society, either in lieu of or alongside the Israeli consular corps.
Whether it’s Jewish communal institutions or our government, we *all* must disengage from anyone having to do with ultra-extremists Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and Noam Maoz. Some donors who claim to speak on behalf of the American Jewish majority may call it a boycott and try to bully people into recognizing them anyway, but we can’t afford to fall for it.
Israel can’t be a democracy with a Jewish majority and all of the Land of Israel. It can’t have all three if it wishes to survive. As someone who has been to Israel eight times and Palestine three times in the past 13 years, I can say that both are unique nations that don’t wish to share sovereignty with the other.
Some people fighting for Israeli democracy - including some of the ones at NGOs I want everyone to support - may have personally given up on the vision for two states in despair or ideological purposes.
I haven’t. Right now we’re seeing the devastation wrought by a one state failure imposed and reinforced by zealots in the Israeli government, who in turn reinforces extreme matching beliefs across sectors of Palestine.
Even though two states for two peoples won’t happen for a very long time, we in America - Jews and non-Jews alike - hold influence in ways that virtually no other nation or people can to reduce harm and rebuild vision for peace between two enemies.
I don’t want to see Israel collapse on itself from decades of inability to come to terms with the Occupation, which eats away at its ability to be democratic, and Jewish. I love the place too much to simply give up and walk away.
This Chanukah, let’s shed light on those who will stop the zealots.
Liberal Zionism & the Idea of the Idea by Yehuda Kurtzer of the Shalom Hartman Institute is a must-read:
For Zionism to reclaim its capacity to collectively mobilize the Jewish people and to rebuild its currency as a compelling movement for the next generation of Jews, it must now address two fundamental challenges: its continued failure to hold itself accountable to its own morally and politically coherent vision; and its failure to continue dreaming.
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