Is there a future for progressive Jews in Israel?
JVL Introduction
Rejected and demonised by the right here concerns are raised about how the left also ignores the needs of progressive, pro Palestinians Jews within Israel. The author is clear that there is no comparison between the suffering of Jews kicked out from their synagogues, or refused entry to certain sites (or even on the receiving end of vile abuse) to the suffering of Palestinians. We may wonder why someone would move to Israel if their views were so supportive of Palestinians’ rights. However many genuinely progressive and even antizionist Israeli Jews were born there and perhaps it is worth considering what the future could look like in a world where this area was not dominated by Zionism, fierce, religious, Jewish nationalism, She offers no answers here, just lament.
She does relate her own experience to similar rejection in the rest of the world and we have published before and do so again today on serious work being done in many countries, but especially the USA, to create new institutions, including antizionist places of worship. Tsedek Chicago stands as the exemplar as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. It is not easy but it is an opportunity to build something completely different, nurturing and relevant for today’s world. In Israel there are Jewish led organisations inside Israel fighting for the rights of Palestinians and for peace based on rejecting Jewish supremacy and seeking equality. It is surely a political fight and in participating in that political fight, aren’t these the source for the future institutions that will sustain and support the spiritual and cultural needs for Jews.
LL
This article was originally published by The Forward on Wed 10 Dec 2025. Read the original here.
The Jewish left is misplaying its hand — by not focusing enough on Jews
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There are also Jews, including well known ones, who have emigrated to Israel and made aliyah and later changed their views. Jeff Halper, founder of ICAHD was a Zionist when he arrived in Israel in his mid-twenties; it took him a further 25 years (!) to start on his current trajectory. Others, have, unlike most Israelis, noticed the Palestinians early on, wondered about their experience, and their investigations have led them rapidly to become committed opponents of occupation and apartheid, and sometimes, fierce anti-Zionists.
Thus, Andrey Khrzhanovsky, a 23 year old Russian Jew, was visiting his grandparents in Israel in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and he chose to make aliyah rather than go back to St Petersburg. Arriving in Israel, he says he had only a ‘surface understanding’ of the situation in Israel-Palestine. But he made it his business to learn and within months had become a leading public critic of Israel, including, perhaps most valuably, a major presence working with Russian and Ukrainian immigrants, traditionally among the most right-wing Israelis. His short films are easy to find and very worth watching.
And Charlotte Ritz-Jack is by no means the first or only Jew who has chosen to make aliyah IN ORDER TO BE a solidarity activist with Palestinians. She grew up very much in a practising Jewish community, like Sam Stein, the young American Jew who I know through a British Shalom Salaam Trust funded project teaching wrestling to Palestinian boys in Massafer Yatta. Sam’s entire world had been family, school, university, Orthodox Judaism and unquestioning Zionism. Some months ago he wrote about his journey to solidarity commitment with Palestinians. (https://www.972mag.com/how-six-months-in-the-west-bank-undid-my-zionist-indoctrination/). What he doesn’t mention is how much the Palestinians he has lived amongst and worked with welcomed him into their homes and lives.
Yes, as Palestinians.
As a non-Jewish woman, I’d like to hear more about the activities of non-Zionist Jews and the Jewish left, in and out of Israel. I am shocked at how a genuine Jewish woman can be suspected and bullied because of the word ‘Palestine’ on her clothes or bags. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Having reread my contribution, I realise that the last part gives a false impression – it reads as if I am criticising Sam for not mentioning how well he was received by the Palestinians with whom he has lived. That wasn’t my intention at all – I was just trying to bring my comments to a close! Sam has written elsewhere how immensely grateful he was to his Palestinian hosts who he lived with as a Human Rights Defender. In fact, it was that gratitude that led him to set up the hugely popular BSST-supported wrestling club for the Palestinian villagers’ young sons. He was very clear it was his way of giving something back to their parents who had looked after him with such warmth and generosity. He had also hoped to organise a parallel activity for girls, but that proved impossible.
I would be grateful if you would post the para above – either as an addition to my original comment, or in a subsequent comment.