{I} f you have kept tabs on the tsunami of anti-Israel rallies over the past six weeks or are at all plugged into the social-media-activism world, you’ve likely run into Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an organization that calls itself “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.” It has been involved in nearly every nominally pro-Palestinian protest that has sprung up across the United States since October 7 and has quite a large audience: 1 million followers on Instagram and 283,500 on X. The group styles itself and its ideological allies as the legitimate representatives of the Jewish people with graphics bearing slogans such as “Jews say stop genocide of Palestinians” and “Jews say ceasefire in Gaza now.” A quick examination of JVP’s actions and online presence, though, demonstrates that the organization is at best composed of fellow travelers of those who hate Jews and at worst a propagator of antisemitism in its own right.
JVP, of course, did not begin its anti-Zionist activism on October 7, though it has taken advantage of the worst tragedy in Israel’s existence to bolster its public profile. The group has existed since 1996, though it has in the past decade or so become significantly more radicalized in its outlook toward the Jewish state. What was once an organization that “would welcome even-handed pressure on both sides that pushes for honest negotiations” over an Israel–Palestinian peace process — however disingenuously — is now entirely opposed to Israel’s existence, pledging to “dismantle the institutions and structures that sustain injustice.”
It is also quite comfortable promoting terrorists as “allies” and “freedom fighters.” JVP has praised Marwan Barghouti — a Palestinian terrorist currently serving five life sentences for organizing shootings and suicide bombings during the Second Intifada — calling him a “political prisoner” and writing that “some people have compared him to Nelson Mandela.” It hosted at its 2017 national conference the “deeply respected Palestinian organizer” and “feminist leader” Rasmea Odeh, who was convicted of involvement in a supermarket bombing in Jerusalem. JVP has celebrated Leila Khaled — a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who hijacked an airplane in 1969. And it referred to Nasser Abu Hamid — a terrorist known as “Barghouti’s right-hand man” who was convicted of the 2000 lynching and disembowelment of two off-duty Israeli servicemen and multiple shooting and bombing attacks — as a “political prisoner” (a common term the organization and pro-Palestinian activists in general use for terrorists, as JVP’s frequent use shows). The group also often works with Samidoun, an organization that seeks the release of all Palestinian “political prisoners” and has intimate ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
When the Mapping Project, which displays in an online interactive map “institutions responsible for the colonization of Palestine” across Massachusetts — including the Jewish Teen Federation of Massachusetts, the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts, and multiple Jewish day schools — debuted in 2022, JVP shared its support of the initiative before ultimately taking that post down and refusing to take a position on whether a map displaying Jewish businesses, institutions, and even individuals is desirable. JVP has published cartoons depicting Israeli soldiers drinking blood, released a video blaming Israel and American Jewish organizations for violence against black people in the U.S., and supported the Hamas-organized “Great March of Return” protests on the Gazan border.
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, JVP posted a statement blaming the Jewish state for the atrocities inflicted on its citizens, saying “the bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to U.S. complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation.” It shared a post from Mohammed El-Kurd, an antisemite who has accused Israelis of harvesting Palestinian organs and claimed that Zionists have an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood,” arguing that the massacres in “occupied Palestine” were a response to “weeks and months and years of daily Israeli military invasions into Palestinian towns, killings of Palestinians, and the very fact that millions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are besieged under Israeli blockade.” JVP has not rallied in support of, say, freeing Israeli hostages taken by Hamas but has spent its energy calling for a cease-fire that would invariably lead to more attacks against Israeli civilians. It helped organize the rally outside the U.S. Capitol Building at which Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) repeated lies about Israel’s striking al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza and which ended with an estimated 300 arrests.
What separates JVP from any other “anti-Zionist” group are the purportedly Jewish foundations of its activism. It would be one thing for such an organization to make the arguments it does, to traffic in the kind of antisemitism it does, to celebrate terrorists like it does. It’s another thing entirely for one to do so under a Potemkin sheen of Judaism acting as a cover for its odious allies like Representatives Tlaib and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.). In fact, a quick look at JVP’s website and social-media accounts reveals a palpable disregard for Judaism and Jewish history. It published an “intersectional” Haggadah — the book of prayers and stories used during a Passover Seder — that amends the traditional “Next Year in Jerusalem!” to include “Next Year in Al-Quds!” as well. It offers an “alternative” Tisha B’Av program focused on the “Nakba” and the “liberation of Palestinians.” It promotes a version of Hanukkah dedicated “to the struggle against Israeli apartheid.” And it helped organize a “Rabbis for Ceasefire” event outside the Capitol.
Whether it’s a deliberate bastardization of the Jewish religion or a sort of willful ignorance, JVP gets Judaism wrong. Passover, of course, is a retelling of the story of the Israelites’ return to their native land, but if JVP were to acknowledge that, it would undercut its anti-Zionist messaging. Tisha B’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, among other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. JVP actually does note that history in its guide to the holiday: “As Anti-Zionist Jews, we release any attachment to the Temple and instead, invoke the spiritual power of this day in service of the Liberation of Palestine.” Once again, were the organization to recognize the meaning of the day of remembrance, it would effectively provide evidence against its own claims. Its anti-Zionist Hanukkah is similarly either duplicitous or historically and religiously illiterate; that holiday revolves around the celebration of a successful Jewish rebellion against a Seleucid ruler, restoring a Jewish kingdom in the land of Israel. The “Rabbis for Ceasefire” event is particularly striking in its incongruity. The woman leading the Torah service that took place outside the Capitol read from Genesis 26:3, the point at which God commands Isaac to stay in the land of Israel despite an ongoing famine. When the reader got to the line addressing the covenant He made with Abraham — translating to “Reside in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; I will assign all these lands to you and your heirs, fulfilling the oath that I swore to your father Abraham” — her voice lowered to a near-whisper; an anti-Zionist must neglect that part of the Torah.
JVP’s positioning of itself as an organization that represents the entirety of American Jewry is, much like its interpretation of Jewish holidays, out of touch with reality. A 2020 Pew Research survey shows that about 80 percent of American Jews say caring about Israel is an essential or important part of their Jewish identity, and according to a 2019 Gallup poll, almost 90 percent of Jews are more sympathetic to Israel than they are to Palestinians.
Given that JVP doesn’t speak for the majority or even a significant portion of American Jews, whose cause does it advance? If its own words and actions are to be believed, it’s that of those who wish Israel harm — and with it, Jewish people the world over.
Jewish Voice for Peace had not responded to National Review’s requests for comment by publication time.