Anti-Zionist Jews Lead Protests Against IDF Fundraisers

Many years ago, I attended High Holidays services at Rodeph Shalom synagogue. It was a special experience for me because my great-great grandfather Rabbi Henry Berkowitz served as the second rabbi of this congregation, from 1892–1921. I felt meaningful belonging when the rabbi explicitly stated that transgender Jews are welcome. Sadly, the tone shifted when the rabbi spoke to one of her largest audiences of the year about why she rejects the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the State of Israel, slandering this nonviolent strategy (built on the success of the South African anti-apartheid movement) as antisemitic. As a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and an active supporter of the Palestinian civil society call for BDS, I learned that I was not actually welcome in the congregation with my whole self, my full ethical integrity.

This memory came back to me suddenly when I learned that Rodeph Shalom was poised to host a massive fundraising event for the Friends of the IDF (FIDF), with ticket prices up to $36,000 at the “Major General” level, on November 30. I felt a flood of shame that Rodeph Shalom would host this crass and cynical celebration of militarism, while we all witness the devastating wreckage in Gaza, the bombed hospitals, the soaring civilian death tolls, the dead babies, the people told to flee with nowhere to escape, no water, no food, no fuel.

Do the congregants support this? Most of them don’t even know their spiritual home was used this way. The event was not listed on the Rodeph Shalom (RS) website, not openly advertised to the membership. It was posted on the FIDF website with no location acknowledged — apparently aware that a public event of this kind would and should be protested. An invitee leaked the details, compelled to speak out against this celebration of death and destruction. In reaching out to members of the RS community, I spoke to many who were shocked and upset to learn of the event, and agreed to share their concern with the leadership.

Members of JVP, IfNotNow, and others in the Philadelphia Jewish community have been mobilizing by the thousands almost daily to cry out for a ceasefire, to say NOT IN MY NAME to Israel’s extremist right-wing government and our elected officials in Pennsylvania and DC. In Philly, we held a vigil counter to the FIDF gala on Thursday night. At the same time, a group of young Israelis disrupted an FIDF event in Manhattan.

What would Rabbi Berkowitz say? I don’t have to guess. He was among the loudest voices of anti-Zionism in the early days of Zionist mobilization, and a member of the National Committee of Rabbis Opposed to Zionism. In 1899, he published the essay “Why I Oppose Zionism” in the Central Conference of American Rabbis Journal, touring the country to speak out on this theme.

In 1919, Rabbi Berkowitz co-organized a petition signed by three hundred prominent U.S. Jews which was published in the New York Times and delivered to the Paris Peace Conference. The 1919 statement, addressed to President Woodrow Wilson, made prescient points in opposition to the Zionist movement, including warnings that Zionists underestimated Muslim and Christian Palestinians’ allegiance to the land, that Zionism’s assurance of respect for other communities under Jewish dominance were incompatible with real equality, democracy, or the safety of the global Jewish community.

Like my rabbinic ancestor, I’m a longtime anti-Zionist. JVP Philadelphia’s inbox overflows with Jews and other allies reaching out to join in calls for peace, and for an end to the occupation and the unjust conditions that can only yield more violence.

Rodeph Shalom is generally a progressive synagogue with active commitments to racial and economic justice and LGBTQ+ inclusion. Shame on the RS administration for hosting this private mega-fundraiser for the Israeli military — even more absurd given that the IDF already receives over $3 billion a year from the U.S. Government, with an additional $14.3 billion recently proposed by the Biden administration.

I truly hope the congregants will demand that their spiritual home never be used this way again.