Letter to the Leadership of the North American Jewish Community
June 19, 2020
To the leadership of the North American Jewish community,
We write to you as a community of North American Jews who are deeply invested in our community and who have spent significant time in Israel. Our work and personal commitments have been driven by a conviction that all Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live with dignity and equality. As Israel’s newly elected “emergency government” proceeds with its plans to formally annex territory in the West Bank as soon as July 1, we write with grave concern about the risks such a move would pose to a future of democracy and equality for all Israelis and Palestinians.
Annexation threatens to formalize and make permanent the unequal and deeply unjust system of occupation that Israel has maintained for 53 years. In the West Bank, Israel currently maintains two separate systems of law: civil law for Israeli citizens and military law for Palestinian non-citizens. Now, with the encouragement of the Trump Administration, Israel’s leadership is announcing that it intends to maintain permanent control over the territory it has occupied since June 1967, denying the millions of Palestinians who live there citizenship and basic civil rights in perpetuity.
We have seen the proposed maps for annexation presented by the Trump Administration and Prime Minister Netanyahu, which relegate Palestinians to isolated, non-contiguous city-states reminiscent of the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa. These fractured islands of autonomy being offered to Palestinians make a mockery of the just demand for independence and self-determination that all peoples deserve. Annexation will lead to further violations of the rights to property, equality and dignity of the Palestinians living in the West Bank, and entrench a system of discrimination between Israeli citizens and Palestinian subjects.
It is unthinkable that our own Jewish community will stay silent as Israel formally dismantles its democracy in favor of such a system. That is why we are alarmed by the silence of major institutions and leaders in our community as Israel announces its intention to carry out a historic abandonment of its stated commitments to pursue peace.
For decades, we have watched our communal institutions proclaim their support for a two-state solution as the only way to secure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. Yet in word and deed, those very same institutions have done everything in their power to shield Israel from accountability and to prevent any reckoning with its decades-long occupation. They stood idly by as the settlement project strategically overtook large swaths of the West Bank in order to prevent the emergence of an independent, contiguous Palestinian state, while marginalizing voices of conscience warning about the moral crisis of a permanent occupation.
We have borne witness to the injustice of this occupation in various ways. Each of us has spent significant time living in Israel, and we are in relationship with Palestinians who will endure the consequences of annexation. Those of us who have been to communities in the South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley in Area C, and large Palestinian cities like Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Nablus, know what permanent occupation looks like. We know that Palestinians living in places like Susya and Umm al-Kheir live under military law — with no rights — while their Jewish neighbors in settlements next door live under civilian law, with the full rights and privileges that citizenship affords. Each time we visit those places, we are reminded of how far the deeply unequal and oppressive reality on the ground is from the consciousness of those in leadership in our own community.
As our own nation comes to terms with the scope of systemic racism in our country, and as we commit ourselves to dismantling it, it is unconscionable that North American Jewish institutions refuse to speak out against the formalization of a system of subjugation and discrimination in Israel.
We urge the leadership of our community to act in every possible way to oppose this disastrous step and to hold Israel accountable for its actions.
As major institutions and organizations are doing the work of examining the ways in which we are part of upholding unjust systems of white supremacy and racism in the United States — and how each is accountable to dismantling it — we ask you to commit to the same process of interrogating how our communal institutions are part of upholding racist and exclusionary systems in Israel. How is your organization part of shielding the injustices of Israel’s occupation from accountability, and what steps are you committing to take to dismantle it?
As we learn from the wisdom of our sages, shtika kehoda’a damya — silence is complicity. That is true especially now. Now is a time when your voice matters and when your actions will be counted. We refuse to be silent as our communal leadership and institutions stand idly by as Israel’s government takes steps that are antithetical to both Israel’s future as a democratic state and to the prospects of a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Signed,
Alumni of the Dorot Fellowship in Israel
*Jonah Fisher ‘12–13
*Elisheva Goldberg ‘14–15
*Jacob Levkowicz ‘16–17
Liya Rechtman ‘16–17
Harry Reis ‘17–18
*Maya Rosen ‘17–18
Yoav Schaefer ‘17–18
Simone Zimmerman ’16–17
Kiki Lipsett ‘13–14
Naomi Orensten ‘05–06
Zazu Tauber ’19–20
Becky Mer ‘12–13
Gene Goldstein-Plesser ‘18–19
Sam Kuttner ‘14–15
Ilana Sumka ‘04–05
Ariel Resnikoff ‘13–14
Andrew Gordon-Kirsch ‘10–11
Bryan Susman ‘16–17
Yaakov Malomet ‘18–19
Naomi Shiffman ‘15–16
Alice Mishkin ‘10–11
Sarah Miller ‘03–04
Celeste Jackson ‘10–11
Jessye Ejdelman ‘17–18
Joshua Krug ‘16–17
Dr. Jen Holzer ‘08–09
Zev Rose ‘19–20
Sruly Heller ‘15–16
Rabbi Dena Trugman ‘08–09
*Rafi Ellenson ‘19–20
Rivka Weinstock ‘13–14
Sarah Rosen ‘17–18
Marissa Isaak Wald ‘06–07
Avery Robinson ‘16–17
Navit Robkin Salzberg ‘07–08
Guy Maytal ‘98–99
Ben Murane ‘12–13
Robert Silverman ‘05–06
Aaron Voldman ‘13–14
Rachel Riegelhaupt ‘17–18
Sivan Battat ‘18–19
Eric Seligman ‘17–18
Jenna Weinberg ‘13–14
Elianna Boswell ‘19–20
Daniel Sieradski ‘04–05
Natasha Westheimer ‘16–17
Tehila Wenger ‘15–16
Jennifer Schwarz ‘15–16
Rabbi Sara Meirowitz ‘06–07
David Jaffe ‘91–92
Lilach Shafir ‘09–10
Naamah Paley Rose ‘08–09
Dan Magder ‘96–97
Beth Silverberg Marx ‘94–95
Seth A Wikas ‘02–03
Jesse Zaritt ‘06–07
Mara Getz Sheftel ‘04–05
Kate Press ‘08–09
Naomi Davis ‘19–20
Hayley Sakwa ‘19–20
Ra’anan Boustan ‘96–97
Eliana Kissner ‘15-’16
Todd Nelson ‘18–19
Hannah Graham ‘11–12
Shani Rosenbaum ‘12–13
Anna Leah Berstein Simpson ‘19–20
Jennie Goldstein ‘12–13
Brian Schaefer ‘10–11
Lipaz Avigal ‘19–20
Daniel Silberbusch ‘05–06
Ned Lazarus ‘96–97
Nahanni Rous ‘02–03
Aliza Geretz ‘91–92
Shana Tabak ‘04–05
Caroline Kessler ‘17–18
Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen ’96–97
Lynda Yankaskas –’00–01
Gabriella Wachs ’18–19
Jessica Lieberman ’98–99
Jacob Press ‘91–92
Jake Marmer ’08-‘09
Alumni of the Bronfman Youth Fellowship
Noa Silver ‘04
*Elisheva Goldberg ‘05
Nat Rosenzweig ‘05
Shani Rosenbaum ‘06
*Jonah Fisher ‘06
*Maya Rosen ‘11
Gabriel Fisher ‘11
Kaitlin Nemeth ‘05
Elliot Mamet ‘10
Rachel Cohen ‘05
Mikaela Gerwin ‘14
Yardena Gerwin ‘17
Danya Levy ‘14
Elie Peltz ‘08
Talya Nevins ‘12
Sarah Jacobs ‘10
Zev Mishell ‘16
Syd Bakal ‘17
Marisa Harford ‘96
Miriam Cohen ‘15
Eliana Golding ‘07
Idit Klein ‘89
Abigail Fisher ‘18
*Rafi Ellenson ‘11
Leora Balinsky-Zimra ‘12
Penina Satlow ‘16
Molly Weiner ‘19
Tamar A Lindenbaum ‘12
Matt Landes ‘12
Katelyn McInerney ‘18
Ethan Greenberg ‘15
Leah Mundell ‘90
Talya Nevins ‘12
Lara Kislinger ‘98
Hanna Sufrin ‘03
Jacob Albert ‘06
Daphna Ezrachi ‘05
Raysh Weiss ‘01
Aliza Gans ‘09
Arielle Silvan ‘19
Saskia Laufer ‘18
Kalman Victor ‘10
Abigail Sylvor Greenberg ‘19
Daniel Krane ‘12
Lili Brown ‘13
Daniel Krane ‘12
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen ‘10
Grace Wallack ‘08
Anya Kamenetz ‘97
Tali Anisfeld ‘15
Chava Lansky ‘11
Zora Arum ‘15
Talya Lerner ‘18
Rachel Wallace ‘06
Giovanna Wiseman ‘17
Ella Padawer ‘13
Jonathon Feinberg ‘03
Ariel Werner ‘04
Yael Marans ‘15
Gabe Frieman ‘97
*Lital Firestone ‘12
Marni Loffman ‘13
Marin Callaway ‘13
Daneel Schaechter ‘08
Talya Nevins ‘12
Akiva Jacobs ‘17
Sara Ryave ‘18
Judith Rosenbaum ‘90
Ella Padawer ‘13
Ayelet Wenger ‘11
Ali Kriegsman ‘08
Jacob Miller ‘18
Bina Peltz ‘09
Lindsay Klickstein ‘14
Jacob Albert ‘06
Rachel Lauter ‘01
Rafi Lehmann ‘14
Rebecca Stein ‘09
Michelle Sternthal ‘95
Ilana Weinstein ‘16
Aaron Clayton-Dunn ‘08
Roberta Emily Goldman ‘07
Marnina Wirtschafter ‘10
Arden Dressner Levy ‘16
Zane Hellmann ‘11
Maya Fischhoff ‘88
Lindsay Klickstein ‘14
Evan Parks ‘05
Gideon Finck ‘06
Raphael Magarik ‘05
Emmet Dotan ‘13
Noah Kippley-Ogman ‘03
Lara Kislinger ‘98
Avigayil Halpern ‘13
Alumni of the NIF/Shatil Social Justice Fellowship in Israel
*Jacob Levkowicz ‘17–18
Emma Kippley-Ogman ‘08–09
Rena Oppenheimer ’14–15
Sara Rostolder Mandell ’03–4
Joshua Schwartz ’16–17
Ilana Sichel ’08–09
Yael Maizel ’06–07
Peri Feldstein ‘19–20
Gabe Kravitz ’10–11
Nomi Teutsch ’12–13
Harris Engelmann ’14–15
Rabbi Andy Shugerman ’02–03
Mariel Boyarsky ’10–11
Maya Paley ’10–11
Aaron Press Taylor ’14–15
Tamar Ariel ’10–11
*Alumni of multiple fellowships
