‘Progressive’ Jewish organizations have abandoned Palestine. It’s time to abandon them.

Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza has claimed the lives of over 21,500 Palestinians, including 106 targeted journalists and their families — with over 55,900 injured or in critical condition. Beyond the death toll, Israel has indiscriminately bombed hospitals, schools, residential areas, and aid trucks, maximizing the damage to Palestinian life in their continued attacks on Gaza.

In the wake of this genocide being committed by the colonial entity that heralds itself as the “Jewish State,” there has been a resounding silence from Jewish organizations that pride themselves on progressivism and who brand themselves with the image of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Jewish organizations made explicitly by and for Jews of Color — organizations that purport to provide space and voice to racially marginalized Jewish community members — have had little to say on the violent dispossession of Palestinians in recent months. Organizations lauded by Jews of Color for providing anti-racist resources, for showcasing the multiracial realities of Jews around the globe, and for combatting intercommunity oppression — have apparently decided that acting on their values is better saved for the next genocide as Israel carries out its latest campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. Some of these organizations have even given platforms to Zionists or released statements condemning Hamas that parrot Zionist rhetoric. Others have more or less avoided the subject at all, posting surveys that vaguely allude to “challenging times,” or holding “prayer space” for “complicated feelings.” 

Other progressive Jewish organizations post disproved misinformation that relies on racist tropes to demonize Palestinians, some actively partner with Zionist and Israeli institutions, and others ask for donations towards holding meetings on the “Israel/Palestine conflict” in which Jewish community members are “guided toward a place of peace.” More yet use language alluding to “violence,” referencing only “immense Jewish suffering” (with no mention of Palestinian suffering), or celebrate Israeli Occupation Force soldiers in the aftermath of their attacks on Palestinians. 

Ironically, these very same organizations otherwise pride themselves on having progressive politics, celebrating LGBTQ+ identity, offering programs on racism and climate justice, and sharing immigrant and refugee stories. But what happens when those immigrants and refugees are Palestinian? Palestinians that have been made refugees directly by Israel’s forced displacement, the most since the Nakba? 

So-called progressive Jewish organizations have nothing to say. They have failed Palestine, and so they have failed progressivism and progressive Jews altogether.

These organizations condemn racism in one breath, and in the other, are silent when it comes to genocide in Palestine — or worse, they actively cheer it on. More than that, notable “anti-Zionist” Jewish activists, organizers, Internet personalities, and figureheads follow and work with these groups to whom Palestinian life is secondary, if at all. 

The Jewish community cannot, in good conscience, continue to parade around progressive politics that seemingly vanish when Palestinians need solidarity. There must be a reckoning with the “progressive” Jewish role in Israel’s violent brutalization of Palestinians, and that reckoning begins from within. No longer can Jewish individuals of principal and good character prop up community organizations that have thoroughly abandoned any semblance of caring for justice. The common phenomenon “Progressive Except for Palestine” cannot be allowed to proliferate in Jewish spaces, for Palestine is the litmus test for all causes of the oppressed.  

Perhaps these organizations walk careful lines to secure funding, serve a Jewish audience that entertains Israeli friends and family, or naively believe that following mainstream Jewish action will allow them to hide in plain sight. What the executive boards and staff members of these groups must realize is that staying silent on Palestine or towing the common Zionist line will not protect them from white supremacy, as the liberation and oppression of all groups are interconnected, and eventually, our turn will come — it’s up to us to decide if we will guarantee our own demise or work toward an interconnected and liberated future.  

Jewish individuals who consider themselves justice defenders are left with one reasonable course of action: abandon Jewish organizations, institutions, and spaces that are unprincipled in the face of certain genocide. These organizations only exist because we, the Jewish community, give them relevance and power. If stripped of that — they have no choice but to change or fade into nothingness. 

This choice does not mean abandoning one’s Jewishness or community — quite the opposite. It means grounding oneself in Jewish people and spaces guided by liberatory values and justice-centered frameworks. There are Jewish people already doing this work, as some progressive Jews have noticed the lacking response from progressive Jewish organizations, have organized a strike against Zionist institutions, and have reaffirmed their commitment to building bridges of solidarity. 

A Jewish future free of violence and dispossession relies on our commitment to Palestinian freedom now, and if we truly believe in progressivism, the work starts now, too.