Israel’s assault on Gaza last May alienated many American Jews, and a lawsuit against a Westchester temple for firing 26-year-old Jessie Sander, an avowed anti-Zionist, for her blogpost condemning Israeli “genocide” and the pro-Israel “propaganda” of American Jewish institutions, highlights the fissures inside the Jewish community.

Given the reality of the historic and ongoing injustice at the core of Zionism, Congregation Tzedek Chicago has concluded that it is not enough to describe itself simply as “non-Zionist.” In a statement explaining the decision its board of director’s writes, “We believe this neutral term fails to honor the central anti-racist premise that structures of oppression cannot be simply ignored; on the contrary, they must be transformed. “

Israel advocates are pushing a new front. They say that progressive are antisemitic when they characterize Jews as privileged, and don’t acknowledge history and “the unique collective Jewish vulnerability.” So the anti-Zionist understanding that Israel is a powerful settler-colonial state is antisemitic because that leaves out the origins of Zionism in Jewish persecution in Europe, according to Jonathan Greenblatt of ADL and the Reut Group of Tel Aviv.

Rabbi Wendi Geffen of a Reform congregation outside Chicago gave a sermon after the last Gaza conflict saying anti-Zionist Jews must not be allowed inside the Jewish “tent” because the “vast majority” of Jews support Israel. And she said the assertion by some Jews that Zionism contradicts progressive values is a threat to the Jewish people more dangerous than external threats. Her views are important because they reflect official Jewish statements that conflate Zionism and Judaism.

French writer Bernard-Henri Levy makes an absurd assertion on Kristallnacht anniversary– that just as Jews ignored the warning signs of the coming storm in 1938, they are ignoring signs now; “anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel” are “black stars which are above our heads, which are still under control for the moment but which could be the prelude to the worst.”

Right after Israel’s foreign minister derided social media portrayal of Israel at an ADL conference, two New York Times staffers came on to criticize social media for spreading antisemitism and conspiracy theories. Their appearance was an implicit endorsement of the Israel lobby group, with the imprimatur of the New York Times.

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl says she was “angry and embarrassed” that 94 rabbinical and cantatorial students wrote a letter accusing Israel of “violent suppression of human rights” and “apartheid” during its last Gaza onslaught, and said she would not “hire anyone who signed that letter.” Buchdahl was letting slip a policy that many Jewish organizations maintain, not to hire or give a platform to those who question Zionism.

David Harris of the American Jewish Committee declares war on young Jews who have joined allegedly “antisemitic”, anti-Zionist organizations so as to overcome social isolation and “are willing to throw millions of other Jews under the bus.”

Israel lobbyist David Harris, who couldn’t explain why young Jews are turning against Israel, is finally leaving the American Jewish Committee. And Rabbi Michael Miller is leaving the JCRC because he knows he’s out of touch with the progressive movement in Jewish life.

Divisions over Israel will bring “disaster and disunity” for Jews in the U.S., Abraham Riesman writes in New York magazine in an article about his grandfather, an Israel lobbyist who helped cover up war crimes. Young Riesman says the massacres and imprisonment of Palestinians today makes Jews unsafe.