This is an article and conversation about Israel, Palestine, and anti-Semitism. I am sending it because I think it's an important conversation to have. The person who posted this is a rabbi who lives in both Israel and the US. The article is also by a rabbi.
--Kim
This is an important message from Rabbi Rachel Kobrin. The antisemitism on the left is bad, and it's getting worse. It's vitally important that we mobilize to engage people who claim to be liberal and progressive, who profess universal values, except when it comes to Jews and Israel. There is way too much demonizing of Jews coming from the left. AIPAC is being turned into a big bogeyman, the Jews are buying elections, etc., when in fact many other countries far outspend AIPAC and Israel - including China, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. I don't know how to combat this antisemitism other than by getting out there and being vocal, and calling the supposed liberals on their illiberality when it comes to the Jewish people.
Calling Out the Left, From the Left
I am a liberal rabbi. Every Shabbat, I lead my congregation in prayers for safety and healing for both Israelis and Palestinians. I have been deeply critical of Netanyahu and his government and I have protested alongside hundreds of thousands of liberal Israelis in the streets of Tel Aviv. I donate to organizations dedicated to coexistence and have shared tea in the home of Palestinian peace activists in the West Bank. Last month, 12 fellows from the Task Force on Arab Citizens of Israel visited my congregation and we listened with deep empathy to their personal stories and struggles.
My views and my activism have sometimes earned me criticism within my community. Some have feared that crying out for the pain and suffering of Palestinians somehow undermines my desperate cries for the peace, safety, and security of Israelis. But I do not believe that is the case.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is extraordinarily difficult. Holding compassion for both peoples should not be. To me, this is not a departure from my religious and progressive values; it is the essence of them. The belief that every person's humanity matters. The belief that suffering deserves empathy. The belief that justice requires us to expand our moral concern, and that Israelis and Palestinians both deserve dignity, security, and self-determination.
For most of my life, I assumed those values were widely shared by the people and movements I considered my political home. Lately, I am not so sure.
What has shaken me over the last two years is not criticism of Israel. It is how noble critique of Israeli policy has swiftly turned into radicalized calls for Israel’s elimination - a sentiment we never apply to other nations. This obsessive fixation within leftist political discourse has created real fear in many Jews. And yet, when Jews talk about these fears, people in my own political camp stop listening.
That is why I have found myself deeply troubled by the campaign of congressional candidate Melat Kiros.
Kiros and I agree on many issues, from Medicare for All to immigrant and LBGTQIA+ rights to affordable housing. However, over the past year, I have repeatedly found myself wondering whether she understands the fear she creates in Jews like me. She has condemned the existence of the Jewish state of Israel. She has called the atrocities of October 7, 2023 both "resistance" and “inevitable.” Just this week, she refused to call the 2025 firebombing attack on Jews in Boulder antisemitic. When she can’t even name the antisemitism Jews in Colorado are experiencing every day, how can we believe that she will work for our safety? I have deep concerns that the “just” world she claims to want to create does not include Jews like me and my community. She considers Israel an illegitimate, colonialist state and appears to have closed her mind to all other opinions and, indeed, to the human consequences of her rhetoric.
Over the past year, Denver’s Jewish community has repeatedly tried to engage Melat Kiros. We have shared our fears and concerns. Yet time and again, we have been met with dismissal, indifference, or silence. We understand she may not agree with us on everything, but we need her to have the humility to really listen, to try to understand our point of view, and to hear and respond to our fears.
These fears were amplified by Kiros's decision to organize a rally featuring Hasan Piker and elevate him as a prominent voice in her campaign.
To many people, Piker is simply a provocative political commentator. To me, he represents a growing tendency on the left to speak passionately about empathy and justice while showing remarkably little of either when Jews are involved. He is profoundly dangerous.
I recently watched a video in which Piker laughed as a woman described her fears about rising antisemitism in America. Piker has repeatedly said that he would vote for Hamas over Israel "every time." Together with a guest, he characterized the firebombing attack in Boulder as similar to anti-Nazi resistance. He also calls Hamas and Houthi attacks "resistance," denounces anybody who has ever expressed positive feelings about Israel, and describes liberal Zionists as liberal Nazis.
Sick. Absurd. Infuriating. When Piker equates most mainstream Jews with the barbaric people who murdered our families, he is flipping the narrative and building validation for Jewish-hate and violence here in America and beyond.
By choosing to elevate Piker and share a platform with him, Kiras made a clear statement. She signaled that this kind of rhetoric is acceptable within her political coalition. For most Jews, including folks like me who advocate tirelessly for peace, coexistence, and Palestinian dignity and self determination, that message is terrifying.
When people on the right use antisemitic tropes, those of us on the left are quick to point fingers. Yet when antisemitic discourse comes from within our party, many just shrug and ignore it.
But there are real consequences to telling people that millions of ordinary Jews belong outside the moral community, and that Israel should not exist. This is not only deeply hurtful; it also fuels antisemitic violence.
In the past month alone, students in Boulder issued a statement praising the fatal Boulder firebomb attack as an act of "resistance." (I bet they listen to Piker.) Denver Jewish Day School was forced to cancel summer camp after receiving threats. The ADL filed a civil rights complaint alleging severe antisemitic harassment in Boulder schools. And one of my congregants left his middle-school baseball team, because the antisemitic hate speech was unbearable. These are just a handful of examples of what we are facing every day.
When Kiras speaks about dignity and justice for all people, I want to believe she means it. But dignity that excludes Jews and denies the safety of Israelis is not universal dignity. And a politics that embraces voices that mock Jewish fears or demonize Jewish identity does not make my community safer—it makes us more vulnerable.
I will continue to advocate for all who are marginalized and insecure in our society, because that is what my religion and my humanity demand of me. But right now, I feel marginalized as an American Jew, and I need politicians to recognize that. I do not believe Milat Kiros has shown the curiosity, humility, and empathy necessary to represent my community as a political leader.
Henry Newman
Barry Leff In my opinion be careful calling the left strongly disagreeing with Israeli policy as antisemitism. Many I know are not antisemitism but strongly disagree with their long term policies.
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Henry Newman I absolutely do not do that. Did you look at the examples she cited? They are clearly veering into antisemitic territory. It's scary for liberal Jews such as myself who feel politically homeless now. I could never vote for someone like Kiros, who celebrates people who call terrorist murders "resistance," but I also can't vote for the right with their obnoxious policies.
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Alan Edelstein
Henry Newman : I think you’re in denial. I’m an Israeli citizen. I strongly criticize the current Israeli government, to the point of protesting weekly and sometimes two to three weeks for over a year. The far left, and now some in the mainstream Democratic Party (of which I was a member virtually all of my adult life and with which I still identify on many issues) have intentionally adopted or unknowingly slipped into language and behavior that reflects centuries-old Jew-hatred. A group of American Jews participating in the political process are “monsters.” A candidate who wore a Nazi tattoo for decades is rationalized and defended. A nation is disproportionately focused on, its actions are lied about and greatly exaggerated, it is tagged with “genocide “ when it did no such thing, it’s very existence is questioned when no other nation’s existence is questioned, etc etc. If you think this is just criticism, I think you are living in an alternative universe.
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Henry Newman
Not in denial. Just observation of what I see in the USA.
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Henry Newman I'm a strong critic of the Israeli government, both in Israel and in the USA. But the antisemites don't care. They will come demonstrate at even Reform synagogues, where most of the congregants also hate what the Israeli government is doing. That's antisemitism, plain and simple. No one is protesting outside Russian Orthodox churches because of Russia's totally unjustified war in Ukraine.
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Henry Newman
Barry Leff Don't disagree. All I'm saying is some people view disagreement with Israel as anti-semitic behavior. I know you don't but there are many who do. I was just talking to my family and it came up.
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Henry Newman my friends do not. We are scared of real antisemitism, not scared of criticism of Israel. We are some of the current Israeli government’s biggest critics!
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Rose Jesse Herrera
I won't support any candidate or party who wants to eliminate Israel.
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David Newman
Although there are many valid and disturbing observations and points, what is clearly missed is the majority of the Palestinians truly hate Jews. Period. Hard stop.
Regardless of those trying to “bridge the divide”, when one party is so mired in hatred, the challenge is that there is little dialogue possible, if at all. How do you push back? Be a harbinger of change? How many from the south of Israel and the kibbutzim, with their advocacy for peace, were led to believe the people they were talking to and helping were part of the movement? And then Oct 7th came about and it was obvious that their trust was betrayed with terrible consequences.
Call me a cynic, but it’s hard to hold out a hand in peace when it’s constantly being slapped away.
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David Newman we either make peace with our enemies or we have endless war. I’m tired of war.
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David Newman
Barry Leff I agree, however it’s going to take massive deradicalization over generations to get to the point where there can be meaningful dialogue. Or the leadership has to change and convince the populace to abandon their hatred. Regardless, it is going to be a daunting task.
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Jason Van Leeuwen
Why should an organization aiding and abetting genocide be demonized?
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Jason Van Leeuwen why isn’t China being demonized the save way for the way they treat the Uighurs and Tibetans? There are many other terrible countries that don’t seem to get the attention Israel gets.
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Jason Van Leeuwen
Barry Leff please use arguments younger than me. It's because Israel has gotten over $100b in aid. Let's ditch the word "demonized," which connotes undeservedness. You can't demonize a demon. I'm for demonizing all of them. So, you're seeing similarities between China and Israel, too, huh? What's it going to take to make you see? 21k dead kids not enough? 5k under 5? 1k infants? 420 newborns. 1k starved to death? A kid killed EVERY DAY since the cease fire? Explicitly genocidal language constantly coming from cabinet ministers? What will your descendants think when they evaluate what you did about our fellow Jews behaving like... wait for it.... monsters? They will surely not be kind.
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Kim Cooper
Jason Van Leeuwen Assuming all Jews are "behaving like monsters" is the same as assuming all Americans are in full agreement with Trump. Most of us are horrified by what both governments are doing. Why should we be condemned as if we agreed with it?
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Andy Barrett
This comparison is misleading because it conflates different kinds of influence spending. AIPAC’s direct lobbying disclosures are only one slice of the picture and don’t capture the much larger election spending done through affiliated PACs and super PACs. So pointing to foreign lobbying totals from countries like China or Saudi Arabia doesn’t actually answer the question of AIPAC’s political influence in U.S. elections.
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Andy Barrett AIPAC has a lot of influence. But there are other foreign organizations standing a lot of money with a lot of influence that get totally ignored. Why is that?
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Andy Barrett
Barry Leff simply because AIPAC’s role is unusually visible inside domestic U.S. electoral politics, not just foreign lobbying.If the comparison is ‘who spends on influence in Washington’ then yes, include Saudi, China, Japan, Qatar, etc. But if the question is ‘why does AIPAC get so much attention,’ part of the answer is that its influence is exercised through a very active U.S. political network spending heavily in congressional and primary elections, which is a different category than traditional foreign lobbying. I don’t think most people know the degree to which this is happening, but shouldn’t we all be glad to see our politics in open revolt of this starus quo. We’ve given too much of our democracy away it it landed us in an illegal war in Iran that in no way benefits anyone other than Israel.
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Rachel Cohen Yeshurun
The assumption that others think like you and want the same things is wrong. The vast majority of Palestinians hate Israel and hate Jews. When you support Palestinians and emphasize with their self-inflicted suffering don't be surprised when they turn against you.
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