How Anti-Zionist American Jews Are Organizing For a Ceasefire in Gaza

Anti-war Jewish Americans, an outlier group within their Jewish communities, are urging U.S. leaders to call for a ceasefire.

Over the past two months, a progressive wing of American Judaism has gained prominence, one defined by mass mobilization against the Israeli government’s unrelenting bombing in Gaza. That intergenerational community – nearly always youth-led, but with those old enough to be Holocaust survivors regularly involved – has faced police pepper spray at the DNC, sat on hunger-strike with Palestinian organizers outside the White House, interrupted politicians at dinner, and shut down transit centers across the country.

In November, more than 400 New Yorkers, most of them Jewish, covertly entered the Statue of Liberty to hold a sit-in on the pedestal of that monument calling for a ceasefire. Dressed as tourists, they boarded boats to the statue in small, disconnected groups among the thousands who visit the statue each day. Once they convened, they hung “CEASEFIRE NOW” banners from the statue’s pedestal and chanted for just under an hour before leaving the island on a tourist ferry.

The sit-in at the Statue of Liberty was one in a series of disruptive actions held by groups of American Jews for a ceasefire in Gaza. On Friday, October 27th, as dusk fell over Grand Central Station, commuters were unable to make their way through the midtown Manhattan hub — not because of usual rush hour traffic, but because of several hundred protesters led by the progressive anti-Zionist American Jewish group Jewish Voice for Peace, staging a sit-in in the main terminal. More chanted outside, blocked from the entryways by police. Activists clambered up the departures board to drop banners, and stood there until the police used a boom lift to arrest them and lower them down.

As the American government continues to send messages of support, and funding, to Israel’s siege on Gaza, young people across the country have mobilized to call for an end to the violence; in particular, Palestinian-American led groups such as the Palestinian Youth Movement have organized teach-ins, cultural events, and mass protests drawing thousands week after week across the country. Recent Gallup Poll numbers show that 67% of Americans under 35 oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza, while progressive think tank Data for Progress has released polling that states 61% of Americans overall support a permanent ceasefire.

Meanwhile, within the Jewish American community, the political divide is to some degree generational: in a Jewish Electorate Institute poll in November, 83% of those over 36 supported Biden’s handling of the war, while only 53% of American Jews under 36 agreed. That makes anti-war Jewish Americans an outlier group in the Jewish community, while their religion also makes them a minority part of the broader American left. They have taken on two roles: as headline-grabbing stagers of civil-disobedience and co-crafters of what a pro-Palestinian Judaism can look like.

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