by Rachel Brustein

In an essay titled, “We Need New Jewish Institutions,” published in this past summer’s issue of Jewish Currents, Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel discusses cultural, social service, political, and religious institutions in American Jewish life. Angel quotes president of the liberal Zionist Shalom Hartman Institute Yehuda Kurtzer, who wrote in The Forward in November 2023, that “the Jewish left will have no seats at any tables besides the ones they set for themselves,” indicating that the left should no longer be welcome in mainstream Jewish life. Writing shortly after the massive March for Israel in Washington, DC, which drew people with ideologies from CUFI (Trumpist Christian Zionists) to T’ruah (liberal Zionist social justice-leaning Jews), Kurtzer was correct, Angel reflects, in saying that we need new Jewish institutions. More recently, the New York Times reported on the growing impetus to build such institutions, which do not center Zionism. While I agree with Angel’s analysis, and even think that it is refreshing, intimidating, and devastating all at once to say that Kurtzer is right, Angel’s essay leaves some unanswered questions about possible directions for the left in synagogues and ritual communities.

Perhaps just as Kurtzer desires to be “unburdened” by the anti-Zionist Jewish left, I too desire to be unburdened by Zionist propaganda, pro-war messaging, dehumanizing language about Palestinians, and prayers for nation-states. Angel argues for the daunting project of building new institutions, which  is already starting to happen, and had been happening prior to 10/7. The Times mentions that some progressive Zionist organizations want to include those who are “profoundly, wholeheartedly critical of Israel,” which is a lost cause in political and advocacy organizations, but has value in religious institutions, like synagogues. 

For several years, my friends and I were part of a large, politically diverse, intergenerational Conservative synagogue, which many of us attended weekly. We spent that time building trusting relationships and pushing for more progressive rhetoric and action around Israel/Palestine from the inside. We had some degree of success, such as Resetting the Table workshops. After 10/7, these efforts quickly collapsed. A few members, primarily the board and senior rabbinic leadership, became increasingly hostile towards us, pinnacling in my friend and me putting on “Jews Say Ceasefire Now” t-shirts in the middle of services, and ultimately being suspended by the board from entering the building. We were required to complete a forced apology process in order to return. 

Slowly, over the past several months, some of us began to attend a different, existing minyan, one that is largely apolitical and predominantly composed of people 30 to 50 years older than we are. It is ideologically diverse; the prayer leaders often choose to say prayers for nation-states, and it is far less “institutional” than our previous synagogue. It is small, lay-led, and has been extremely welcoming: they know what brought us there. There is a local non-Zionist chavurah, mostly consisting of participants in our age demographic, of which many of us are active participants. But we know that religiously and structurally, it cannot offer everything that a longstanding institution or formal synagogue offers. The chavurah is committed to existing outside of institutional Jewish life, limiting the scope of our Jewish lives that it can touch, and is flexible in its orientation to religious practice, which limits its ability to serve its various constituents fully.

Angel is not under the impression that in a short period we can build thriving, new Jewish institutions that are not Zionist. She notes that the leftist critique of the nonprofit industrial complex and hierarchical organizations is “warding people off of the prospect of building infrastructure we can’t do without.” However, what Angel misses, is that this infrastructure and community is something keeping some non- and anti-Zionists in conventional institutions. For years, more secular friends would ask my friends and me why we went to this politically awful synagogue. One answer was that it had existing infrastructure and reliability. Our migration to the minyan we’ve joined recently is also somewhat because it is available to us, and does not require us to build something from scratch. 

But, to justify our choice by boiling it down to its existing accessibility feels like a cop-out. There are specific advantages: Being in a politically diverse shul forces us to build community with people we may not otherwise meet. In such spaces, I’ve built meaningful friendships and communal relationships with people 20 to 30 years older than I am, with children and teenagers, with people with different types of jobs than my nonprofit and lefty-government worker social bubble. These are people I talk to about Broadway shows, sports, local elections, davening tunes, and internal minyan politics. Such community was present in the Conservative synagogue I left as well. In the days following my suspension from that synagogue, I received multiple kind emails from community members, most notably a Gen X woman and longtime pillar of the community, emphasizing that while she does not share or understand my political beliefs, she cared about me and that she hoped to see me soon. The consistency of seeing each other every week is something I looked forward to. Several people from that community also emailed the board president in my and my friend’s defense and expressed outrage at how they treated us, even if they disagreed with our actions. 

Robust communal infrastructure is built on people of different age groups, life stages, and knowledge; while that can exist in a community of leftists, I do not want to have to limit prayer spaces based on individuals’ politics. Recently, a friend asked me why I continue to be in spaces that see me as a threat, why I went through the demoralizing forced apology process; my answer is that I would have missed the people, and that when those of us deemed as a “threat” stay in community, we hopefully become less threatening. 

The differences between the Conservative synagogue and the smaller minyan, and the caring emails my friend and I received in December, 2023, reveal two axes on which Jewish institutions can be placed: one axis is their ideology, and the other is how kind and welcoming their congregants are to people with different political beliefs. For years, success on the latter axis was enough for us to stay in the Conservative synagogue. Admittedly, I’m hesitant to say that I’m pro-“big tent” Jewish community. Anti-Zionists know that “big tent” usually really means “you’re welcome here as long as you don’t say what you really mean too loudly.” But, I want to push for a new kind of big tent – both in existing and new Jewish religious spaces. I want to see synagogues and minyanim with members across political beliefs, where people can bring a wide range of ritual and care skillsets in order to function communally. In addition to dismantling the notion that anti-Zionist Jews are a threat to Jewish existence, when Zionists share prayer communities with non- and anti-Zionists, they can hopefully begin to see compassion for Palestinians and anti-Occupation values as worthy causes. Even at the Conservative synagogue, one liberal Zionist reflected in a Resetting the Table workshop that he did not realize that the American and Israeli flags and prayers for nation-states, made people feel unwelcome, and making people feel welcome in shul was the most important thing to him.

However, in order for a politically pluralistic, intergenerational prayer space to flourish, there must be a different set of institutional norms. There will be no Israeli or American flags in the buildings; there will not be prayers for states; Palestinian freedom and dignity will not just be normalized, but celebrated. Maybe some of these institutions will be anti-Zionist, and maybe some will not be; the labels matter less than the ethos. Angel shares an idea from Lex Rofeberg for anti-Zionist Jewish groups: rather than qualifying everything as “diasporist” to “just call yourselves the Jewish Student Union.” This is powerful because it legitimizes Palestinian humanity as default, and does not treat Jewish anti-Zionism as fringe. 

I used to think this kind of prayer community – one free of hasbara, compassion for Palestinian life, and ideological diversity of membership – could exist by changing the existing institutions. I no longer think that of most institutions, but it could happen in some. The non-Zionist minyanim that don’t say prayers for states are one version of these communities that have started to exist. There is much to build, and as Angel implies, it will take a long time, likely decades. I hope there are more prayer communities of varying styles and denominations that are explicitly anti-Zionist; and, I hope we can hold onto ideological pluralist communities, reimagined without Jewish supremacy, and holding the dignity of all life. 

Bio: Rachel Brustein is on the coordinating team of a non-Zionist chavurah in Chicago, and is a member of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace.