Contrary to the claims of the statement’s signers, the increasing normalization of anti-Zionism does not “delegitimize Jewish identity and community.” As the rabbi of an openly anti-Zionist Jewish congregation, I can attest that increasing numbers of Jews are identifying as such out of genuine Jewish conscience: from a deep attachment to Jewish ethical values that mandate the pursuit of justice and hold that all human beings are equally created in the divine image.

Recent surveys certainly bear this out: according to an October 2025 Washington Post poll, of American Jews, 61% believe Israel has committed war crimes and 4 out of 10 say the country is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians, views that would certainly track with an anti-Zionist identity. As Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel has observed, “the catastrophic failure of Zionist Judaism” has marked “an opening for anti-Zionist Jews to step into greater influence, (to) make our case for something new.” By all accounts, the time has come for a Judaism that rejects the fusion of toxic ethno-nationalism with Judaism.

I’m also struck by another note of desperation from this ad-hoc group of Jewish clergy: they purport to speak for the Jewish majority as if that alone confers legitimacy. They of all people should know dissent is a sacred, cherished aspect of Jewish tradition. They of all people should know that in Talmudic debate, both majority and minority views are given equal weight and consideration. They of all people should know of the Torah’s sacred injunction “Do not go after the majority to do evil” (Exodus 23:2). And any student of history, Jewish or not, should know that the majority is not always right, whether it be the majority of Southern Whites who supported slavery and Jim Crow in the U.S., apartheid in South Africa or the injustices of Zionism today.

The real moral question here, it seems to me, is not “who is in the majority?” but rather “who is on the right side of history?”