In my work, I serve as the chief executive officer at Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts. We are a 130-year-old organization that has served refugees and immigrants since our founding in the 1890s. As one of the largest refugee-serving organizations in Massachusetts, we partner with HIAS and the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees into our region and serve thousands of refugees and immigrants each year.
Since the presidential transition in January, my board chair and I discussed the need for us to step forward and speak more publicly. Although I was ordained in 2008 and a large part of my work involves public speaking and media relations, serving as a spokesman is not always a natural place of comfort for me. As those folks who know me will attest, I much prefer to be working alongside my staff team and partnering with my board rather than being in the spotlight. However, the massive shifts in federal policy around immigration generally and refugee resettlement in particular have forced me to step forward into a more public-facing role.
I received a call earlier in the week asking if I would come and speak at a local rally. The organizing coalition wanted to bring different leaders, government officials and non-governmental community leaders together who are working on the front lines to resist these massive shifts in federal policy and funding. I agreed to speak about my agency’s work in refugee resettlement in part because one of my local state elected officials asked me to come. When I arrived, nearly 1,000 people were in the park waiting for the rally to begin.
The wide range of signs being held was inspiring! There were signs about welcoming the stranger, protecting the rights of LGBTQAI+ community members, funding for education and more. Clearly, there was a wide range of people all coming together. Yet as I stood at the podium, I was deeply upset that new signs were held up equating Zionism to genocide and calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s imprisonment for war crimes. As I started to speak, someone in the crowd shouted, “Never Again Means You!” As the only Jewish professional on the speakers list, these signs and slogans felt targeted and even crossing the line to antisemitic.
In the moment, I struggled with the fact that folks yelled anti-Israel slogans during my five-minute presentation, which was decidedly not about Israel. I was also concerned about the photograph that was surely taken showing me speaking with one of those signs in the background, and how it would impact my community and my work. I considered whether I needed to step back and not continue. But I did not want to have my voice or the Jewish values I bring to my work silenced by those who believed that the Jewish community did not have a place at the table of resistance.
After I finished speaking, I waited in the crowd as the rally continued. Several members of the Jewish community approached me and shared their gratitude that a rabbi would come and share space with the group. They talked about feeling alone and unsure of how to be present in these spaces with folks they fundamentally disagree with about Israel policies when the need to resist means organizing alongside people who may disagree with our progressive Zionism.
After the rally, I met for coffee with a State Representative who also spoke at the rally. During her presentation, she spoke beautifully and powerfully about what it means to resist together, even when we disagree. After all, resisting tyranny together does not mean that we agree about everything. It just means that we come together to work on the important issues of protecting democracy and people. To that end, after her loving push, I have been considering a framework for how I might share space with partners in the work of resisting the destruction of our democracy, even when we fundamentally disagree about other issues of justice and equity particularly as it relates to Israel. I think Jewish wisdom offers us the following advice:
Mipnei Darchei Shalom
Proverbs 16:16 notes that “the acquisition of wisdom is better than gold, and the acquisition of understanding is preferable to silver.”
From this, we learn that unity comes from respecting our differences and teaches that holding multiple life experiences and perspectives is valid and should be seen as a source of strength. One of the origins of the value of mipnei darchei shalom in our textual tradition (Gittin 59a) relates to how neighbors irrigate their fields using a shared water source when water is scarce. It calls on us to preserve communal peace, particularly when we disagree.
I have found that starting from places of mutual agreement can be a helpful first step. I wish that those protesters who held up signs saw me not as an enemy, but rather as a partner in the search for justice. They saw me as a representative of the Jewish community and therefore someone who endorsed Israeli policy. Because that is all they saw, they missed that my Zionism calls me to seek peace, reject dehumanization and reject violence. I believe in Israel’s right to exist, and at the same time, my heart is broken when I see the destruction of Gaza and the suffering of Palestinians. I wish we could have started from that shared understanding and opened a conversation. I also wish that we could have met in a neutral space so that we could really hear each other. I crave that kind of meaningful discussion and engagement because in that deep listening, we see the Divine in one another.
Shemirat Hanefesh
I love to backpack, and for many years served as a wilderness guide. One of the first lessons I was taught in my wilderness training was that I could not effectively care for a group without being able to care for myself — a concept called expedition behavior. It is hard to take care of others if I am not well. Jewish tradition shares this wisdom.
Deuteronomy 4:15 reminds us that before we can observe the other commandments, we need to, “take very good care of ourselves.” Honoring this idea of caring for our own souls, we can also set boundaries for what we are willing to discuss. While it is critical to resist alongside those who might disagree with us about issues related to Israel or other things, we can still create a vessel for what we are willing to discuss and what is off the table. We do not need to let go of our core identities to join with others in resistance. The goal should be for each of us to be fully present, even if that includes our disagreements.
We do not need to let go of our core identities to unify with others in resistance.
The work of this moment is too critical to be fractured or splintered by our disagreements. Instead, we need to see the diversity of our coalitions as sources of strength. While that may mean aligning ourselves with people that we disagree with about other issues, we can and should still ask that those disagreements be respectful and not include language that crosses into antisemitism. If it does, we should call that out. Working together does not mean setting our values or concerns aside entirely. It means holding our disagreements in abeyance because the work we do share is critical to the future of our society.
Makhloket Leshem Shamayim
Mishnah Avot 5:17 describes a mahloket leshem shamayim (“an argument for the sake of heaven”) as “one that is destined to endure.” The commentator Bertinoro goes further and says that “means that the people engaged in the conflict will endure and not be lost.”
Jewish tradition thrives on the idea of respectful and thoughtful disagreement. As the Talmud teaches through its lengthy arguments, real debate and dialogue doesn’t fit neatly onto a piece of posterboard. It requires an intention of deep listening. We need to enter into discussion with our partners bringing that kavanah of heartful listening, and we should expect them to do the same. An argument offered for the sake of heaven is intended to deepen relationships rather than break them. While it is not necessarily the focus of how we resist together, engaging in this discussion will help us know one another and will enhance our shared work.
This moment calls for us to join with all available willing partners to preserve democracy, protect the vulnerable and care for our community.
Aristotle writes in Metaphysics about the concept of emergence. In it, he notes that “the totality is not a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts.”
When individual actors come together, they are not just unifying. Rather, they are creating something new and potentially more powerful. If we want to create that new, more powerful resistance tool, then we need to work alongside partners who share our conviction for justice. That does not mean leaving behind our own convictions and ideals. But it does mean that we need to recognize our increased strength when we resist together. This moment calls for us to partner with people to preserve democracy, protect the vulnerable and care for our community. And we need to do that with all available willing partners if we are going to be successful. The stakes are too high, and the risk is too great to do otherwise.
As a progressive Zionist, it hurt my heart to have people bring Israeli policy into my resistance of horrific changes in immigration policy and the treatment of refugees in the United States. And while I might have hesitated to continue my involvement for risk of being seen as complicit in or supportive of messaging that I fundamentally disagree with, I believe that we cannot let ideological consensus on all issues be the downfall of shared resistance. People with different views are not my enemy, particularly when we agree on so much. And language can be more divisive than the substance of our beliefs, which are nuanced and complex.
As we continue this critical work in the months and years to come, I hope that we can be exemplars of these core Jewish values of meaningful and respectful dialogue, spiritual safety and preserving communal peace with our partners. If we cannot work our way through the discomfort of shared resistance in the face of our disagreements, I fear that the Jewish call to justice, which has been central to our contribution to American society, will be lost at a time when it is most deeply needed.
