On December 23, 2022 the media reported that more than 330 American clergy from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist progressive movements––“including some who occupy prominent roles in major cities”––have issued a Call to Action for Clergy in Protest of Israeli Government Extremists,pledging to ban members of the Religious Zionist alliance from speaking at their synagogues. In addition, they plan to lobby to ban them from speaking anywhere in their communities. Needless to say, not a single Orthodox rabbi has signed the “call for action.”
Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, I would imagine, are not losing any sleep over this report. After all, clergy in these non-Orthodox movements held demonstrations and claimed they "sat shiva" after Trump's election, signed protests against his moving the embassy to Jerusalem and just recently, came out in favor of Ilhan Omar's membership on the House Foreign Relations Committee, so no one expects anything else.
But Ben Gvir and Smotrich are not the only ones being banned by Progressive Jewish groups in America, they are also banning anyone that shows support for the Jewish State.
On May 8, the New York Post reported that "In a Wall Street Journal piece, Elliott Abrams and Eric Cohen, respectively chairman and CEO of Tikvah and co-chairmen of the Jewish Leadership Conference (JLC), reveal that Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage canceled a planned JLC event because Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was an invited speaker. Write Abrams and Cohen: “We were working closely with the museum on the details for the June 12 event — until, out of the blue, we were told by the museum staff that Mr. DeSantis didn’t ‘align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity.’ Either we disinvite the governor, they said, or our event was unwelcome.”
In April 2021 Leftist Jewish Organizations tried to expell the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) from the JCRC. Tthe Boston Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a coalition of Jewish organizations, demanded that ZOA make a pledge to stop criticism of Tlaib, Omar or BLM antisemitism in order to not be expelled from the JCRC.
On April 17, 2021 Robert Spencer reported in PJMedia: "Leftists Try to Cancel Zionist Leader for Criticizing Tlaib and Omar, and Noting that BLM Is Anti-Semitic
"The Boston Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a coalition of Jewish organizations, is set to meet on April 27 to decide whether or not to expel the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) over charges that it is “white supremacist.”
Of course, everyone to the right of Pol Pot is a white supremacist these days, as far as the left is concerned. The real sin of ZOA’s national president Mort Klein is that he dared to criticize leftist powerbrokers and to point out that Black Lives Matter (BLM) is not the saintly organization of establishment media myth, but a viciously hateful and antisemitic group. Telling unwelcome truths about people and causes that the left idolizes gets you lumped in with the KKK in this insane age.
"It all started last year with a petition from leftist Jewish groups J Street, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, Women of Reform Judaism and others, calling for the ZOA to be expelled from the Boston JCRC because Klein had made statements that supposedly ventured into xenophobic and racist territory, and thus ZOA’s membership was 'not compatible with and is in conflict with the mission of JCRC'.”
"The petition stated: “'So long as ZOA enjoys a seat at the American Jewish communal table, we are collectively signaling that their views are a welcome and tolerable part of our communal life. American Jewish institutions must make clear that Klein’s pattern of abuse and bigotry can have no place in our Jewish communal life.'”
"Among Klein’s 'xenophobic and racist statements' were critical remarks about revered, untouchable figures on the left, including George Soros, Barack Obama, and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) and Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu). Why, only a racist could have any remotely negative word to say about them!
"The petition also claims that Klein’s criticism of Black Lives Matter 'extended well beyond acceptable discourse on race.' This was because Klein tweeted: 'BlackLivesMatter is an antisemitic, Israel hating Soros funded racist extremist Israelophobic hate group.' And: 'I urge the SPLC to immediately put BlackLivesMatter on their list of hate groups. BLM is a Jew hating, White hating, Israel hating, conservative Black hating, violence promoting, dangerous Soros funded extremist group of haters.'
"Klein was right, and he wasn’t the only person who noticed. [Even leftist newspaper] Haaretz reported in 2018 that 'a new platform associated with the Black Lives Matter movement that describes Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ committing ‘genocide’ against the Palestinian people has triggered critical responses from Jewish organizations — even its allies.'
And in August 2020, journalist Daniel Greenfield noted that a Black Lives Matter rioter was caught on video spray painting Free Palestine on the driveway of the Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha, and “during the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter riots which targeted the Fairfax community and its large Orthodox Jewish population, Congregation Beth El on Beverly Blvd was spray painted with the hateful message, ‘F___ Israel’, and ‘Free Palestine.’”
"Back in 2015, Black Lives Matter operatives visited 'Palestine' and linked the jihad against Israel to race war in the United States.
"As far as the left is concerned, however, these are facts that only 'racists' dare to notice. ZOA shot back with a statement that challenged the lynch mob on its hypocrisy:
"Klein wrote: 'Inappropriate concern was raised due to our legitimately [sic] criticism of the anti-Israel actions and policies of the organization called Black Lives Matter. This was especially hurtful to ZOA since it fully, publicly and unequivocally supports equality and fairness to all races, including, of course, all black lives.'
"After reviewing the matter for six months, the JCRC’s Membership Committee voted unanimously that ZOA should not be removed. However, in a nod to the mob, it directed ZOA to make clear that it rejected white supremacism, intoning piously that 'no Member Organization of JCRC, through its programs, activities or practices—or through the public leadership platforms of its executive officers—should legitimize or normalize organizations or individuals who embrace white supremacy, white nationalism or the conspiracy theories which underlie these ideologies.'
"...if the JCRC does vote to expel the ZOA, it will only reveal its corruption and betrayal of its own mission, and demonstrate once again the increasing intransigence and fascism of the left. The more leftists move to silence legitimate voices, the more they show their own totalitarian colors, and the more they strip away their own legitimacy."
The Reform Movement and other "progressive stream" groups that control important Jewish American institutions not only boycott politicians and organizations that support Israel, they also support Black Lives Matter that calls for Israel's destruction.
A video by Israel Unwired shows Black Lives Matter co-founder calling for Israel's destruction.
On February 17, 2021 Samanta Mandeles reported in Legal Insurrection
"...one of the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement is the destruction of Israel. In a Zoom panel event on February 6, 2021, organized by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)’s “BDS and Palestine Solidarity National Working Group, National Political Education Committee, DSA Muslim Caucus, and the Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus,” the panel featured Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill alongside fellow Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) supporters Omar Barghouti, Sumaya Awad, and Ajamu Amiri Dillahunt.
"Each of the panelists have a long history of anti-Israel organizing. Omar Barghouti has been a professional BDSer since the early 2000s (although he often ignores the BDS dictates he commands others to follow); Ajamu Amiri Dillahunt was an activist with Durham2Palestine—a local North Carolina network that invoked the “Deadly Exchange” (a conspiracy theory that blames Israel and American Jewish groups for police shootings of Blacks in the U.S.); and as a high-ranking official at Adalah Justice Project, Sumaya Awad has helped promote the organization’s bizarre claim that Zionism is “underpinned by anti-Blackness“.
"...Meanwhile, since its birth in 2013, Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement founders and prominent leaders have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the international anti-Israel movement; indeed, anti-Israel agitators played an active role in stoking the 2014 violence in Ferguson, and have continued to hijack progressive causes by blaming racial tensions on Israel—even till today.
"Mark Lamont-Hill: We understand that we can’t dismantle white supremacy or imperialism section by section…There’s no way to stop a settler-colonial movement in Palestine and not be mindful of its relationship to, you know, a settler colonial project in New Zealand or Australia or the United States…[it’s] a global system that we have to dismantle…[Black Lives Matter has] imagined…a world [that is] anti-imperialist. They don’t want to just nation-build, but they want to world-make, and so Black Lives Matter, very explicitly is talking about the dismantling of the Zionist project, dismantling of the settler-colonialist project, and very explicitly embracing BDS on those grounds.
"Naturally, Hill presented no evidence of the supposed interconnectedness of centuries-old European colonization of the New World with Zionism—the modern Jewish liberation movement centered around the ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem (or, as it was called as early as the biblical book of Samuel, Zion)—because no such evidence exists.
"But when it comes to Israel, hard facts clearly matter little to Hill, his DSA “comrades” (his words), or BLM leadership; after all, why complicate a compelling narrative and successful recruitment tool with a scrupulous examination of history?
"Ah, ‘intersectional’ ignorance must be bliss."
Nevertheless, alist of 600+ Leftist American Jewish Organizations embrace BLM and on June 12, 2020 The Union for Reform Judaism wrote in their official webpage "Reform Jewish Leadership Statement: Black Lives Matter is a Jewish Value"
On April 14, 2021 Yakir Benzion wrote in United with Israel "The head of a leading black organization that supports Israel said Tuesday that the Black Lives Matter movement in America has been co-opted by people who are making millions of dollars from donations and using their platform to push an anti-Israel message instead of concentrating on black rights.
“We at the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI) have been asking this question for years now, and still have not received an answer,” IBSI director Joshua Washington wrote in Times of Israel.
“If Black Lives Matter is supposed to be about police killings of unarmed black people, why is part of its focus on Israel thousands of miles away – as opposed to, for example, the African slave trade in Libya, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania or Qatar?” asked Washington. “BLM leaders are using the Black community as a cudgel against Israel, garnering much personal wealth in the process.”
Washington noted that "since its inception in 2013, the Black Lives Matter organization has amassed tens of millions of dollars in corporate and individual donations, with $90 million raised last year, particularly after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis."
"However, since 2013, the lack of financial transparency in the BLM organization has been the topic of multiple investigative articles, with BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors being questioned as to why she recently bought her fourth house worth over $1 million.
"Instead of using the funds to help solve the problems of police disproportionately targeting black people, BLM has been diverting funds for alternate agendas like its anti-Israel activism.
“This is not a movement that was hijacked. On the contrary … BLM is the hijack,” said Washington.
"Following the 2014 killing of Mike Brown Jr. by a white cop in Ferguson, Montana, “the world saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict forcibly injected into the bloodstream of what was supposed to be a movement about police brutality and criminal justice,” noted Washington.
“‘From Ferguson to Palestine’ was the rallying cry created in order to demonize Israel, falsely correlating the plight of the Palestinians with black Americans, and even blaming the Jewish State for American police violence,” Washington said.
He noted that in a 2016 interview, BLM leader Patrisse Cullors said: “It was important for the Black Lives Matter movement to show up to Palestine … we believe that Palestine is the new South Africa.”
Washington slammed those comments, saying it is “reprehensible and manipulative” for falsely trying to link Israeli counterrorism efforts with any sort of racism or injustice by American police.
“Alluding to Israel as apartheid South Africa is equally reprehensible … even if Cullors and BLM leadership truly felt this way, how does attacking Israel help the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, or Ahmad Aubery? Answer: It doesn’t,” Washington said.
BLM wants Israel's destruction. The Reform Movement supports BLM, but comes out against those elected by democratic means in the Jewish State.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe saw it coming in the book The Letter and the Spirit, volume II page 57:g:
"...an Orthodox Rabbi cannot in all conscience recognize the Conservative and Reform points of view, inasmuch as both of the latter do not accept the Written and Oral Law. Hence these movements and their representatives cannot be recognized as legitimately representing the Jewish religion, inasmuch as they reject it. This has been unequivocally ruled by the Rambam and other authorities that followed him, who have established the laws and attitudes of the Shulchan Aruch, leaving no room for doubt or discussion on this basic issue.
"From the above it follows immediately that the activities of such dissident groups cannot be recognized as Jewish religious activities within the definition of Jewish religion...."
Ezequiel Doiny is author of "Obama's assault on Jerusalem's Western Wall"