Accusations of antisemitism

Here we list instances of people being accused of antisemitism, with the likely intention to silence them, where they have in fact been "guilty" only of criticism of Israel.

The difference between antisemitism and criticism of Israel should be clear enough, but can perhaps be best illustrated by articles such as

• As Jews, we don’t accept that criticism of Israel’s government is antisemitic by Sarah Schwartz and Max Elliott Kaiser
• Supporting Palestinian rights is antisemitic because Israel wants it to be, by Abraham Gutman
• a statement from 40+ Jewish groups saying

  At times like this, it is more important than ever to distinguish between the hostility to or prejudice against Jews on the one hand and legitimate critiques of Israeli policies and system of injustice on the other.
  ...
  We urge our governments, municipalities, universities and other institutions to reject the IHRA definition [see below] ...
  Israel does not represent us and cannot speak for us when committing crimes against Palestinians

• A recent judgment of the Federal Court of Australia, Wertheim v Haddad [2025] FCA 720, whose summary says

  The Court has found that the impugned passages in the interview and the sermon say critical and disparaging things about the actions of Israel and in particular the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza and about Zionists, but that the ordinary, reasonable listener would not understand those things to be about Jewish people in general. That person would understand that not all Jews are Zionists and that disparagement of Zionism constitutes disparagement of a philosophy or ideology and not a race or ethnic group. Also, political criticism of Israel, however inflammatory or adversarial, is not by its nature criticism of Jews in general or based on Jewish racial or ethnic identity. The conclusion that it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel is the corollary of the conclusion that to blame Jews for the actions of Israel is antisemitic; the one flows from the other.

  (see further paragraphs 107 and following in the judgment).
  (also discussed in Landmark court rulings reveal limits of pro-Israel lobby)
• Likewise, a judgment of the South African Constitutional Court, [2022] ZACC 5 which makes much the same point in paragraph [165]

Often, though, people don't get this (or pretend not to). For example, this article, originally headed If you support the Palestinian cause in any form, you’re facilitating Jew-hate, by Melanie Phillips. (For an account of how it has been changed, see here.) So here is a reality check for her: the Israel government is facilitating Israeli-hate, and the more you push the narrative identifying Jew with Israeli, the more you facilitate this being translated to Jew-hate. (UPDATE: the article is mentioned in the opening paragraph of The weaponisation of antisemitism: The Jewish Chronicle and the production of a moral panic, by Neve Gordon).

Another article by the same author is Don’t fall for bogus claims of ‘Islamophobia’, which contains such gems as 'The concept of “Islamophobia” is thus profoundly anti-Jew'. So why am I linking to these articles, when I think they are completely bonkers? Well, it is to encourage you to not to be fooled by anyone who says commentary or opinions about Israel/Palestine is antisemitic.

Meanwhile you would be excused for assuming this article is satire: Bake sales for Gaza could stoke Jew hatred, EU warns - well, it's not. It goes on

Fundraisers for Gaza make ‘Jews feel uncomfortable’, says Europe’s anti-Semitism tsar.
...
She’s hostile to any sign of solidarity with the Palestinians, calling it ‘ambient anti-Semitism’

Other cases of the same phenomenon:

• Australia's "Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism" made a submission to a Senate Inquiry about Antisemitism. The submission repeatedly refers to "antisemitic or anti-Israel ..." - apparently acknowledging that they are different - although the context often suggests the opposite, and of course anti-Israel discourse is neither part of her job nor part of the subject of the Inquiry. In part of the submission which collects individual experiences, many are about Israel, not about Jews - this article goes into detail.
• Australia's "Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism" has now produced a report on the subject, Antisemitism in Australia: Findings of research commissioned by Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, which is criticised by Academics for Palestine WA, archived here
• This article, J’accuse!… the Jew who accuses his fellow Jews of being antisemites quotes and discusses a deranged tweet to the effect that Jewish critics of Israel's genocide are "vicious antisemites".
• The weirdly-named Anti-Defamation League openly counts anti-Zionist events and rhetoric as antisemitic, see ADL Officially Admits It Counts Pro-Palestine Activism as Antisemitic and ADL Report Decried for Equating Anti-Zionism With Antisemitism. This of course makes data on antisemitism collected by such organisations worthless, see here (which refers to counting "rallies that featured antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or pro-terror content). And this article quotes the ADL to the general effect that one shouldn't criticise Zionism because a lot of Jewish people are Zionists.
• Quoting this article (with my emphasis)

  The Anti-Defamation League has classified the event [a protest organized by Jewish Voice for Peace] - and dozens of other protests led by Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow — as “anti-Israel,” according to an analysis by The Intercept, and added them to their database documenting rising antisemitism across the U.S.

• ‘Antisemitism’ investigations at US universities focus on criticism of Israel, not hatred of Jews - this is from a report by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). The AAUP, in New Report: Civil Rights Law Weaponized to Chill Speech, says

  The findings in the report underscore how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - which passed in response to years of nonviolent civil disobedience against racial injustice - is being cynically used to squash political dissent and speech that advocates for the human rights of Palestinians.

  The report is at https://mesana.org/pdf/Discriminating_Against_Dissent_Report.pdf. Further commentary in Common Dreams, Mondoweiss, Consortium News

The IHRA definition of antisemitism

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance provided a so-called Definition of Antisemitism. It has been trenchantly criticised by several leading lawyers:

• Hugh Tomlinson QC
• Defining Anti-Semitism, by Stephen Sedley (a former Court of Appeal judge), and a shorter talk by Sir Stephen and a shorter still statement by him
• IHRA definition of antisemitism is not fit for purpose, by Geoffrey Robertson KC, pdf document here or here
• Professor Ben Saul, Challis Chair of International Law at the University of Sydney

• What Is Wrong with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Definition of Antisemitism?, a longer article by Jan Deckers, Jonathan Coulter, which quite sensibly prefers the definition "hostility to or prejudice against Jews as Jews".
• The use of the definition has been criticised by its lead drafter, Kenneth Stern, see here and here
• THE POLITICS OF A DEFINITION: How the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism Is Being Misrepresented, by Jamie Stern-Weiner
• An analysis of the history and the text of the definition, and of the thinking that identifies Jews with Israel, How the IHRA's anti-Semitism definition is a threat to British democracy, by Richard Silverstein
• A research paper by the Britain Palestine Project (formerly the Balfour Project)
• Labour should ditch the IHRA working definition of antisemitism altogether, by Anthony Lerman. Lerman is also quoted here saying

  The anti-Zionism equals antisemitism argument drains the word antisemitism of any useful meaning. For it means that to count as an antisemite, it is sufficient to hold any view ranging from criticism of the policies of the current Israeli government to denial that Israel has the right to exist as a state, without having to subscribe to any of those things which historians have traditionally regarded as making up an antisemitic worldview: hatred of Jews per se, belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, belief that Jews generated communism and control capitalism, belief that Jews are racially inferior and so on. Moreover, while theoretically allowing that criticism of Israeli governments is legitimate, in practice it virtually proscribes any such thing.

• A long article by Rev Stephen Sizer. One notable point in it (quoted from Dr Bryan Klug) is

  And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing - the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance.

• Tackling the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, by Brian Klug.
• How should antisemitism be defined? by Peter Slezak (and this article contains several further links)
• Why the antisemitism definition is flawed, by Prof Geoffrey Alderman
• Legal study says IHRA ‘definition’ enables false antisemitism accusations. Well duh
• 104 Israeli and international groups call on UN to reject IHRA ‘definition’ of antisemitism
• In Finkelstein critiques IHRA ‘definition’ – and rejects it whole, Professor Norman Finkelstein describes it as

  a purported definition of antisemitism that, one, is and couldn’t but be gibberish, two, exemplifies ethnic special pleading, three, is not just pointless but also stifles vital debate, and, four, has nearly nothing to do with antisemitism and nearly everything to do with shielding Israel from deserved condemnation.

Let me add to these some briefer comments of my own. Here is the "definition", with my emphases and [my interpolations or comments]

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may [or, presumably, may not] be expressed as hatred toward Jews [and presumably, may or may not be expressed otherwise].

Then follows a section about examples. With a prefatory paragraph

Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel [that is what this is really all about] conceived as a Jewish collectivity [I'm not sure what that means].

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to

In fact as an example of a non-definition saying nothing, this rather reminds me of the sentence I found once on Wikipedia, "The parasang may have originally been some fraction of the distance an infantryman could march in some predefined period of time."

So what is happening here is that the proponents would counter criticism by saying "it says only could include, not do include", but then, when organisations have adopted, or been pressured to adopt, the IHRA definitions, including all the examples (eg see here) they would treat those examples as antisemitic by virtue of the definition. That is, they ignore the fact that the examples may or may not be examples of antisemitism. So it is pertinent to look at those examples. Strikingly, the majority of them mention Israel, and some of these don't even refer to Jewish people. Which gives an idea of the concerns of the definition's proponents.

The weirdest one, to me, is the 7th example:

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

• entitlement to choose an area of land and make it their own?
• and to expel the existing inhabitants?
• and to discriminate against the remaining existing inhabitants?
• or to discriminate among its inhabitants on racial/religious grounds? (not doing so being something expected or demanded of other democratic nations - see the 8th example).

And then, coming to the second half of that example, why is criticising Israel as racist (even if such criticism were knowingly wrong, and thereby suggestive of anti-Israel prejudice) anything to do with a "right to self-determination"? See this article, As Jews, we reject the myth that it's antisemitic to call Israel racist.

The IHRA definition has been defended against criticism, sometimes along the lines of "it has no legal effect", and/or "it doesn't actually define anything to be antisemitic". Unfortunately it has been used as though it does. Here is a long report by the European Legal Support Center and British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, The Adverse Impact of the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism in UK Higher Education, where universities were pressured by the UK Government to "adopt" (whatever that means) the "definition".

And here is an article discussing the text of the definition and its usage, Why calling Israel an apartheid state or racist is not anti-Semitic, by Ben White. Likewise, Jewish group opposes adoption of IHRA definition of antisemitism.

This page, Distorted Definition: Redefining Antisemitism to Silence Advocacy for Palestinian Rights, has lots of relevant links, as does Backgrounder on Efforts to Redefine Antisemitism as a Means of Censoring Criticism of Israel. And here you can get their report The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US

Other definitions of antisemitism

• Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism A short definition

  Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)

  accompanied by 15 guidelines.
• Independent Jewish Voices Canada
• The Nexus Document

  Antisemitism consists of anti-Jewish beliefs, attitudes, actions or systemic conditions. It includes negative beliefs and feelings about Jews, hostile behavior directed against Jews (because they are Jews), and conditions that discriminate against Jews and significantly impede their ability to participate as equals in political, religious, cultural, economic, or social life.

• Australia's 39 universities have endorsed a new definition of antisemitism (this article includes just some of the actual text). There is a suggestion that they declined to simply adopt the IHRA definition. However this definition has been criticised by
  • Amnesty
  • this article on Crikey, Antisemitism definition will be devastating for academic freedom, and equality itself, which points out some obvious problems with its text
  • this article on Pearls and Irritations, What can one now say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite?
  • and this statement by the Jewish Council of Australia
  • Silencing Palestine: Universities Australia and the new definition of antisemitism
  • Universities Australia’s new antisemitism definition: a new kind of governance on campuses?

Self-hating Jews

• Firstly, a general article: Jewish opposition to Israel is as old as Zionism itself
• The Wrong Type of Jew - Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi. She was also expelled from the UK Labour party. Apparently this is far from unique within the UK Labour party. Here is her speech to a rally in May 2025
• Also about the UK Labour party, 'The wrong sort of Jew': How Labour pursued complaints against elderly Jewish opponents of Israel (More about the UK Labour party here).
• Moshé Machover
• Stephen Kapos, also Holocaust survivor questioned by police for protesting Israeli genocide, and an interview on YouTube
• and this article mentions Stephen Kapos and other holocaust survivors
• Several Jewish people speak in this video.
• Professor Haim Bresheeth, son of two Holocaust survivors
• Statement of 30 Jewish Organisations in support of Francesca Albanese
• Inside the Seder dinner on Columbia's Gaza protest encampment (Seder is a Jewish festival).
• My mother, a Holocaust survivor, died ‘ashamed’ of Israel Jewish British activist Miranda Pinch says her mother “would be turning in her grave at what is being done to the Palestinians”
• Open letter from British Jews to Archbishop Welby
• Meet the Jewish activist Germany arrested for being pro-Palestinian
• Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East. Apparently their Jewish identity was questioned, to which they gave this response
• And in response to the suggestion that Jewish Voice was antisemitic, over 90 Jewish scholars and intellectuals signed an open letter Open Letter: Supporting Human Rights is not Antisemitic
• Rabbi Elhanan Beck, also a video interview, The story of the orthodox Jews that oppose Israel
• Professor Avi Shlaim: Oxford Middle East Review interview, Current Affairs interview, Novara Media interview (Youtube video); The Israeli professor that the BBC won’t interview (Youtube video); he has also written for Middle East Eye
• Rachel Shabi (talking about misuse of accusations of antisemitism)
• Brian Klug, who wrote The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism (a detailed discussion of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism)
• A Statement From Jewish Americans Opposing AIPAC
• Jewish groups worldwide oppose equating antisemitism with criticism of Israel , which lists groups affirming the statement in the article
• Rabbis for Human Rights
• Antony Loewenstein, also on substack. He has written a book, My Israel Question. Featured on the ABC, Not In My Name, and for the film see here He also spoke to a NSW Parliament Enquiry, from page 56 of this transcript
• Andrew Feinstein, who stood as an MP against Labour Pary Leader Keir Starmer in his London constituency, Holborn St. Pancras, in the UK general election on 4 July 2024. He said the final reason that solidified his decision to run was the war on Gaza. Interview with Owen Jones on YouTube
• Peter Slezak He also spoke to a NSW Parliament Enquiry, from page 28 of this transcript
• Peter Beinart, see Debunking The Myth That Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitic
• Independent Jewish Voices
• Independent Jewish Voices Canada see also How Not to Fight Antisemitism: IHRA-WDA Report
• Jews for Justice for Palestinians
• European Jews for a Just Peace (this is a federation of 12 European Jewish peace groups, some of which are listed here separately, campaigning against the occupation of the Palestinian Territories by Israel)
• Jewish Voice for Labour, now renaming itself to Jewish Voice for Liberation
• Jewish Voice for Peace
• Columbia [University] Jewish Voice for Peace The linked article was described as an an "antisemitic op-ed"
• Jewish Council of Australia, and see Australian right-wing launches witch-hunt against anti-Zionist Jewish leader
• Jewish Network for Palestine
• Jewish Liberation Theology Institute
• International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network which is reported here saying

  Specifically, proponents of Zionism wilfully and recklessly perpetuate a basic falsehood: that support for Palestine is antisemitism.

• Jews in Philanthropy (letter)
• In Our Name Campaign
• Jewish Socialists’ Group
• If Not Now
• Tsedek!
• Na’amod – British Jews Against the Occupation
• Antony Lerman, author of The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist
• Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (I don't know whether this organisation is largely Jewish, but its director Dr Jeff Halper wrote "As an Israeli Jew and the head of an Israeli human rights organization ...").
• ‘NO to ethnic cleansing’: Hundreds of US rabbis, Jewish celebs slam Trump’s Gaza plan
• “There’s so many young Jewish people who are like a vital part” of the protests, said Grant Miner, a Jewish graduate student at Columbia, and Grant Miner says, as a Jew, he knows what is it like to go through genocide
• Why I signed an ad urging rejection of Trump’s Gaza plan, by Sara Dowse
• Archbishop Justin, you need some new Jewish friends, an open letter to (the then) Archbishop of Canterbury, explaining the diversity of Jewish opinion.
• Free Speech on Israel "promotes a non-Zionist Jewish perspective. It affirms that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism"
• There are groups within Judaism whose doctrinal views are opposed to the existence of the state of Israel, see (on Wikipedia) Haredim and Zionism and Satmar
• Concerned Jewish Faculty (their criticism is of the IHRA definition)
• Jewish Currents
• Marione Ingram, also part 2 of the interview, and part 3, later, after her scheduled talks to schools in Germany were cancelled, and interview with Anadolu
• Jews Against the Occupation ’48, see also article Protesting for Palestine is not antisemitism and interview Zionism Is a Colonial Crime
• How Jewish scholars are attacked in America for calling out Gaza genocide | Raz Segal (YouTube video) Interview of Raz Segal by Owen Jones: Gaza is a textbook genocide
• Tony Greenstein also here
• Marika Sherwood
• Suzanne Weiss
• The Humboldt 3, of whom two are Jewish, saying It is outrageous to label us “anti-Semitic,” as two of us are descendants of Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust
• Norman Finkelstein, Jewish, and born to Jewish Holocaust-survivor parents. He said

  Indeed, the real enemies of Jews are those who debase the memory of Jewish suffering by equating principled opposition to Israel’s illegal and immoral policies with anti-Semitism.

  (quoted from Why an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified)
• Jewish elders chain themselves to White House, demand ceasefire in Gaza
• Letter: As British Jews we can no longer stay silent on the war in Gaza
• Neturei Karta International, whose views are based specifically on theological grounds; they say

  Due to religious belief, we oppose the existence of the State of Israel, its occupation of Palestine, and condemn its ongoing wars and atrocities inside and outside Palestine.

  Ever since the establishment of the Zionist entity in Palestine, the indigenous people of Palestine have suffered unprecedented levels of oppression, including occupation, killings, and theft—all of which are clear violations of the laws of the Torah.

• The Rabbis’ Intifada, which is described (June 2025) as "A Documentary Film. Coming Soon!"
• Tzedek Chicago, an intentional Jewish congregation based on core values of justice, equity and solidarity
• Tzedek Collective
• Hajo Meyer, author of The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed. He is quoted here saying that he was

  “pained by the parallels I observe between my experiences in Germany prior to 1939 and those suffered by Palestinians today”

  and here

  “Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism... it is a political ideology. Criticising Israel’s crimes is not antisemitic; it is our moral duty.”

  He was accused of "judeophobia". He was interviewed several times by Electronic Intifada
  • “I can identify with Palestinian youth”
  • I was educated to put inter-human ethics central in religion. This is so obviously contrary to the daily practice of Zionism
  • The hate of the Jews by the Germans “was less deeply rooted than the hate of the Palestinians by the Israeli Jews,”
• Jewish people in support of Professor David Miller
• 40 Holocaust survivors condemn ‘massacre’ of Palestinians, call for BDS against Israel, an open letter: full text here
• Omri Boehm, a Jewish Israeli and descendant of Holocaust survivors, who was "disinvited from a Holocaust memorial event after criticising the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza"
• Zack Polanski
• Australian Jewish Democratic Society
• Zeev Sternhell
• Open letter from some members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews; text of the letter: As British Jews we can no longer stay silent on the war in Gaza
• Ami Ayalon, who has supported those mentioned in the previous item, and has said "If I were a Palestinian, I would fight those who occupied my land"
• Inside this week's mass arrests of pro-Palestinian Jewish activists at the US Capitol
• Lord Levy, "a very proud Jew", said of Israeli far-right ministers Bezalal Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir that "really, they were terrorists", and that "what is going on is absolutely intolerable"
• Dan Cohen: film, Killing Gaza; on substack
• Alon Mizrahi, and he writes about his Jewish heritage
• Maura Finkelstein
• Michael Eisen
• Amanda Gelender
• Albert Einstein
• Harvard Jewish Coalition for Peace, an “anti-Zionist Jewish organisation.”
• Jews for Liberation, a “spiritual and political space for anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jews at Harvard.”
• Lee Camp, who says

  Every day we learn more about how remarkably repulsive and aggressive Israel’s genocide is in Gaza. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re Jewish like I am

• Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, a chap who has recently changed his tune significantly. In Why I Turned My Back on Zionism, he says "I grew up believing Zionism was everything - until I couldn’t ignore the truth anymore." And in I Used To Say Israel Was Not Committing A Genocide In Gaza he explains, in very considerable well-argued detail, that "I was Wrong. This is why."
• Netanyahu Says It's Antisemitic For Israeli Soldiers To Describe Their Own Atrocities, describing how this Haaretz article, 'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid, which is based on extensive quotes from IDF personnel, is alleged to contain “contemptible blood libels”, and "malicious falsehoods".
• There is a mass of videos on the Youtube channel TRT World, including interviews with Jewish rabbis:
  • Anti-Zionist Rabbi discusses standing with Palestine is a Youtube interview of "Rabbi Feldman of Neturei Karta" about the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
  • Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss: (YouTube videos)
    • Existence of Zionist Israel is antithetical to Judaism: Rabbi Weiss
    • “Zionism is not Judaism”
    • The Anti-Zionists (interview)
  • Breaking from Zionism: Jewish Voices for Justice
  • Palestine Talks | In conversation with Rabbi Shapiro (Part 1), and Part 2
• Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro An interview/debate on YouTube: full interview | excerpts |
• TorahJews
• Jews Against the Occupation ’48
• Why I am an anti-Zionist Jew
• "Jewish Australians say NO to ethnic cleansing"
• Sara Roy
• Gideon Levy
• Dalia Sarig (Dalia Sarig-Fellner)
  • My democratic values pushed me to renounce Israeli citizenship
  • 'I am anti-Zionist Jew, not antisemitic,' pro-Palestine Jewish activist says
  • Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress in Vienna
  • interview with Fem Renaissance
• article about divisions in several Jewish families
• Ronnie Barkan, and his speech to a court in Berlin
• Meron Benvenisti
• Eyal Benvenisti and Chaim Gans, who wrote Our Duty to Explain Israel’s Operation to “Concentrate and Move Population” in Gaza is a Manifest War Crime.
• Moshe Ya'alon, Former Israeli defense minister says his country is ethnic cleansing in Gaza
• Michael Sfard, who wrote ‘My Jewish upbringing makes me speak out on Israel’ and Why the ICJ Ruling Against Israel's Occupation Is a Legal Earthquake, in Slow Motion
• Yair Golan, Israeli MP hits out at own country for 'killing babies as a hobby'

• Omer Bartov who writes here

  My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
  ...
  The continued denial of this designation ... is a threat to the very foundations of the moral order on which we all depend.

  He was involved in an open letter, said to equate Israel’s occupation of the West Bank with apartheid

  He seems to have been involved in several open letters:

  • on the Misuse of Holocaust Memory
  • to the Director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Scholars Warn of Potential Genocide in Gaza
  and interviews Clear Intention of Ethnic Cleansing and Why Two-State Solution Is Not Viable

• Yael Khan
• Henry Siegman, who wrote US Hamas policy blocks Middle East peace
• Shaul Magid
• Alexei Sayle, also mentioned in this article
• Avraham "Avrum" Burg
  • A Scion of Zionist Aristocracy Wants to Quit the Jewish People
  • 'Jews, Rebel!': Ex-Knesset Speaker Calls on World Jews to Take Israel to ICJ Over Gaza War Crimes
• Iris Hefets, also mentioned in this article about policing of protests in Germany
• Yasha Levine, eg What do you expect?, In the name of all Jews
• More than 80 rabbis urge Israel to address starvation, denounce settler violence in Gaza
• Mara Kronenfeld. Also interview with Chris Hedges here
• Dr. Sebastian Ben Daniel, suspended from Ben-Gurion University for his online statements. He had previously written this article, about attitudes in Israel to killing civilians.
• Carolyn Gelenter Also made statements reported here and here
• David Graebner: Jewish professor tells people like new peer John Mann to stop ‘weaponising antisemitism’
• Dave Smith: apparently a Jewish political comedian. I can't find much about him except for articles by or about those that disagree with him. He is (implicitly) described here as a "vicious anti-semite" (in an article that gives no evidence for this other than his criticisms of Israel and his association with other named individuals of whom we are told nothing). And he has clashed with Douglas Murray who is alleged to have said "All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop."
• Emily Wilder, interviewed by Democracy Now about her participation in the Global Sumud Flotilla. She writes for Jewish Currents, described as a leading voice of the American Jewish left
• International Jewish Collective for Justice in Palestine (IJCJP), and the article lists and links to their member organisations, and this article also lists them with some quotes
• Union juive française pour la paix, with lots in English (though not their title, which I think means French Jewish Union for Peace)
• Promised Land Museum: A creative project of Voices for Justice in Palestine
• Alternative Jewish Voices (NZ)
• Emili Stevenson - One Young Jewish Woman On Why She’s Marching For A Free Palestine
• Barnaby Raine - "I am a proud Jew who hates racism"
• Global Jews for Palestine The site lists a large number of member organisations.
• Jewish Bloc for Palestine
• Holocaust Survivors and Descendants Sign Open Letter Opposing Ban on BBC Protest
• On Holocaust Remembrance Day, JVP descendants of survivors call for an end to the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinians
• Yom HaShoah: Holocaust survivors against Gaza war say ‘never again for anyone’ And the group “Holocaust survivors and descendants against the Gaza genocide” has also produced a documentary “Gaza it Rhymes With Me”
• Holocaust survivors and descendants condemn 'genocide' of Palestinians in Gaza (this is from August 2014) (this article contains the text of their letter - some others just contain a now dead link to it)
• Jewish figures across the globe call on UN and world leaders to sanction Israel The letter is (at the time of writing) at this link
• End the Genocide in Gaza: A Public Letter from Jewish Health Professionals, see also on Zeteo and in Haaretz
• Hundreds of rabbis demand Israel stop ‘using starvation as a weapon of war’ (I haven't found the letter itself on the internet).
• Major Diaspora philanthropists call on Netanyahu to end war and aid Gaza, in mass open letter The signatories of the letter (which is linked in the article) who "passionately support the State of Israel" also say

  Members of your government have used language of racism, hatred and incitement without censure. For example, Heritage Minister, Amichai Eliyahu, recently boasted that “the government is racing toward erasing Gaza…Thank God we are erasing this evil...All of Gaza will be Jewish.” Such statements are a moral abomination and a chilul hashem - a desecration of Jewish values

• Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)

• Marilyn Garson, author of Jewish Not Zionist and Still Lives: A memoir of Gaza.

  The same boutique publishing house has published The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands by Donny Gluckstein and Janey Stone, which is reviewed here in The hidden history of Jewish anti-Zionism and radicalism and also here

  Banned from Israel for 10 years, US Jewish peace activist feels ‘sense of betrayal’

• Rabbi Jay Michaelson: I supported Israel’s actions in Gaza in October 2023 — not anymore
• Jews Demand Action - A global open letter to world leaders, archived here, and the Jews Demand Action website
• Daniel Klein, who gives very moving accounts of how and why he (formerly) accepted Zionist thinking, particularly My Freedom From Zionism, archived here, and others well worth reading
• Declaration of conscience on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by South Africans of Jewish Descent
• Richard Falk: the wikipedia entry says

  His being Jewish signifies above all for Falk, "to be preoccupied with overcoming injustice and thirsting for justice in the world, and that means being respectful toward other peoples regardless of their nationality or religion, and empathetic in the face of human suffering whoever and wherever victimization is encountered."

• Neve Gordon This appears to be the article which caused his difficulties at Ben-Gurion University: Boycott Israel. According to wikipedia, he is involved in Ta’ayush
• After Losing Hope for Change, Top Left-wing Activists and Scholars Leave Israel Behind (archived from Haaretz): this article contains many names, most of whom belong in this list.
• Elizabeth Morley: Holocaust survivor anticipates her fifth arrest since August
• Owen Jones, in Clinton's smears young Jewish Americans over Gaza genocide, archived here, lists "just Israeli scholars who have concluded Israel has committed genocide" (whom I guess are most or all Jewish)
  • Omer Bartov - Dean’s Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brown University
  • Amos Goldberg - Professor of Holocaust History at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Daniel Blatman - head of the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Raz Segal - Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies
  • Shmuel Lederman - Holocaust Studies at University of Haifa
• Robert Rosenthal, The Progressive Jew, who says

  The ghettoization and ethnic cleansing of my family members ultimately helped turn me into an opponent of ghettoization and ethnic cleansing – even when the oppressors are Jewish Zionists.

  and, in The Biggest Zionist Lies of All Time, archived here

  The idea that “good” Jews support oppression is itself antisemitic, and with growing numbers of Jews openly identifying as anti‑Zionist, the claim that anti‑Zionism or sharp criticism of Israel equals Jew hatred looks more absurd – and more desperate – by the day

  Here are some more of his articles:
  • Imagining a Post‑Apartheid Israel, archived here
  • Is Zionism Racism?, archived here
  • Denying Israeli Apartheid is Absurd, archived here (contains links to several human rights organisations and other NGOs)
  • Dear Mom and Dad: I’m Quitting Zionism, archived here
  • Supporting BDS Is A Jewish Thing To Do, archived here
  • Ms. Rachel is The Progressive Jew Humanitarian of the Year, archived here
• Open Letter from Jewish Faculty to Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, with a shorter version Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of antisemitism
• Richard Forer
  • at the Promised Land Museum
  • interview on Mondoweiss
  • he has his own YouTube channel as well as other interviews on YouTube:
  • From AIPAC member to Palestinian Rights Advocate with Rich Forer
  • Former AIPAC Member EXPOSES Zionism Myths
  • A former Zionist AIPAC member debunks: Zionist hasbara
• Yaakov Aharon, who also wrote Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Inside the Bondi Beach Terrorist Attack
• Zochrot (an Israeli organisation)
• Breaking the Silence, an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada and have taken it upon themselves to expose the public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories.
• Rabbi Alissa Wise. She wrote this reflective letter
• Rabbis for Ceasefire.
• Max Blumenthal, who writes for The Grayzone
• More than 350 Survivors and Descendants of Survivors and Victims of the Nazi Genocide Condemn Israel’s Assault on Gaza
• Ofer Cassif

Franck Magennis

Complaint lodged against barrister who tweeted ‘Zionism is a kind of racism’. Conveniently the article includes the content of the tweet, as follows:

“Zionism is a kind of racism. It is essentially colonial. It has manifested in an apartheid regime calling itself “the Jewish state” that dominates non-Jews, and particularly Palestinians. You can’t practice anti-racism at the same time as identifying with, or supporting, Zionism.”

According to the ... IHRA, a contemporary example of antisemitism is ...

Apparently the Bar Standards Board rejected the complaint. This article, by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (which had made the complaint),

• refers to "the International Definition of Antisemitism" (my emphasis) (meaning the IHRA definition): it's not the Definition, it's a Definition (if that - see the discussion above)
• says Magennis's comments were "in breach of" it: not so, it doesn't forbid anything (and wouldn't do so even if it did actually define any particular conduct to be antisemitic).
• states "According to the ... definition, ... is an example of antisemitism: (correctly, it may be), discussed in detail above.

Jewish loyalty to Israel??

In doing a web search about Dave Smith (see above), I came across this article One in Five Britons Found to Be Antisemitic in Shocking New Poll. It says "... one in five Britons now [affirm] multiple antisemitic statements". Being the sort of person who would wonder what these (allegedly) "antisemitic statements" are, I read on. The article mentions only one, saying "nearly 40% of British adults now believe that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Britain". There is a lot to say about this - here is a sample

• it's simply a factual statement, either true or false - how can believing either be a product of prejudice either for or against the group in question?
• granted that to say this (or anything else derogatory about Jews) publicly without reasonable grounds for believing it may fairly be described as antisemitic, this is apparently not the case here - in fact a "poll" presumably asks a yes/no question (we are not told whether there was a "don't know" option), without the respondent having any opportunity to try to ascertain whether it was true or not
• in any event, we are not told whether the question was about all Jews, or some Jews, or not specified; in fact my own belief is: all Jews - certainly no, some Jews - almost certainly yes (assuming Britain is no different from Australia - see below)

As a matter of fact the same website has a page listing articles about "Antisemitism" . This page will change continually, but right now (17/9/25) more of the headlines specifically reference Israelis than Jews.

Anyway, back to the question of Jews being more loyal to Israel than to their own country: Australian defence force officer stripped of security clearance over loyalty to Israel The relevant case is HWMW and Director-General of Security [2025] ARTA 105 In the applicant’s own written statement (paragraph numbers are of the judgment) he said

• (para 56) Allowing Jews to serve within the ADF must come with an understanding that the Jew will have a level of loyalty for the Jewish Nation and for State of Israel.
• (para 58) the vast majority of Jews in Australia, if they do serve in any national army, serve in the IDF
• (para 58) Judaism mandates the loyalty of a Jew to his people and to the Land of Israel.
• (para 58) every Jew harbours a varying degree of loyalty to Israel.
• (para 68) inherent level of risk that a Jew, particularly an observant and learned Jew, will hold a latent level of loyalty for the Jewish Nation

Melanie Phillips (again): in this article, 'Home truths' from Melanie Phillips convey one message: Israel will always be at war she is described saying

Phillips reminded diaspora Jews that their first loyalty was to Israel. She said they were not just Americans or Britons with Judaism added on; they were part of the “Jewish nation”, and that should come first. Everything else was secondary.

Jenan Matari - “Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden”

New Jersey area Jewish leadership described a factual Grayzone report about Charlie Kirk’s falling out with Netanyahu as “hateful, divisive, and antisemitic,” and weaponized it to cancel the book event of a Palestinian children’s writer who reposted the article on social media.

Zionist activists ... accused New Jersey-based Watchung Booksellers of antisemitism and threatened to boycott the establishment if they didn’t withdraw her invitation. It was the second store in the past month to scrap a planned event for Matari’s newly-published children’s book, “Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden,” following a mass harassment campaign by local Jewish communal leaders.

And here is a link to the offerings of the publishing house (based in the USA) in History/Politics/Current Affairs

These people are LYING

• Corbyn sparks fresh antisemitism charges by mispronouncing 'Epstein'

  Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has sparked fresh charges of antisemitism by referring to Jeffrey Epstein as "Epschtine", a pronunciation that Twitter users noted made the name sound "more Jewish".
  
  he was an AMERICAN. He was born in New York. He wasn't German or generic 'Jew' - he was American & his name was Epstein. Corbyn tried to emphasise aliens. He otherised Jews. [Huh? Jews are "alien", "other" - in a way Americans are not?? Do tell me more! As I comment later, they will say absolutely ANYTHING to criticise those whose views they don't like]

• Corbyn's pronunciation of 'Epstein' enrages Jews on Twitter

  Jewish Tory peer Lord Daniel Finkelstein chimed in and said, "'calling me Finkel SHTEIN is one of my tests' for anti-Semitism."

  "... Corbyn, calls him EPSHTEIN, twice, in a debate he's been well prepared for, in the JEWISH pronunciation."

• Jeffrey Epstein's Jewishness is only relevant if you are antisemitic

  Consider the left-wing British politician Jeremy Corbyn. When Epstein’s name came up, Corbyn mispronounced it as “Epshteen,” seemingly to make it sound more Jewish

• Jeremy Corbyn accused of anti-Semitism for pronunciation of Epstein’s name

  Comedian David Baddiel said ‘every Jew noticed’ while quoting a tweet that said the Labour leader’s pronunciation made the paedophile ‘sound more Jewish’.

• Conscious or not, Jeremy Corbyn’s mispronunciation of Jeffrey Epstein’s name matters to British Jews

  did Corbyn do it, consciously or unconsciously (they’re both as bad as each other, by the way), to make Epstein sound just a little more sinister and foreign and, relevantly in the context, more Jewish?

• Jewish campaigners accuse Jeremy Corbyn of 'trying to underscore' dead paedophile 'Jeffrey Epstein's Jewishness' ...

Oddly, the reports differ on what he said, whether "-shteen" or "-shtine". While the press gets things wrong all the time, wouldn't you think they would take a bit of care when criticising someone so trenchantly?

So here's a fact, and some rational consideration of the issue. Fact: it doesn't make him sound more Jewish, it makes him sound more German. It (and other names ending in -stein) is German not Jewish. And the German pronounciation is "-shtine" (not "-stine" or "-steen"). (Incidentally, none of the reports I've found gave any clue as to why "-shtine" makes him sound more Jewish).

Now this doesn't deny the right of a person to decide what pronounciation he prefers for his name. But I've never seen any discussion of what Epstein preferred (or any indication that TV newsreaders and the like had either.)

Now for the rational consideration (for the benefit of those who do have some reason to think it makes him sound Jewish): even if you did know which pronounciation a person preferred, if it's different from the normal pronounciation, it's quite understandable to slip back and forth between them.

And for some personal experience: my wife's name often gets mispronounced (following the spelling). I really think it would be totally insane to take this as an indication of anti-Chinese prejudice. And doubly insane to take it as an indication of prejudice against her religion.

And more personal experience: Hungarian has, as it happens, a similar issue: spelling "-s-", pronounciation "-sh-". My niece always accepted "-s-" without comment - either she was never fussed about it, or, living in Australia, had given up fussing about it. It was only when I met her family at her wedding to my nephew that I was told all about correct (Hungarian) pronounciation. And now that I know this, arguably maybe I should use the correct pronounciation, even though so far as I know she doesn't seem to care. But definitely I would not expect to be criticised for either, or for slipping back and forth between the two pronounciations. And even more definitely, it shouldn't be seen as anything to do with her religion.

So where does all that leave us? That these critics of Corbyn (on this issue) are quite simply LIARS, or so lacking in principle that they are prepared to criticise him on anything whatever (which is in my view, tantamount to being LIARS). And for that I despise and detest them. (end of rant).

Caitlin Johnstone (and others)

The Israeli Government Put My Name At The Top Of An 'Antisemite' List, archived here (actually it's a list of just Australian individuals and organisations). The document she writes about is Delegitimization and Antisemitism in Australia – A Snapshot October-December 2025, but she also quotes an earlier one, Antisemitism & Anti-Zionism in Australia. Note the titles - "Delegitimization" (which I assume means like, for example, numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions), and "Anti-Zionism".

She quotes at length the earlier document, saying "I’ll just copy and paste [it] here because it makes me look awesome" - which indeed she is. She also says

I’m not going to lie, I do regard all this attention I’m getting from Israel as a compliment. Winding up at the top of an Israeli list of enemies is certainly more of an assurance that I’m doing the right thing than winning some shitty western “journalism” award like a Pulitzer would ever be.

As a matter of fact the Israel government documents cited above seem to be detailed and accurate - apart from confusing criticism of Israel with antisemitism - so you can work out for yourself whether any of the individuals and organisations are antisemitic. In fact they don't consistently confuse criticism of Israel with antisemitism: on page 3 of the earlier document it refers to "antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment", "antisemitic and anti-Zionist content", "antisemitic and anti-Israel attacks", "antisemitic/anti-Israel groups", "antisemitism and anti-Zionism".

The later document lists several other individuals and organisations, the ones I'm familiar with are

• Antony Loewenstein, himself Jewish, who has also written about this latest business, This is how Israel makes the battle against real anti-Semitism 1000 times harder
• Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) and its current president Nasser Mashni.

A cursory search fails to find similar lists from the Israeli government about writers in other countries. Since these would warrant recommendation just as much as Australians, do let me know if you come across any - streisandeffect AT substack DOT com.