JRC and The Israel Palestine Working Group is committed to fostering and encouraging learning and connection through respectful open dialogue. We find it meaningful to be in community at JRC where we are able to openly share our diverse set of beliefs, thoughts and reflections around the topic of Israel and Palestine.
Please enjoy these two reflections from IPWG members Abby Harris-Ridker (D’var during Shabbat Services, August 8, 2025) and Yochai Eisenberg (Yom Kippur Reflection, October 2, 2025)
Seeking and Finding Nuance in Our JRC Community
Abby Harris-Ridker
Parshah Va’ethannan Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11
August 8, 2025
For this d’var, I am going to start with the part of this week’s Torah portion, Va’ethannan, that makes me most uncomfortable. The section comes close to the end as Moses is concluding his speech to the Israelites who will be entering the Land of Israel without him.
“When God gives this land to you,” Moses says, “God will deprive many nations of their land before you. God will strike down your enemies. Make no covenant with them, nor ally yourselves with them by marriage, for this will cause your children to deviate from following God….Rather, tear down their altars and burn their images in fire, for you are a holy people to God, your God.
“It is you whom God has chosen to be a people belonging exclusively to God, more than all the other peoples that are upon the earth….” https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/vaethanan-a-summary-of-the-parsha/
This mention of chosenness, destruction of other people, and rejection of intermarriage is, to say the least, problematic. I believe it shares a sense of fear and isolation. The rejection of chosenness by Mordecai Kaplan is a key founding principle of Reconstructionism. There is a lot of discourse about chosenness and why some progressive Jews embrace it and others reject it, but as Rabbi Deborah Waxman, leader of Reconstructing Judaism, says, chosenness “implies a hierarchy and thus lends itself far too quickly to chauvinism and other anti-democratic behavior.” While it’s difficult to be confronted with a central text that shares a story that has these messages, I think it’s important that we wrestle with these texts. While I don’t believe we are the “chosen people,” I believe we have a responsibility to reflect on our religious texts and our history and see where we can strive to do better in the future. What can we learn from a text that tells us that we are allowed and commanded to treat others as less than ourselves? What can we do to make sure that we instead show support for people inside and outside of our communities?
There is so much in our stories, in our trauma, in our current political landscape, that might make it feel easier to become more insular and focus only on people who agree with our own worldviews, but this is not an effective way to live in a diverse community and world, and does not align with my Jewish values.
I have been part of JRC’s Israel-Palestine working group since October 2023. The group was created the day after October 7th, and we had our first meeting a couple of weeks later. As a working group and as a congregational community, we did not run away from dialogue, though that may have been easier. Instead, we started with grief and comfort circles, finding ways for us to talk through whatever we were experiencing, regardless of where we fell on the political spectrum. Since then, we have had programs about antisemitism, learned from Israelis and Palestinians, and shared our own stories in sharing circles. We have wrestled with these complicated issues.
It may have been easier, after October 7th, to find communities that explicitly aligned with our political beliefs, but I don’t actually think those communities exist. So many times throughout the past couple of years, I have heard from people who are thankful that JRC is a place where there is nuance. While many of us have firm stances and beliefs about many topics, whether related to Israel and Palestine or something else, there is a lot that is murky or that we are still learning, and it is powerful to have these conversations in a diverse community.
A part of the Torah portion that feels less complicated to me is when we hear the Shema. Shema means listen. In the commentary of Etz Hayim, where I read this Torah portion, it says, “In a world filled with noise and superficial conversation, we need to be reminded of the sacred duty to pause and listen.” I am so proud of our JRC community for dedicating the last couple of years to this. In so many spaces, it is hard, if not impossible, to share our thoughts about such complicated topics. In many spaces, Jewish people are identified as Zionist or Anti-Zionist and cannot be anything in between. I am proud that JRC’s Israel-Palestine Working Group has dedicated principles that create space for all. I want to share one of our principles with you.
Wide Tent: JRC welcomes members who identify as Zionists, non-Zionists, anti-Zionists, and those who choose not to label their often-changing relationships to Israel-Palestine. We encourage learning, respectful dialogue, and repairing the world through the organizations and actions that fit best for each member. As an institution, we are united by JRC’s broad values of human rights, peace, and justice.
The Israel-Palestine Working Group is intentionally appointed by the JRC President to include people who have a range of opinions and are committed to dialogue and listening. Many of you will remember that in November of 2023, we published a statement on the crisis in Israel-Palestine. A couple of sentences from that statement stick with me as reminders of the power of community and coming together using our distinct and diverse voices. We said, “While this is not a statement that any of us might write individually, we are proud that it reflects our areas of agreement.” We also wrote, “There is a lot we cannot agree on, but we can condemn the killing of civilians.” We were able to craft a statement that had more power because we worked together, and we did not revert to messages of fear and isolation.
At JRC, we are continuing to try to create space for all of us. It’s tricky when there are so many different needs and wants. And we can only do this together, rooted in our community and our Jewish values. If you have any questions about the work the Israel-Palestine Working Group has been doing, have ideas for programs, or just want someone to talk to about this complicated topic, I encourage you to reach out to any of our working group members. Current members who join me in the Israel-Palestine Working Group are Yochai Eisenberg, Sam Frolichstein-Appel, Danny Greene, Emily Harris, Ellen Kenemore, Laura Friedlander, Ida Salusky, Sandy Spatz, and Rabbi Rachel.
I want to close with a personal remembrance. As Rabbi Rachel shared last Shabbat, 11 days ago, a 31-year-old Palestinian activist, Awdah Hathaleen, who lived in the small village of Umm al-Kheir in the West Bank, was killed by a Jewish settler. He was a person who deeply wanted to connect with all people to fight for peace and a better life for all. I met him in 2016 when I visited the West Bank, and my favorite memory of that trip is working on a mural in his village to help bring joy to the community. Awdah led us through this project with so much excitement and joy. The community center on which the mural was painted was demolished just a couple of weeks later by the IDF. That was 9 years ago, and Awdah never stopped trying to bring joy and peace to his village and the world. It is incomprehensible that he would be killed.When I heard this devastating news, it felt important and good to share my connection to Awdwah with the Working Group, knowing that we all have different opinions and connections to what is happening. The Working Group was there for me and it was powerful to have support from this community.
And in Awdwah’s memory, I am redoubling my efforts to continue talking, listening, and fighting for a better world for all to be safe. I so appreciate that at JRC, we have the opportunity to grieve the loss of both Israelis and Palestinians. That is too rare in Jewish spaces. I am thankful for the spaces we have built where we can listen and learn from each other. I am committed to continuing to make sure that JRC is a space where we can continue to have these difficult conversations, rooted in our Jewish texts and traditions.
And so, we pause and we listen to each other. As Jews and Reconstructionists, we are taught to wrestle with our religion and difficult topics, to ask questions, to not revert to fear and isolation. We allow space for growth and change, we also allow space for people to have concrete opinions that might not change, and we know that we must show up for each other, whether or not we agree. This is hard. It’s hard to be confronted with another person’s truths that don’t align with my own, and having been on the Israel-Palestine working group, I have learned so much from listening to people who, on the surface, have different opinions from me. Shema, listen. When we listen, we find commonalities, and we can stand stronger as a community.
Caught In Between the Self and the Group
Yochai Eisenberg
Yom Kippur Reflection 5786
October 2, 2025
My experience in the Israel Palestine Working Group is an uncomfortable seat. It is not the cozy love seat but the wobbly stool, the place where your thoughts and feelings are challenged from the outside and from within. In this reflection, I will share my experience of what it’s like to wobble on that stool, how, at times, I may have wanted to swap the stool for that love seat, how I’ve found comfort sitting on that stool and how my view of community has been expanded by seeing how important things can happen when we sit on these wobbly stools in the uncomfortableness together.
JRC’s Israel Palestine or IP working group is an initiative to honor the complexity of experiences of being a Jewish person today and being in relationship with Israel while holding a wide-tent of viewpoints. I didn’t know what that meant coming in. I wanted to impart my own views as a Zionist on what I thought JRC’s relationship should be to Israel. But soon realized that wasn’t the point.
I came into the group as I felt that if I stand on the periphery of the wide tent, see what happens, read the newsletters, the wide tent might feel too crowded for voices that are pro-Israel. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be in a wide tent. Part of me wanted the comfort I had felt growing up in the “Golden Age of American Jewry” as it has so been proclaimed. Also, I feared being part of a wide tent would mean that I would lose my stance on Israel, lose my relationship with Israel, and was apprehensive about participating in programs that might challenge my views or where I’d be challenging others’ views. Indeed, my love for Israel runs deep. My grandfather’s family came from Israel or what was called Palestine in the early 1900s. I was born there and spent many summers there growing up. My extended family is there and I have witnessed their struggle from running to bomb shelters on October 7th to re-joining the Army after they were done with their army service and had already started families to support the safety they aimed to regain through this war.
Something that I wrestle with in this group is the notion that ideas and opinions about Israel/Palestine are additive, I struggle with ‘holding both’ and using AND instead of But. On a surface level, the ANDs can be comforting. The war can end AND the hostages be returned AND Jews and Palestinians can live in peace. I can be Jewish AND Israeli in these current antisemitic times, we can donate money to families of fallen soldiers AND families who lost loved ones in Gaza… At a deeper level, though, the ANDs are hard to hear, hard to acknowledge, and when acknowledged, they are hard to hold at the same time with other truths that I hold so deeply. For example, through a program with the Interact organization, we heard from a Christian Palestinian woman about her daily struggles in the West Bank. That was an AND that was new and important for me to hear. I want to be able to hold and witness and reckon with Palestinian suffering, not look away, but it is hard when so much of that suffering is used to weaponize empathy and to demonize Israel and Jews around the world. How can I be there and hold a place for such suffering and at the same time hold the suffering of Israelis and Jews who are unfairly criticized and targeted?
What became clear was that, in this wide tent, we have different ways that we conceive of Tikun Olam. As a value it is central to many of us, but we all interpret Tikun Olam differently and it moves us to act in ways that may seem in opposition. For some, Tikkun Olam means stopping the Israeli government, uplifting Palestinian voices, or sending money to Gaza and for others, it means keeping IDF soldiers closely in our thoughts or the reunification of Jews and healing the traumas within Israel. Being able to have both versions of acting on Tikkun Olam would be ideal, but it can feel like they are pulling in opposite directions. This lack of alignment can be hard, especially when many of us want action, or agency. The JRC board wants input from the group on statements or letters and coming to consensus on any action has been hard. I have sometimes been the ‘yield sign’ or ‘caution sign’ and that is where I feel the wobble of the stool strongly.
And Yet, through conversations, retreats, and programming, I realized how vulnerable everyone was being by participating in this initiative as we regularly tapped into a part of us that is very deeply connected to Israel/Palestine. In fact, I saw how lucky I was to share that vulnerability with others on a topic that is so very difficult to talk about, that many others can’t or won’t let themselves go to. In the IP working group, I get the privilege of sharing ‘ANDs’ that are important to me and hearing ANDs that are valued by others. I realized I could embrace the nuance that this group imparted while also not sacrificing my relationship with Israel. Instead, I feel a deeper connection as I have learned and engaged with perspectives and ideas that give me a greater understanding of all the different parts of Israel, all of its complexities and jagged edges. I can see more clearly now why the group is called Israel/Palestine and not just the Israel working group. I can also see how I paint Israel with only certain colors but often choose to leave out colors that other people do see. Others see the green, a religious right aiming to keep their power, but I see a blue of my young cousin who just made aliyah seeking to gain a sense of community and purpose they didn’t feel in the US. On this wobbly stool the paint starts to smear, and it sometimes feel like it has all turned to that color, whatever it is, when you mix all the colors together.
I think this struggle of ANDS relates to the saying “if I am not for myself who will be for me and if I am only for myself what am I and if not now, when”. In such a group, “being for me” means I need to share the ANDs that are critical to my identity as a Zionist, those that I can’t not say, or would feel I betrayed myself. For example, I felt the need to point out the risk that donations can end up in the hands of Hamas. But being only for myself would mean there is no room for other’s ANDs, and the things that are important to them, it means being stuck in the same position, the same echo-chamber, it means not even seeing the wobbly stool and standing alone. Therefore, if not now when, doesn’t mean we all sign on to the same position statement, or donate to the same cause, or go to the same rally, but that we stay with each other on these wobbly stools.
Through showing up for programs that are not only for myself, we each put a little crumpled up paper under one another’s wobbly stools, and through hearing the ANDs, we stitch a soft cushion on top of the stool, and by acknowledging each other’s wrestling, we form a shulchan, a table full of snacks to Nosh on to make the conversation a little easier. Thank you to all the members of the IPWG for such an opportunity to sit and share on our not-so wobbly, cushioned stools. It has been and continues to be a deeply meaningful experience.