this is just a few quick thoughts on If Now Now’s new strategic direction, because it seems to me that it’s both a doubling down on one of the things that’s been one of INN’s biggest limitations from the start, and also a fantastic rebuke to the ostentatiously failed strategies of big players from the 501c world who put themselves forward as the jewish left.
not being part of INN myself, i’m relying on Jewish Currents‘ coverage here (and, in the past, here). i’d love to hear from folks who’re closer to the organization about whether they think that coverage is accurate, and whether my thinking makes sense from where they stand.
If Not What
the first part is pretty straightforward. INN’s steadfast refusal to name what they oppose as Zionism, and thus to define their opposition as anti-Zionist, seems to come as much as anything from a desire to preserve existing u.s. jewish institutions, religious institutions in particular (from local synagogues to denominations). the way they place the religious conception of tshuva [return / repentence / reconciliation] at the heart of their work is, most often, less about coming into right relation with palestinian communities (which, to be clear, they also clearly aspire to do), and more about saving those insititutions – imagining futures in which they continue to exist despite their longstanding central role in promoting Zionist hegemony within u.s. jewish life and materially supporting the ongoing genocide in palestine.
that vision has been part of what has enabled INN’s rapid growth in various periods, which has been almost entirely driven by young people raised within those institutions who know that their ethics and politics are directly contradicted by what those institutions do, believe, and promote, but nonetheless do not yet feel able to actually break with them. INN has been notable as one of very few self-identified progressive jewish organizations that does not meaningfully draw members from the secular/veltlekhe/non-religious majority of u.s. jews, who have historically been the heart of almost all elements of the jewish left (whether labeled as such, like the Emma Lazarus Clubs of the 1950s-80s and Jews Against the Occupation/NYC of the 2000s, or not, like Women Against Imperialism in the 1980s and QUIT Palestine from the 2000s on), being instead based on members shaped by religious summercamps and hebrew schools.
that has meant that while they’ve been able to offer a path out of active Zionism and an alternative jewish affiliation for young people raised in Zionist religious institutions, there has been a very definite horizon to their work. while members may become anti-Zionist through involvement with INN, they have had to look elsewhere if they want to be part of a group that openly recognizes the basic historical fact that the genocidal conquest of palestine is the inextricable core of the Zionist project. in some ways, INN’s most important contribution to u.s. palestine solidarity movements has been just that: providing a temporary political home for young people leaving Zionism, so that they can join the larger movement having already worked through at least some of their emotional entanglement with genocidal colonialist nationalism in a context where they aren’t inflicting it on palestinians and other non-jews.
it would be great if INN understood themselves as that kind of holding-area organization – i suspect some folks involved do, and perhaps would say as much if the organization didn’t have to keep up the kayfabe to be successful in that role. as it is, it plays a particularly ambiguous role in relation to the palestine solidarity movement, feeding in a substantial number of newborn anti-Zionists, but ones who retain significant commitment to various elements of Zionist culture and institutions, and who are accustomed to political fence-sitting.
What Now
If Not Now’s new move to a strategy of creating factions within the membership of Zionist synagogues is a bold and fascinating one. josh nathan-kazis’ piece in Jewish Currents (linked above) quotes a number of past and present INN leaders on the shape and tensions of that project; i won’t try to summarize them here. what i’m interested in is the promise implicit in the campaign’s name – “Fighting Factions” — and questioned by INN co-founder simone zimmerman in Currents:
“You have to be able to stomach navigating a space where horrific things are being said and supported, and have enough compassion for these people that you can still tolerate working with them […] And then you also have to have enough of a moral center that you will not bend when you’re being asked to compromise certain lines. That’s a really hard thing to navigate. I think it’s a worthwhile thing to test out. I just don’t know if it’s possible.”
if INN’s new effort does intend to live up to the “fighting” part of the name, it will depend entirely on where it draws the lines on which it refuses to compromise. and that would be a stunning, and stinging, rebuke to the approach that longstanding “jewish left” organizations have taken in their relationships to Zionist synagogues.
i’ll talk about that through the lens of nyc’s JFREJ, because it’s the organization i know best (almost 20 years as a member, including two terms on the Board); i believe it echos the practice of other similar groups around the u.s., whose rhetoric is often explicitly Zionist in ways that JFREJ tends to avoid.
the stated intention from INN is to “make a huge stink” (ED Morriah Kaplan) at egregious statements or actions within Zionist synagogues, in hopes of preventing them from moving forward, and of opening space for “real conversations” within the membership. that stands in stark contrast to how JFREJ has handled its relationships with such institutions.
for example, JFREJ began organizing synagogue members in the mid/late-00s, focusing on bringing employers of domestic workers into Domestic Workers United’s campaign to end the legal exclusion of domestic workers from labor protections. a key piece of that was working with Congregation Bnei Jeshurun (BJ), which a few years earlier had ended a longstanding role as the (paid) venue for JFREJ’s annual gala because the organization honored International Solidarity Movement co-founder adam shapiro and his family for his palestine solidarity work – at the time, BJ also made its position clear by hosting (likely unpaid) photo exhibitions painting a rosy picture of Zionist colonial settlements in the occupied west bank. other key synagogue partnerships involved less immediate cognitive dissonance, but were similar in who JFREJ’s bedfellows were: Congregation Beit Simchat Torah’s rabbi sharon kleinbaum, who says her Zionism is “in my DNA”; Congregation Beth Elohim’s rabidly anti-BDS rabbi andy bachman, etc.
despite the clear position of the bulk of its members, JFREJ, now as well as then, equivocates on Zionism, with staff putting out a palestine solidarity rhetoric that does not match the organization’s absolute refusal to take an actual anti-Zionist position. some staff and members justify that hedging by the idea that it makes it possible to work with synagogues like the ones i’ve mentioned, and thus to change their politics for the better. in practice, however, JFREJ has consistently refused to challenge those synagogues on their support for genocide – and its practice, beyond the rhetoric, has moved rightward in the process. it has, in fact, refused to even make public statements opposing their partners’ Zionist positions, even on local issues where it could make a significant difference, even where there was no need to name them directly – not just in the early 00s, but this month, more than 3 1/2 years into the khurbn ‘eza [destruction/genocide of gaza].
a prime example is the recent victory in the nearly-two-decade-long fight for a commitment to BDS at the 17,000-member Park Slope Food Coop. the struggle took so long largely because of opposition organized by and through liberal Zionist synagogues like Beth Elohim, whose memberships have a large concentration of JFREJ members (in part because of its domestic employer organizing). these groups worked (with the support of the Coop’s paid leadership) largely through procedural mechanisms, with one of the key moments being a 2016 general membership meeting vote on whether to have a vote on a scaled-back boycott of settlement products. not only did JFREJ refuse to support the boycott resolution, which fell well within its official stance of opposing the 1967 Occupation, but it refused to even support holding a vote to choose whether to join the boycott. this was not a “neutral” position, but an active alignment with JFREJ’s Zionist partner organizations, as shown when i was nearly censured by the JFREJ Board for identifying myself as a JFREJ Board member when speaking for democratic decisionmaking at the meeting (as people from JFREJ’s partner synagogues had when speaking against a democratic process).
following in that pattern a decade later, JFREJ held its silence throughout the past two years of re-energized BDS organizing (anchored by former JFREJ Board members and current rank-and-file members), even as it rhetorically positioned itself in solidarity with palestine. despite that silence, a vote last week won a full boycott by a 2/3 majority at the largest membership meeting the Coop has ever had. that victory could have come in 2016, or even 2009, have JFREJ not sat shtum to preserve its relationships with Zionist synagogues, no matter what its supposed principles might dictate.
as seen with the Coop, the hallmark of JFREJ’s work with and in synagogues has been a complete absence of “a moral center that you will not bend when you’re being asked to compromise certain lines”. there have been no lines that it has not compromised on, including active, enthusiastic collaboration with institutions that have refused to even take their money because it would mean being associated with the organization’s very thin and rarely acted-on formal opposition to the 1967 Occupation.
strategically speaking, this has been thoroughly useless, of course. the only synagogue in nyc that has adopted a formal policy of not using a pro-Zionist litmus test for renters of their space (a not-particularly progressive shul on the block where my communist grandmother grew up) did so because my theater collective brought more young people into their space for our explicitly anti-Zionist, abolitionist, anti-borders trans- and queer-created purimshpiln than they saw the rest of the year. this was explicitly despite the fact that those shows were co-sponsored by JFREJ – which, again, holds no such positions as an organization (and regularly pressured us to tone down the content of our work, despite a signed agreement on political and artistic independence).
if INN can accomplish anything concrete – whether changes in synagogues’ policies and positions, or (i think more likely) weakening, splitting, or collapsing these Zionist institutions – through the “fighting” part of their “fighting factions” work, it will be a powerful demonstration that not only does JFREJ’s compromise-centered approach not work, but the exact opposite does. or, if you prefer, that you only get anywhere with ethics and political positions if you (a) have them, and (b) stick to them.
where will INN draw the line past which it will not compromise? how seriously and aggressively will they pursue faction fights? i don’t know, but time wil tell!
i’m excited to see how this all plays out.