Judith Loebl

The modern State of Israel was founded 75 years earlier, in 1948.

The phrase "Not in Our Name" is used by anti-Zionist Jews to reject the policies of the Israeli government and emphasize that Israel's leadership does not speak or act on their behalf.

Israel commenced Operation Cast Lead (OCL) in 2008-09 in order to stop Hamas rocket fire from Gaza targeting Israeli civilians. In 2010, Hamas admitted that nearly 700 of the Palestinian casualties in OCL were combatants.

On May 3, 2026, pro-BDS advocates signed an anti-Israel letter demanding that The New School defund the school's chapter of the Jewish student group Hillel, known as Hillel at TNS, due to its support for Israel and the IDF.

The letter claimed multiple times that Israel committed a "genocide" in Gaza during its war against Hamas, following the October 7, 2023 terror attacks against Israel. It also accused Israel of "apartheid" and Hillel International of promoting "pro-genocide propaganda on U.S. campuses."

The letter alleged that Hillel at TNS and Hillel International ran "three different programs that send students to volunteer in Israel on military bases to provide logistical support for the Israeli Occupation Forces as it wages a genocide in Gaza." The letter further said that Hillel at TNS members volunteered at an IDF base and "supported four IOF named units as recently as July 2024, nine months into the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza."

Signatories joined the letter after The New School administration refused to defund Hillel at TNS, following a May 1, 2026 vote in The New School's University Student Senate (USS) to pull school funding for Hillel at TNS. Administrators said that USS was "distorting a qualified student organization” and that USS “is using its platform to target fellow students in a misguided attempt to hold those students responsible for the acts of governments.”

There were 44 anti-Israel activist groups and 336 individuals who signed the letter, including chapters and leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

“IOF” means “Israeli Occupation Forces,” a term used by anti-Israel activists to demonize Israel’s army in place of its real name, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). "IOF" is used to allege that Israel’s existence is illegitimate by accusing Israeli Jews of illegitimately occupying the entire land.

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, thousands of heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation.

Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by pro-terror activist Omar Barghouti in 2005 to turn “Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.” Barghouti has also called for Israel's destruction and the BDS movement demands would result in that same goal.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been infiltrating university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments propose resolutions to boycott or divestment from Israel or Israeli-affiliated entities. BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents and pro-terror activism on campus.

JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.

JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).

Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.”

JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP."

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish values.”

The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”

According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”