Rachel Salzberg

Rachel Salzberg staged a “walk off” of a Taglit Birthright Jewish Heritage tour in December 2018 in order to demonize Israel, as an activist with IfNotNow (INN).

Birthright Israel is a heritage trip to Israel for Jewish young adults from across the world.

As of December 2018, Salzberg’s LinkedIn page said was a student at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy (Duke) pursuing a Master’s degree in Public Policy, slated to graduate in 2020. 

Her LinkedIn also said she graduated from Tufts University (Tufts) in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Quantitative Economics and Community Health.

Demonizing Birthright

On December 21, 2018, Salzberg was one of two participants, along with INN organizer Harry Weissman, who disrupted a Birthright tour of Israel and staged a walk off, to go on a tour of East Jerusalem and Hebron with the anti-Israel organization All That’s Left(ATL).

On December 22, 2018, INN shared a video to their Facebook page of a parting speech Salzberg delivered to her fellow Birthright participants before she walked off their tour bus.

In her speech, Salzberg claimed [00:02:09] that “Birthright keeps us from having an authentic connection to the Jewish community and identity” and accused [00:04:05] Birthright of having a “pro-Occupation, extremely right-wing agenda.”

In another video filmed and posted live on Facebook by Weissman, Salzberg claimed [01:09:39] the trip was a “bribe, intended to keep our generation from seeing and fighting the Occupation.”

Before speaking to Birthright participants on the bus, Salzberg first spoke [00:00:10] to the trip’s staff, who asked [00:11:40] Salzberg and Weissman why they had not chosen to tour with other organizations whose primary focus was discussing the “occupation.” Salzberg replied [00:13:17] “If Birthright isn’t teaching about the Occupation, when are people going to learn about it?”

Salzburg later said: [00:15:57] “We have connections in East Jerusalem and we’d be happy to set something up, if that seemed like an opportunity for people to get more perspective, but it sounds like Birthright’s not willing to let that happen.”

Weissman also said [00:13:43] “It’s not about us as individuals” and opined that “our entire generation, who is constantly going on this trip and is expected to go on this trip also deserves to talk to Palestinians and learn what it’s like to live under Occupation.”  He continued, saying: “A program with this much magnitude and influence, at the very least it should align with our values - and it really doesn't.”

After one of the group leaders offered [00:21:51] to call the Birthright administration and see if the program’s itinerary could be altered to accommodate Salzberg and Weissman’s demands, Weissman insisted [00:25:31] that “unless we can get a promise that we’re going to meet with Palestinians and specifically learn about life under Occupation...we’re gonna leave the trip.”

Salzberg also echoed [00:27:55] the words of another INN activist who “walked-off” a Birthright tour in July 2018, Elon Glickman, and asserted:”It’s like going to the Jim Crow South...and not talking about all of the racism and segregation.”

When one Birthright group leader offered [00:52:50] Salzberg and Weissman the option to extend their trips to facilitate meeting with Palestinians after the official Birthright tour ended, they refused.

Weissman announced [00:41:58] to his Birthright leader: “We’re gonna leave and instead, because we’re not getting the perspective and the truth that we deserve on this trip, we’re gonna go and meet with Israeli and Palestinian activists who are organizing against the Occupation, like with All That's Left and Breaking the Silence, so that we can actually see the realities on the ground that we deserve to see.”

The Birthright tour guide then explained to the pair that leaving the trip abruptly would be expensive and difficult if they have nowhere to go, whereupon the activists revealed [00:55:18] that they had a place to go to, “were connected” [00:58:05] to ATL, and had already made alternate arrangements.

Salzberg elaborated [01:17:42] that, following their walk-off, the pair was going straight to meet with representatives from ATLand Breaking the Silence, another anti-Israel group that hosted other INN activists who “walk-off” from Birthright trips in the summer of 2018.

Following their “walk-off,” Salzberg and Weissman set up a GoFundMe campaign to “raise $5,000 in order to cover potential legal costs, as well as the costs of these new flights, our forfeited deposit, and to support the work of our Israeli and Palestinian activists on the ground who are showing us the true complexity of life in Israel/Palestine.”

Also on December 22, 2018, Weissman posted a link to INN’s Instagram page on Facebook, announcing that the two activists would be “taking over IfNotNow’s instagram for the rest of our trip!” and urged: “Follow @ifnotnoworg to see what we’re up to.”

On December 23, 2018, Weissman shared another live video on Facebook, giving a synopsis on their time since walking off of Birthright. He and Salzberg explained [00:00:21] they spent the day before in Jerusalem with ATL on a “BirthLeft” tour and visited [00:00:57]  a bookshop in East Jerusalem with “tons of books” in different languages - “and they’re all about the Occupation.”

The pair also joined Achvat Amim on a tour of a refugee camp in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem. Achvat Amim is a controversial Israel-based program that lost government funding for participating in anti-Israel activities.

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