Jewish Voice For Peace

JVP was founded in 1996 by three students at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). As of November 2020, the group claimed to include “200,000 supporters on our email list, 10,000 individual donors, over 60 chapters across the United States, a staff of 28; a Rabbinic Council; an Artists’ Council; an Academic Advisory Council; a Health Council; a youth wing; and an Advisory Board.”

In 2010, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States” that “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.”

JVP has pledged to transform American Jewish communities “by building the communities we need and want” and promotes “JVP-friendly synagogues” and services for “those who are seeking a Jewish life outside of Zionism.”

JVP’s website provides an "activist toolkit" including fact sheets, posters, gear and guides to “Jewish Rituals,” which includes resources on co-opting Jewish holidays and rituals to criticize Israel.

In 2020, JVP launched the BIJOCSM Network, “a new network by and for Black Jews, Indigenous Jews, Jewish people of color, and Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews.”

JVP posted in its 2020 Annual Report that it has 16,000 current members in 74 countries. The report also said that the group had 594,820 Facebook followers, 125,078 Twitter followers and 86,346 Instagram followers.

The group reportedly has “paid staff spread across offices in New York, Oakland, Chicago, Seattle and Boston.”

In 2020, JVP launched a podcast titled Diaspora Podcast.

JVP’s leaders have expressed a variety of hatred directed at Israel and Zionism.

Stefanie Fox, a JVP staff member since 2009, became JVP’s Executive Director in March 2020. Fox is a BDS activist, has opposed the Executive Order against Anti-Semitism and promoted JVP’s Deadly Exchange campaign.

Rebecca Vilkomerson, a JVP member since 2002, is one of the leading promoters of BDS in the United States. In 2016, Vilkomerson wrote a Washington Post opinion article titled “I’m Jewish and I want people to boycott Israel.” She has also targeted LGBTQ Jews for harassment in order to push JVP’s anti-Israel agenda. On September 11, 2019, JVP announced Vilkomerson’s departure from the organization on Facebook.

Sarah Schulman, a member of JVP’s advisory board, is a Professor and faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island (CUNY CSI). In a 2013 interview, Schulman declared, "I grew up in New York City which I think is the best place in the world for Jews and I think they should all move here, and forget about Israel."

Judith Butler, a professor at UC Berkeley and a leading proponent of BDS, is also on JVP’s advisory board and has called [00:05:57] terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah “progressive.”

Daniel Boyarin, a professor at UC Berkeley and a member of JVP’s advisory board, has compared [00:07:20] Israelis to Nazis, referred to himself as an “anti-Zionist" and had a sticker on his office door at UC Berkeley calling to “END U.S. FUNDING OF ISRAEL" in 2015.

The now-deceased Michael Ratner, the longtime leader of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), was also a member of JVP’s advisory board. Under Ratner’s leadership, the CCR reportedly was and continues to be highly active in “lawfare” campaigns targeting Israel and supports anti-Israel activists on college campuses.

Brant Rosen was the co-founder of JVP’s Rabbinical Council, which he has co-chaired since 2010. Rosen has used his blog to reinterpret the meaning of Jewish texts, festivals and practices in order to attack Israel.

JVP has relationships and partnerships with multiple other anti-Israel organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) as well as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

JVP also collaborates with Youth Against Settlements (YAS) and Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (PPF) as well as InterFaith Peace Builder (IFPB) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

In 2019, CAIR-LA awarded JVP its “Champion of Justice” designation.

JVP is also a member group of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), a coalition of American-based anti-Israel organizations that lobby the U.S. Congress to adopt anti-Israel policies and end government support for Israel.

JVP has partnered with and has been endorsed by IfNotNow (INN), an organization founded by young Jews that has demonized Israel and similarly seeks to drive a wedge between American Jewry and Israel.

JVP circulates online petitions from Addameer and the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network (Samidoun) to advocate for the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

JVP has also expressed support for Open Hillel, an organization that aims to “eliminate” Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership for Israel Activities, which ban partnerships between Hillel affiliates and groups that deny Israel’s right to exist, delegitimize the Jewish state or support the BDS movement.

In 2016, JVP declared solidarity with The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) platform, which Jewish organizations have condemned for accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid.

In 2016, JVP partnered with Jews of Color and Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews (JOCSM) to combat “U.S., Israeli, and other state-based racisms with the understanding that the liberation of Palestine, the liberation of JOCSM, and the liberation of all People of Color (POC) communities are interconnected and dependent on one another.”

While JVP claims to be “a grassroots campaign focused mostly on small individual donors,” the organization is reportedly “supported by vast and lucrative funding networks” and “supported by legal and other sorts of strategic partner organizations that enable their advocacy efforts.”

JVP’s website does not publicize detailed sources of its funding. As of November 2020, JVP’s “Financials” web page published Financial Statements and I.R.S. Forms 990 through June 30, 2019, but it has not been updated since.

In 2020, JVP’s Annual report said the group’s budget was $3,075,538, and that “Over eighty percent of our funding comes from individual donors.” The average gift in 2020 was $75.

JVP’s largest donations have reportedly come from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) and the Schwab Charitable Fund.

Other major donors reportedly include the Violet Jabara Charitable Trust, the Firedoll Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund, and, reportedly, the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP).

As of November 2020, JVP solicited funds as a public charity operation under 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. To maintain a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, organizations are prohibited from political activity, including political campaign interventions, but may engage in a limited amount of lobbying to influence legislation.

In 2020, JVP launched JVP Action to “translate our collective power into legislative wins, shifts in the public conversation, and the election of true progressives that share our vision and values.”

As of November 2020, JVP Action solicited donations as a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation, which allows it to participate in political campaigns and elections. In 2020, JVP Action posted a budget of $513,134.

In August 2020, JVP announced that the organization had unionized with the CWA Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild (CWA-WBNG) Local 32025.

In September 2017, JVP issued its #ReturntheBirthright campaign manifesto, calling on American Jews to boycott the Birthright Israel (Birthright) program. Birthright was founded by Jewish philanthropists “in 1999 to address the growing divide between young Diaspora Jewish adults and the land and people of Israel."

After decades of demographic decline in the American Jewish community, Birthright set out “to strengthen Jewish identity, build a lasting bond with the land and people of Israel, and reinforce the solidarity of Jewish people worldwide." The program offers “the gift of a life-changing, 10-day trip to Israel to young Jewish adults between the ages of 18 and 26."

JVP’s anti-Birthright campaign was launched precisely to coincide with “the very moment that college students across America are returning to campus and registration for Birthright winter visits are underway."

The #returnthebirthright manifesto accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing" and alleged “the modern state of Israel is predicated on the ongoing erasure of Palestinians."

The text claimed: “We reject the offer of a free trip to a state that does not represent us, a trip that is only ‘free’ because it has been paid for by the dispossession of Palestinians."

The manifesto concluded: “And as we reject this, we commit to promoting the right to return of Palestinian refugees… Israel is not our Birthright… Return the Birthright."

JVP’s website invites Birthright participants to submit testimonials in favor of boycotting the trip and offers “workshop templates and other resources” to students interested in campaigning against Birthright on college campuses.

On November 8, 2017, JVP’s NYU chapter circulated an open letter to the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life denouncing the NYU Israel Experience trip, which brings two dozen NYU student leaders to Israel “to promote intersectionality and inclusivity while diving into the realities of the diverse narratives on the ground in Israel.”

In the open letter, signatories pledged “not to participate in or apply for” the NYU Israel Experience trip.

In 2014, JVP co-organized a “BDS Summer Institute: A fun, comprehensive training program for campus activists.”

JVP has long supported and reportedly promoted BDS within U.S. churches. In 2015, JVP delegates reportedly worked with the United Church of Christ’s Israel/Palestine Network (UCC PIN) to pass a divestment resolution at the UCC General Synod.

In January 2018, JVP was listed on Israel’s “BDS Blacklist” which specifically bans JVP leaders and key members from entering Israel due to their support for BDS.”

JVP proudly endorses BDS, rejects “the assertion that BDS is inherently anti-Semitic” and defends “activists who employ the full range of BDS tactics.”

In July 2018, JVP signed a letter that criticized legislative efforts against BDS as part of the JVP “Freedom to Boycott” campaign. The letter said “the current call for BDS… should not be defined as antisemitic.” The letter also criticized the use of “the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.”

In 2017, JVP launched the “Deadly Exchange” campaign that accused American Jewish organizations of promoting human rights abuses.

JVP also released a video that blamed [00:04:04] US-based Jewish organizations for violence that occurs against Black and Brown communities, immigrants, and activists in the U.S.

The video accused mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States of coordinating exchange programs between American and Israeli security personnel, to advance “worst practices” and “racist policies.”

The campaign page claimed that these “policies” included: “extrajudicial executions, shoot-to-kill policies, police murders, racial profiling, massive spying and surveillance, deportation and detention.”

In November 2017, JVP activists demonstrated at ADL offices in 15 cities to protest the ADL’s role in these programs. That day, seven JVP members were reportedly arrested in the lobby of ADL’s national office in New York as they attempted to deliver a petition calling for an end to ADL’s sponsorship of the exchanges.

On April 19, 2018, Durham, North Carolina, became the first U.S. city to prohibit police exchanges with Israel, followed by similar initiatives in Northampton, Massachusetts, and the Vermont State Police.

In May 2020, after the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed in Minnesota while being arrested, JVP issued a statement titled “Justice for George Floyd” on their website. In June 2020, JVP issued an update on the Deadly Exchange on their website and on the Deadly Exchange website. They also posted content on social media that compared George Floyd’s treatment by U.S. police to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

As of November 2020, JVP was listed as a member of the Rasmea Defense Committee, a coalition of mostly anti-Israel organizations that campaigned for terrorist Rasmea Odeh.

Odeh was a key military operative [00:02:08]with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization. In 1969, she masterminded a PFLP supermarket bombing that killed two college students. She also attempted to bomb the British consulate in Jerusalem. Odeh later moved to the United States but was deported to Jordan in 2017 for immigration fraud.

In 2017, JVP honored Odeh at the 2017 JVP National Member Meeting.

In April 2020, during the global coronavirus pandemic, JVP organized a Zoom rally in honor of Samidoun’s annual Palestinian Prisoners Day.

During the rally, JVP Executive Director Stefanie Fox referred [00:02:19] to the “inextricable connection between the freedom struggle against prisons in U.S. and the struggle for freedom in Palestine” and solicited [01:08:31] donations for local bailouts and Palestinian prisoner advocacy organizations.

In February 2019, JVP celebrated the release of Khalida Jarrar from Israeli prison. JVP has called Jarrar a “prominent Palestinian politician” and signed a petition calling for Jarrar’s release from prison in September 2018 which referred to her as a “prominent leftist, feminist, prisoners’ rights advocate.”

Khalida Jarrar is a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization. In 2015, an Israeli military court sentenced Jarrar to 15 months in prison for calling to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Israel arrested Jarrar again in 2017 “on suspicion of involvement with terrorist activities and violent public disturbances.”

In 2019, Jarrar was arrested by Israel, along with other PFLP operatives, following a deadly 2018 bombing attack that targeted an Israeli family. Jarrar was reportedly the head of the PFLP in the West Bank since 2016 and the cell was reportedly “planning additional attacks.” Guns and bomb-making equipment were seized during the arrests.

In June 2017, JVP sponsored an advertisement in The Forward in support of Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, then on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison.

Marwan Barghouti initiated the 2017 hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners known as the “Dignity Strike.” He headed the Palestinian Authority (PA) terrorist Tanzim force and founded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. His organizations carried out many deadly attacks against Israeli civilians.

Barghouti financed the bomb used in the Sbarro Cafe bombing and was sentenced to five consecutive life terms in an Israeli civilian court for some of his crimes. Many of the over 1,500 prisoners who participated in the strike had also carried out terror attacks, including Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Secretary General Ahmad Sa’adat.

In May 2017, then JVP Executive Director Vilkomerson interviewed Barghouti’s son, Aarab Marwan Barghouti, and said [00:18:34]: “Please know that all of us at Jewish Voice for Peace are in full solidarity with the strike and the efforts of your father and the other leaders…”

In April 2017, JVP declared its support for Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli prisons.

On June 27, 2017, JVP-Chicago issued a statement of support for the Chicago Dyke March Collective and defended its decision to remove three Jewish women carrying a flag with the Star of David, on the grounds that “Palestinians can justifiably feel unsafe around a blue Star of David in the center of a flag..”

Stephanie Skora, leader of JVP’s Chicago, reportedly “participated in the conversations with, and removal of, those Zionists, and would do the same again if asked.”

In March 2018, JVP endorsed the 2018 Women’s March, despite allegations of anti-Semitism among its national leaders, two of whom reportedly said “that Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people” and “claimed that Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade.”

On July 31, 2018, JVP issued a press release defending British politician Jeremy Corbyn following the release of a joint statement by Britain’s three Jewish newspapers warning that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn was anti-Semitic and a threat to the Jewish community.

Jeremy Corbyn, a British politician and Leader of the Labour Party, has repeatedly referenced terror organizations Hamas and Hezbollah as “friends” and shared platforms with extremists and anti-Semites.

In the spring of 2016, approximately 50 members of Corbyn’s party were suspended from the party after their anti-Semitic and racist comments were revealed on social media.

In October 2020, Corbyn was suspended from the Labour Party after he downplayed a report that found the party “did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it".

On December 9, 2018, JVP purchased a full-page ad demanding that CNN reinstate Marc Lamont Hill, who had been fired from his position as a contributor following his controversial comments made during a meeting held at the United Nations for an “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”

During the meeting, Hill reportedly whitewashed Palestinian violence and accused Israel of “state violence and ethnic cleansing.” He also called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.”

In 2019, JVP formally declared that “the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state.”

JVP has equated black and indigenous community oppression in the U.S. with Palestinian oppression in Israel, including U.S. police brutality against black and brown minorities and “violence against Palestinians” in Israel.

On November 24, 2020, JVP posted on Instagram: “Palestine is a climate justice issue, and anti-Zionism is an environmentalist position.”

In August 2020, following their decision to unionize, JVP stated: “So often, the goals of the Palestine solidarity movement and the labor movement exist on either side of the same coin — for example, in campaigns to divest from Israeli apartheid and invest in futures where all workers on this land can live with dignity.”

JVP continued: “We are excited to contribute to the ongoing work of building international worker solidarity by showing up for other progressive labor unions and encouraging them to do the same for Palestinians.”

On June 4, 2017, five JVP activists were arrested at the 69th Celebrate Israel Parade in New York for third-degree trespassing and disorderly conduct. The JVP activists infiltrated [00:01:05] and disrupted a contingent of participants from five Jewish LGBTQ organizations that were participating in the parade.

In a June 5, 2017, interview, then JVP Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson was quoted explaining that the LGBTQ group was “a carefully chosen target." She also defended the JVP protesters as “a group of queer Jews who feel strongly about gay rights not being used to pinkwash the occupation."

“Pinkwashing” is a claim used by anti-Israel activists to argue that Israel manipulates the LGBTQ community in order to garner support for Israel.

JVP campus chapters regularly partner with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) campus chapters to demonize Israel on campuses across the U.S.

JVP’s student network works to advance BDS resolutions on college campuses, including at Swarthmore College, George Washington University, and Barnard College.

During campus divestment initiatives, JVP members have been recruited by SJP to use their “positionality as Jews on campus” to advocate for the passage of BDS resolutions.

In 2017, JVP boasted of supporting SJP BDS initiatives “on almost two dozen campuses across the country.”

In January 2017, JVP’s Academic Council issued a letter to the Dean and President of Fordham University condemning the university’s decision to block the establishment of an SJP chapter on campus.

In 2019, JVP at Wellesley College in Massachusetts partnered with SJP at Wellesley (WSJP) to bring the Deadly Exchange campaign to the university, as a featured topic during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW).

Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

At Tufts University, Tufts SJP launched an “#EndTheDeadlyExchange” initiative, which they reported to be “an extension of JVP’s campaign, with the additional goal of ending all police militarization on campus.”

To read a Canary Mission report on JVP and SJP, click here.

JVP has developed its own curriculum about the Arab-Israeli conflict and distributes “educational resources to U.S. Jews and a general U.S. audience” under its “Facing the Nakba” campaign.

In February 2019, JVP materials, including a JVP animated video that demonized [00:02:31] Israel and promoted [00:05:36] BDS, were reportedly promoted in a Charleston-area high school.

As of November 2020, JVP’s website featured a “Conversations Guide” which prepares the reader for “Difficult Conversations About Israel and Palestine” and offers pre-scripted anti-Israel content for readers to defend challenges to JVP’s anti-Zionist agenda.

As of the same date, JVP’s website featured a “Ready to Fight Training Series” which included materials from JVP’s Network Against Islamophobia (NAI), including topics such as “Israel’s Anti-Palestinian Politics,” “Jewish organizations that have a history of supporting Islamophobia” and “Jewish organizations that have a history of funding anti-Muslim hate groups.”

In January 2017, the NAI initiative issued workshop materials for its “Challenging Islamophobia and Racism” series, in which they claimed that “Pro-Israel advocates play a major role in advancing an Islamophobic narrative that helps deny justice and equal rights to Palestinians.”

In 2020, JVP Action endorsed U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Rashida Tlaib was elected to the U.S. Congress in November 2018. She has advocated for a one-state solution, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and called for reduced foreign aid to Israel.

Ilhan Omar was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2018. In February 2019, top Congressional leaders denounced Omar for tweeting anti-Semitic remarks.

In 2020, JVP Action issued a “Palestinian Freedom 2020” platform that called on “2020 Presidential hopefuls” to end U.S. military funding to Israel. The platform also called for opposition to the 2019 Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which directed the U.S. Department of Education to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism.

JVP’s legislative advocacy initiatives have included delivering petitions to legislative officials and corporate entities, meeting with members of the U.S. Congress and presenting Congressional briefings.

In response to 2018’s “March of Return”, JVP created two petitions for activists to pressure the US Congress to take legislative action against Israel. Both petitions called on members of the US Congress to “condemn the killing of unarmed protesters and to demand an independent investigation into the massacre.”

The March of Return was organized and funded by Hamas as a campaign of violent protests along Israel’s border to spotlight the demand of Palestinians to “return” to Israel.