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<\/a><\/p>\nRabbi David Saperstein speaks at J Street\u2019s annual conference in Washington DC, March 2, 2026. (Courtesy J Street)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
J Street also announced in the same release that Rabbi David Saperstein, the director emeritus of the Reform movement\u2019s Religious Action Center, is joining J Street\u2019s Board of Directors.<\/p>\n
The new council, its members said in interviews, will exert influence on the Jewish conversation about Israel by reaching out to local federations, where many of its members have served. And it will also do so simply by existing \u2013 with a panoply of people who were once ardent establishmentarians welcoming J Street.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to try to find a way to get the leadership [of federations] to be at least open to hearing another point of view,\u201d said Ratner, who headed the federation in Cleveland from 2000-2003 and who is a member of one of that city\u2019s leading philanthropic families. <\/p>\n
Ruskay told JTA that the consensus he and others once hewed to \u2013 that American Jewish organizations must defer wholly to Israel\u2019s government of the day when it comes to its security \u2013 is faltering. (70 Faces Media, the parent company of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, receives UJA funding.) <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are now multiple views of what it means to be \u2018pro-Israel\u2019 in the American Jewish<\/p>\n
community,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe this is healthy, reflecting different perspectives on what is best for Israel. We need to provide space for discussion and civil debate within our community for all groups committed to Jewish sovereignty in our ancient homeland \u2013 those we agree with, and those we don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
But many leaders of mainstream organizations aren\u2019t convinced that endorsing J Street\u2019s perspective is beneficial for Israel or American Jews.<\/p>\n
Jason Shames, the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, said differing perspectives on Israel\u2019s security are a gift to Israel\u2019s enemies at a time when the country is in crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to see change within Israel, which is fair, and they do not want to see the demise of Israel,\u201d Shames said. \u201cThe problem is that balancing act, in today\u2019s social media era, means that the haters and those who do want Israel\u2019s demise inherently see that as an asset and a value to their cause, and that\u2019s where the breakdown is. That\u2019s why I think you see resistance from people like me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other critics of J Street, however, said the group is simply not representative of pro-Israel activism in this country, and it\u2019s a mistake to invite in an organization so contrary to the stances of so many.<\/p>\n
\u201cMainstream Jewish organizations should not pretend J Street represents the pro-Israel mainstream,\u201d said one former top federation official who requested anonymity to speak frankly. \u201cAn organization that seeks to condition aid, block weapons, excuse votes to eliminate security assistance and support damaging actions against Israel at the United Nations has placed itself outside that consensus. A big tent still needs boundaries. If pro-Israel can mean anything, it means nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
J Street has long faced resistance to its advocacy for U.S. pressure on Israel to move toward a two-state solution and its criticism of many Israeli actions since its inception in 2008. For a time, the group concealed the fact that a leading donor was George Soros, the billionaire who has been lacerating in his criticism of Israel\u2019s governments and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This is because J Street\u2019s leadership believed his name was anathema in the community. Soros had initially declined to help launch the group out of concern that his involvement would be used against it. J Street initially avoided directly tangling with AIPAC, but in recent years, the two organizations frequently go head to head on social media.<\/p>\n
The dissembling about Soros was exposed in 2010, but even before the revelations, J Street\u2019s outreach to the mainstream was having little success. Establishment organizations discouraged synagogues and Jewish community centers from hosting its speakers. It sought membership in the umbrella group, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in 2014 and was rejected.<\/p>\n
J Street initially supported Israel\u2019s military response in Gaza, saying that it \u201cstrongly supports Israel\u2019s right to defend itself proportionately against the threat of relentless rockets and to destroy tunnels leading into Israel.\u201d But it later accused the government of ignoring Palestinian suffering. \u201cWe take issue with those who say that discussing how to end the violence in the long run is not pro-Israel,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
J Street joined other liberal groups in March 2024 in calling on President Joe Biden to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza. The move came after months of pressure from progressives who accused the liberal Zionist groups of not doing enough to call for an end to the fighting. It also came as Israel was preparing to enter Rafah despite U.S. pressure to refrain from doing so.<\/p>\n
In November of the same year, when the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, J Street did not quite endorse the warrants. But it did call on the organized Jewish community not to \u201cblame [the warrants] on antisemitism or inherent enmity for Israel\u201d \u2013 a departure from the response of several major Jewish organizations, which strongly denounced the ICC\u2019s action as anti-Jewish. <\/p>\n
Last year, Ben-Ami, under what he acknowledged was pressure from the left, retreated from his argument that Israel was not committing genocide, and now J Street is ambivalent on the issue.<\/p>\n
But despite the antagonism his positions have sparked among mainstream Jewish leaders, Ben-Ami argued that keeping young people invested in Israel\u2019s survival is an acute challenge \u2013 and that it won\u2019t happen by discouraging dissent. <\/p>\n
Finally, he said, that point has been absorbed by the establishment, which made it easy to get the former bigwigs on board with the council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a level of fear setting in among people who have devoted decades and decades of their lives to Zionism and to the U.S.-Israel relationship,\u201d he said. \u201cFear about where we\u2019re headed, fear about where Israel is headed, the kind of Israel that is going to be left behind, and a recognition that perhaps after all these decades, providing unconditional support and no daylight wasn\u2019t the best idea, you know, and we need to have an open and honest conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cSome of these folks are recognizing that the essence of what J Street argued for the last 20 years, it turns out, is really important right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Solow, a past chairman of the Conference of Presidents, recalled making those arguments himself when he advocated in 2014 for J Street\u2019s inclusion in the organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has become increasingly apparent that excluding J Street from these conversations is a communal error because it discourages many young people who want to be involved in a positive way in supporting an Israel that they very much want to believe in,\u201d he said. \u201cIt discourages them from being included in the community and in the communal discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n
UJA\u2019s Ruskay said he was appalled by reports that the Jewish campus organization Hillel discouraged its chapters from working with J Street U, J Street\u2019s student affiliate, most recently in the case of the Hillel chapter at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I hear that J Street is not welcomed in certain Hillels, we need J Street in Hillels!\u201d he said. Hillel did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n
NCJW\u2019s Kaufman is on the board of a number of organizations that stridently oppose the current government led by Netanyahu. Similar to joining those other boards, her participation in the J Street council is a matter of penitence for her past at the NCJW and the Boston-area Jewish Community Relations Council before that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we didn\u2019t say enough. I really do. It\u2019s my issue. I feel like we should have spoken out more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She recalled feeling ill when she saw J Street voted down at the Conference of Presidents, which at the same time allowed in AEPi, a fraternity that she believed held conservative views unrepresentative of young Jews.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a \u2018We have met the enemy and he is us\u2019 moment,\u201d said Kaufman, who at the time was present in her capacity as NCJW CEO. \u201cIt was a shanda,\u201d she added, using the Yiddish word for scandal.<\/p>\n
An influential vote against J Street at that meeting was the American Jewish Committee, which nullified the nod J Street had received from other mainstream groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Reform movement.<\/p>\n
David Harris, then the AJC CEO, said he doesn\u2019t regret the way his group voted then and that he would recommend the same vote now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe it is the role of American Jews \u2014 who live thousands of miles from Israel, reject aliyah, don\u2019t face life-and-death military service and don\u2019t have to take their children and elderly to bomb shelters day and night \u2014 to seek to influence existentially important issues affecting Israel and its vital link with the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added that such lobbying for U.S. pressure on Israel is \u201cinappropriate and, yes, harmful.\u201d The same goes, he said, for right-wing groups that seek U.S. pressure on Israel for their favored outcomes.<\/p>\n
The Jewish Agency\u2019s Ratner, who once gave to AIPAC, said that organization is now too closely associated with the right wings in the United States and Israel. \u201cI think as AIPAC became more and more reactionary and right wing, and it just didn\u2019t feel right to me anymore,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
AIPAC, which did not return a request for comment, has said that it continues to enjoy the support of donors and elected officials from both American parties.<\/p>\n
Ratner said that whatever \u201ccenter\u201d there was among American Jews is disappearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think J Street has yet achieved the position where it\u2019s viewed as a centrist position. Nor do I think that AIPAC anymore is a centrist position, and I think that\u2019s one of the challenges the community has. Where is there room for a centrist position?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, said the notion that the community can rally around a single Israel position is antiquated, though it was once commonplace among establishment Jewish organizations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project of American Jews speaking with one coordinated voice \u2013 and I say this as a CEO of an independent JCRC that has 40 member organizations, including J Street \u2013 I don\u2019t know that that project looks the same way it did even a decade or so ago in terms of the formal infrastructure of collective voice,\u201d said Burton, who is not involved in the new J Street council.<\/p>\n
The groups who participated in the 2014 vote did not return or declined requests for comment on where they stand now, as did a number of federation officials. Among those not commenting were the Jewish Federations of North America, AIPAC, the ADL, the AJC and the Conference of Presidents.<\/p>\n
Saperstein said one role that he, as a board member, and the new council could play would be to advise J Street \u201cthat it has to be clearer about the Ahavat Yisrael aspect of its work,\u201d referring to the principle of \u201cLove of Israel,\u201d which applies to the country and the Jewish community.<\/p>\n
Religious Action Center\u2019s Saperstein said he expected J Street would robustly speak out against those who oppose all weapons sales to Israel since the organization itself only opposes some offensive weapons sales, which it believes should be conditioned on Israeli behavior. It does not oppose sales of defensive weapons, which anti-Israel political forces have increasingly proposed.<\/p>\n
Ben-Ami said J Street\u2019s best strategy was to make its case and not seek the marginalization of others, however extreme their positions.<\/p>\n
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