Jewish Voice for Peace

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP; קוֹל יְהוּדִי לַשָּׁלוֹם) is an American anti-Zionist left-wing Jewish  advocacy organization that is critical of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

Founding and advisory board
JVP was formed in 1996 by Julie Iny, Rachel Eisner and Julia Caplan, undergraduate students at UC Berkeley. the members of the advisory board were Udi Aloni, Ed Asner, Buz Bogage, Daniel Boyarin, Judith Butler, Debra Chasnoff, Sami Chetrit, Noam Chomsky, Rami Elhanan, Eve Ensler, Goapele, Lynn Gottlieb, Adam Hochschild, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Naomi Klein, Tony Kushner, George Lakoff, Aurora Levins Morales, Rela Mazali, Robert Meeropol, Sarah Schulman, Wallace Shawn, Michael Shimkin, Avi Shlaim, Cecilie Surasky, and Laurie Zimmerman, with mention of deceased members Ronnie Gilbert, Michael Ratner, Adrienne Rich, and Howard Zinn.

Funding
Jewish Voice for Peace received significant donations from philanthropic organizations affiliated with George Soros, the Kaphan Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. According to NBC News, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund awarded JVP "close to a half-million dollars" over a period of five years.

Overview
JVP criticizes what it describes as the "severe human-rights violations that Israel engages in every day". Since 2019, it has declared itself anti-Zionist, arguing that contemporary Zionism has taken hold as "a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others" through "massacres of Palestinian people, ancient villages and olive groves destroyed", forced exile, and checkpoints, while strongly rejecting any form of antisemitism and advocating for "a future where everyone, including Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, can live their lives freely in vibrant, safe, equitable communities, with basic human needs fulfilled". The organization also emphasizes on its view that Zionism, as "an Ashkenazi-led movement" with its roots in Europe, created a "racist hierarchy" that erased the history of Jewish communities in the Arab world, North Africa, and East Africa, whose members (Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews) "have long been subjected to systemic discrimination and violence by the Israeli government".

BDS advocacy
According to its website, JVP supports "divestment from and boycotts of companies that profit from Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem" through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), stating "JVP rejects the assertion that BDS is inherently anti-Semitic, and we encourage discussion both within our own community and outside of it of the growing BDS movement." JVP justifies its support for the movement by arguing that BDS provides a vehicle allowing individuals all over the world in the Jewish diaspora to bring about real change by threatening in their consumer choices to lower the profits of any business that by their activities reinforces Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories. Gal Beckerman of The Forward wrote that it "is a group that has demonstrated a guerilla-like savvy in staging actions that get its message out to a broader national audience. In its use of BDS, for example, JVP has staked out a position distinct from those who target any and all entities related to Israel, which for many Jews implies a rejection of Israel's very legitimacy. JVP instead targets only entities involved in one way or another with Israel's occupation of the West Bank." JVP's executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson stated: "We do feel connected to the global BDS movement. We consider ourselves a part of it." During 2004 and 2005, JVP protested against Caterpillar Inc. for selling bulldozers to Israel, and said that Israel's use of the D9 armoured bulldozers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was a violation of human rights and Caterpillar's business code of conduct. Along with four Christian groups, JVP introduced a shareholder resolution calling on Caterpillar to re-examine its sales of bulldozers to Israel. The resolution was rejected by 97 percent of the votes at the Caterpillar 2005 shareholders' meeting. JVP continued to introduce shareholder resolutions at Caterpillar shareholder meetings every year since 2005. In 2010 the resolution received 20% of the vote.

In June 2010, JVP launched a divestment campaign against the pension fund TIAA-CREF. The petition to divest reads, "We are participants and investors in TIAA-CREF funds who are deeply concerned that TIAA-CREF invests in many companies that profit from Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Some of these companies provide weapons and covert surveillance supplies that maintain the occupation by force. Others take or exploit Palestinian resources, including scarce water and even the land itself. All are profiting from Israel's violations of international law and international human rights standards." The five companies targeted by the campaign are Caterpillar, Elbit, Veolia, Motorola, and Northrop Grumman.

In September 2010, Israeli artists came to JVP asking for US support to an artistic boycott of the theater in the city of Ariel, in the Israeli-occupied territories. JVP drafted a statement that was signed by over 150 theater and film professionals. On the significance of the action, JVP said that it "was the first time such mainstream figures had drawn a line around normalizing settlements which are illegal according to international law, and which constitute one of the main impediments to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians".

In June 2014, when the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to divest its stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions to protest "the companies' profiting from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and pressure Israel to withdraw", JVP members attended the church's convention and supported the divestment measure. Rabbi Alissa Wise, a JVP co-director of organizing, told the Presbyterians that to her, divestment "helps Palestinians build their power. So that Israel is convinced, not by force, but by global consensus that something has to change."

On February 20, 2015, JVP published a statement moving from its former position of supporting selective divestment, to a full endorsement of the call from Palestinian civil society for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until the Israeli government respects the rights of Palestinians. Explaining the change in position, JVP wrote in 2015:

"JVP has long participated in the global movement to hold Israel accountable through nonviolent economic pressure, and we've done so by focusing on Occupation-specific targets including corporations as well as academic and cultural institutions. Today, the idea that there is a clear economic, political, or social separation between "Israel" and "the occupation", has been widely discredited."

Demonstrations
In 2006, JVP helped organize a demonstration outside a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Sacramento, California. The stated purpose of the protest was to argue that AIPAC does not represent the views of all American Jews regarding Israel. As part of a coalition of over 100 organizations, JVP participated in the 2011 Move Over AIPAC conference.

On February 25, 2007, JVP was one of twelve groups that sponsored a demonstration in Teaneck, New Jersey, against the sale of homes in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The organizations said that in the past, such homes were "sold exclusively to Jewish people" and that Palestinians were not allowed to buy them "because of their religion and their ethnicity". The groups said that the home sale, which took place at Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, might violate international law and New Jersey laws against discriminatory sales practices.

The JVP position on the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict was that Israel's actions were "an opportunistic agenda for short-term political gain at an immense cost in Palestinian lives" which are "illegal and immoral and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms". JVP joined marches and demonstrations condemning Israel in many cities, including Racine, Wisconsin, and Seattle.

The Young Jewish Declaration is a project created by young JVP leaders. Young Jewish and Proud debuted at the 2010 Jewish General Assembly when five of its members disrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech.

In 2020, JVP, under moderation by leader Rabbi Alissa Wise, hosted a virtual panel on antisemitism featuring Marc Lamont Hill, Barbara Ransby, Peter Beinart and Rashida Tlaib as speakers. They spoke against antisemitism being used to label advocacy in support of Palestine, while additionally attributing the right as being the largest source of antisemitism, referencing the 2019 Poway synagogue shooting as an example.

Israel–Hamas war
JVP attributed the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel to "Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression." JVP said "Inevitably, oppressed people everywhere will seek — and gain — their freedom." JVP called for the U.S. government to "immediately take steps to withdraw military funding to Israel and to hold the Israeli government accountable for its gross violations of human rights and war crimes against Palestinians." Also after the terrorist attack, the organization showed support on social media for "the latest unprecedented wave of resistance" by Palestinians. When questioned by The Forward, the organization removed its support for the post in question. JVP used language urging lawmakers to examine the "root cause" of the Hamas terrorist attack, which they believe is Israel. The Forward wrote that this was a way for JVP "to acknowledge how objectionable most observers found the attacks on civilians while keeping their advocacy focused on pressuring the Israeli government to make concessions."

Jewish Voice for Peace, along with IfNotNow, led an October 16, 2023, rally in Washington, D.C. which called for a ceasefire in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war and for United States President Joe Biden to support a ceasefire. Among the speakers was actor Wallace Shawn. On October 27, protestors organized by Jewish Voice for Peace occupied Grand Central Terminal in New York City, calling for a ceasefire and wearing t-shirts saying "Not in our name". On November 6, about 500 members of Jewish Voice for Peace–New York City took part in a sit-in at the Statue of Liberty to demand a ceasefire. Photographer Nan Goldin addressed the demonstration, saying, "As long as the people of Gaza are screaming, we need to yell louder, no matter who attempts to silence us."

Since November 2023, JVP's chapter at Columbia University has been under suspension. The university stated that both the JVP chapter and Students for Justice in Palestine had breached university policies, engaging in "threatening rhetoric and intimidation", leading to the suspension of the clubs.

In November 2023, the Anti-Defamation League classified anti-war protest events led by Jewish groups including Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow as "anti-Israel", adding the protests to a database documenting rising antisemitism in the US. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt labelled the Jewish organizations "hate groups" and equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. This led to criticism of ADL, including from its own staff, one of whom quit in protest, stating: "Those were Jewish people who we [as the ADL] were defaming, so that felt extremely, extremely confusing, and frustrating to me. And it makes it harder to talk about that when any criticism of Israel, or anyone who criticizes Israel, just becomes a terrorist."

Publication
In 2004, JVP published a collection of essays entitled Reframing Anti-Semitism: Alternative Jewish Perspectives. Among the topics it discussed were antisemitism and stereotypes of Jews in modern America. It argued that the Jewish left and critics of Israeli policy had ceded the fight against antisemitism to the Jewish right and that critics of Israel or Israeli policies should not be accused of antisemitism.

Reception
Jewish Voice for Peace has faced broad opposition from the Jewish community at large due to its rhetoric and support for the BDS movement. Opponents argue that the organization amplifies a view that is often seen as fringe within the community, creating greater tolerance for views and statements considered offensive by many Jews. The ADL, a vocal longtime critic of the organization, has argued that JVP unfairly places the onus of resolving the conflict on Israel. JVP has at times been denied participation or membership in broader Jewish community events or spaces. While some Jewish leaders concede that the community is too quick to censor criticism of Israel, even the Jewish state's critics among the community are reluctant to welcome JVP into the fold. JVP has been criticized for partnering with groups including Electronic Intifada, Al-Awda, and the Movement for Black Lives, all of which have characterized Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid and accused the state of genocide.

Others in the Jewish community have argued that JVP has been unfairly shut out. According to political scientist Dov Waxman, the anger which JVP's actions and positions arouse in many other American Jewish groups is just one index of a broader polarizing controversy within the Jewish American community at large, whose leaders had hitherto managed to shut out internal disagreements from the public purview. Since the 2010s, there has been a shift toward greater tolerance for JVP within the community. Some left-wing Jews have praised the organization for giving an outlet to younger Jews who are more critical toward Israel.

In September 2013, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship awarded JVP its Peaceseeker Award "for their courageous work for justice and peace in Palestine and Israel," noting that the fellowship "celebrates their work of nonviolence in the face of violence."

In 2017, JVP was criticized for inviting Rasmea Odeh, a former PFLP member convicted by Israeli military courts for her role in the 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing, as a featured speaker in its biennial conference. Odeh was subsequently deported from the United States after pleading guilty to immigration fraud and losing her American citizenship.