Jews at a liberal crossroads

(JNS) — A conversation titled “The Jewish Tent at a Crossroads,” held at B’nai Jeshurun, a synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, on Jan. 6 featured Rabbi Jill Jacobs (T’ruah); Esther Sperber, the founder of Smol Emuni US, a self-described movement of Orthodox Jews committed to justice, equality and dignity for Jews and Palestinians; far-left journalist Peter Beinart; and Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove (Park Avenue Synagogue). It was moderated by Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.

A year ago, Kula informed that he remembers his father, who came to America from Poland in February 1938, often telling of Menachem Begin coming to his parents’ home in Brest-Litovsk for tea. In his long composition, while sympathetically treating Israel’s post Oct. 7 moral quandary, he nevertheless writes: “The maimed and dead in Gaza, and the maimed and dead in Israeli towns and kibbutzim, are victims of the same dark lusts.”

Those words highlight the problem of the “liberal Zionist camp.” That is an inability to accept that one side can be absolutely correct in the Arab-Israel conflict, even if the means used in defense, as well as to eliminate potential future threats, sit uneasily on the crown of their liberalism. As Kula further explains: “We often act in destructive ways not because we are evil, but because of the ways we have been acted upon.” He thereby provides a justification for the Beinarts, the Jacobs and the Sperbers not only to feel bad, but to avoid placing the onus of their perceived failure of Jewish ethics on Israel, rather than Hamas and jihadi Islamism.

In another section of that January 2024 piece, he writes that the Jewish state is fighting “a war that will not make Israelis any safer in the long term—as how many terrorists are being created every day this war continues—and that will irreparably stain the Jewish psyche in blood for the foreseeable future.” For him, “being right” is a secondary factor.

He ends it with, “Will we have the psychological courage and moral imagination to dare and look into the abyss between us—whatever our rational world views and opinions—to find the hidden bonds of our shared vulnerability? For in the enemy’s gaze, we face ourselves.”

That ending line is an adaptation of the cartoonist Walt Kelly’s Pogo strip line, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” That itself is a twist on an 1812 event when Oliver Perry, triumphant over the British at the Battle of Lake Erie, informed William Henry Harrison: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”

Kula wishes that we accept the status of being a reflection of evil, of terror, of death—and to live with a scarred psyche he moans about.

Back to 2026 and his chairing of the panel discussion that addressed the Jewish tent question, which was phrased not only “just what liberal Zionism stands for, but whether a tent large enough to include its supporters, its skeptics and its fiercest critics can still exist.” Despite a claim that panelists represented “distinct and diverging perspectives on Zionism, Jewish democracy and the future of Israel-Diaspora relations,” I am not sure that is the case.

The success of the panelists in blurring lines, obfuscating definitions and preferring to view their primary interest in liberalism, rather than in some form of Jewishness, limits their claim to divergency or even a distinctiveness of one from the other, except in the case of including non-Zionists. They were convened to “explore the fault lines reshaping Jewish identity, and the very practical question facing communities and institutions: How big can the Jewish tent be, and what must it hold in order to endure?”

Andrew Silow-Carroll, an editor for the New York Jewish Week and Jewish Telegraphic Agency, reported on the Bnei Jeshurun conclave, highlighting that the “rabbis and thinkers lament[ed] that young American Jews are losing faith in a model that once linked support for Israel with democratic values.” He also explained why no right-of-center Zionists were present by quoting Kula, who responded: “That’s [not] where the crisis is.”

That’s admirable in theory, but then I read that Cosgrove said the role of pulpit rabbis like him “is to make room in their congregations for disagreement.” Seemingly, Kula has no room for disagreement.

Jacobs expressed her opinion that liberal Zionism’s credibility has been undermined by institutions that claim its mantle, while abandoning their Jewish values. Her point, which parallels Beinart’s thinking, was that “major Jewish ‘legacy’ organizations instructed American Jews that supporting Israel meant defending its government, ignoring occupation and silencing Palestinian voices.”

I disagree with that portrayal. If anything, Jewish establishment organizations denied young Jews a full education—an education that informed about those in opposition to the Labour Zionist hegemony, as well as just how wrong and insidious Arab actions and their propaganda claims were. Throughout the centuries, the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel was, and remains, a subject of great ignorance. There are many more examples of shirking their responsibilities for preparing the younger generations to confront the ideological battles they would be engaged in, whether they wished to be involved or not.

As for the assertion that some sort of communal Jewish tent was erected, for a short time that evening at B’nai Jeshurun, Cosgrove’s remark seems pertinent.

As appearing in the JTA article, “Cosgrove suggested that Beinart’s views have become so toxic in many parts of the Jewish community that it was a risk for a prominent pulpit rabbi like him to share the stage. ‘I’m concerned, because this is a public forum, that me sitting here quietly would signal my assent with anything that’s being said here,’ Cosgrove said at one point.”

It is all well and good that American Jews discuss and debate issues. It would be better if a more representative group of opinions gather round the table, if not under the tent. It would also be best if American Jews realize that Israeli Jews live in a democratic state that regularly conducts elections and that those chosen to lead the country do so, albeit surrounded by all the fractious arguments.

Most of all, they should recognize that at the heart of Israel’s existence is Jewish survival—physical, cultural and moral. The best way to influence our policies is by coming closer, not more distant, and to be more Jewish, not just liberal.

Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist, author and former director of educational programming at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center. A graduate of Yeshiva University, he made aliyah in 1970 and has since held key roles in Israeli politics, media and education. A member of Israel’s Media Watch executive board, he has contributed to major publications, including The Los Angeles Times, The Jerusalem Post and International Herald Tribune. He and his wife, who have five children, live in Shilo.