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Israeli Flag {Sharon Aron Baron}

Rabbis from Parkland and Margate are among more than 700 rabbis across the U.S. who signed an open letter condemning the normalization of antizionism in American politics, blasting politicians they say delegitimize American Jews and fuel hostility toward them with dangerous rhetoric that has become mainstream.

“As rabbis from across the United States committed to the security and prosperity of the Jewish people, we are writing in our personal capacities to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising antizionism and its political normalization throughout our nation,” wrote the group that includes Rabbi Bradd Boxman of Parkland’s Congregation Kol Tikvah, Rabbis Michelle Goldsmith and Paul Plotkin of Margate’s Temple Beth Am, and Parkland resident Rabbi Norman Lipson, founding rabbi of Temple Dor Dorim in Weston.

“When public figures like New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide, they, in the words of New York Board of Rabbis president Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, ‘delegitimize the Jewish community and encourage and exacerbate hostility toward Judaism and Jews,'” says the letter made public Wednesday and titled “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future.”

The letter condemned the Democrat Mamdani, frontrunner in New York City’s mayoral race, for previously defending the phrase “Globalize the Intifada”—widely considered a call for violence against Jews—as well as Mamdani’s refusal to acknowledge Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, and his repeated accusations of genocide.

“We will not accept a culture that treats Jewish self-determination as a negotiable ideal or Jewish inclusion as something to be ‘granted.’ The safety and dignity of Jews in every city depend on rejecting that false choice,” the rabbis wrote. “We call on all Americans who value peace and equality to participate fully in the democratic process in order to stand up for candidates who reject antisemitic and antizionist rhetoric, and who affirm Israel’s right to exist in peace and security.”

“Now is the time for everyone to unite across political and moral divides, and to reject the language that seeks to delegitimize our Jewish identity and our community.”

The letter, organized by the Jewish Majority advocacy group, marks the largest rabbinic effort to date in the U.S. pushing back against surging anti-Israel hatred and political rhetoric.

The day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and committed atrocities across the country’s south, antizionist protesters in the U.S. took to the streets to condemn not the October 7 attackers, but the Israelis they slaughtered and took hostage.

After Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas and its sprawling tunnel network in Gaza, where 251 hostages taken in the October 7 attack were held captive, mass protests against Israel and Zionism erupted across the U.S. and world and fueled a global surge in antisemitism, much of it thinly veiled as antizionism, according to researchers of antisemitism.

Zionism, commonly defined, is the support for Jewish self-determination and Jewish self-governance in the historic Jewish homeland of Israel. Antizionism, experts say, denies Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state and seeks the dismantling or destruction of the country, which is also home to some two million Arab citizens.

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Author Profile

Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.