Growing number of Jewish American groups speak out over Gaza famine

As global outrage intensifies over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a growing number of prominent Jewish American organizations, including some traditional defenders of Israel, are speaking out and imploring the country to ensure that humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza.

This week, a UN-backed food security group warned that a “worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza and health authorities there report dozens of deaths from starvation.

On Sunday, the American Jewish Committee, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization, released a statement affirming that it stands with Israel in what it described as “its justified war to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages”. At the same time, the group called for Israel to take steps to alleviate civilian suffering.

“We feel immense sorrow for the grave toll this war has taken on Palestinian civilians, and we are deeply concerned about worsening food insecurity in Gaza,” the statement read. “We urge Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the UN, and all responsible parties involved in aid distribution to increase cooperation and coordination in order to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Palestinian civilians in Gaza.” The GHF is an Israel- and US-backed aid group that has attracted condemnation for the killings of hundreds of civilians seeking food at the hands of Israeli forces and private contractors.

The AJC statement reflected a cautious critique of Israel’s aid blockade echoed by other groups noteworthy for their typically staunch support of the country, even as their statements condemned Hamas for refusing to release the Israeli hostages it continues to hold.

More than two dozen rabbis conduct an act of civil disobedience inside the office of Senate majority leader John Thune to draw attention to the need for aid in Gaza. Photograph: Sue Dorfman/Zuma/Shutterstock

The Reform movement in North America, which represents the largest Jewish denomination in the US, also issued a lengthy statement: “Neither escalating military pressure nor restricting humanitarian aid has brought Israel closer to securing a hostage deal or ending the war,” it read.

“Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice the Palestinian people in its pursuit of Israel’s destruction, but Israel must not sacrifice its own moral standing in return. Starving Gazan civilians neither will bring Israel the ‘total victory’ over Hamas it seeks, nor can it be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law.”

The Rabbinical Assembly, a New York-based association of conservative rabbis, said last week that they were “increasingly concerned about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and called for “urgent action to alleviate civilian suffering and ensure aid delivery”.

“Even as we believe Hamas could end this suffering immediately through the release of the hostages and care for its civilian population, the Israeli government must do everything in its power to ensure humanitarian aid reaches those in need,” it added. “The Jewish tradition calls upon us to ensure the provision of food, water, and medical supplies as a top priority.”

Jewish groups associated with the left have been prominent fixtures at protests against Israel’s offensive since it began. On Tuesday, 27 rabbis and Jewish clergy affiliated with the group Jews for Food Aid for People in Gaza were arrested at a protest in the Washington office of the Senate majority leader, John Thune.

But it appears clear that discomfort has significantly broadened outside the Jewish left. On Monday, eight rabbis were arrested outside the Israeli consulate in New York while protesting against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza – including clergy who had not been so outspoken before.

“The protests we’ve typically seen at the Israeli consulate in places like that are from the further left of the community,” Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of New York Jewish Agenda, told Gothamist. “This represents an escalation from rabbis in this political lane.”

More than 1,200 rabbis have signed a public letter calling on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. “The Jewish people face a grave moral crisis, threatening the very basis of Judaism as the ethical voice that it has been since the age of Israel’s prophets,” reads the letter. “We cannot remain silent in confronting it.”

The developments reflect shifting public support for Israel and the Israeli government within the US, which has accelerated as the war has gone on.

A recent Gallup poll reported that support for Israel’s military action in Gaza has precipitously declined among US adults, and is now at 32% – the lowest reading since Gallup first asked the question in November 2023.

Support for Israel drops further among younger Americans – including US Jews. “It’s a tense time in the Jewish family group chats,” Ezra Klein wrote in a recent New York Times column. “The consensus that held American Jewry together for generations is breaking down.”

While emotional attachment to Israel is widespread among Jewish Americans, polling has consistently found that support for the state’s current policies drops with age, a phenomenon perhaps best reflected in the community’s support for the New York Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, whom opponents have sought to tar with accusations of antisemitism over his vocal support for Palestinian rights.

Police arrest rabbis outside the Israeli consulate in New York. Photograph: Melissa Bender/NurPhoto via Shutterstock

Despite those accusations, however, a recent poll found him leading with 67% of the votes of American Jewish voters in New York under the age of 44. That figure dropped to 25% of voters over 45. “Zohran Mamdani’s triumph in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor has forced, among many Jews, a reckoning with how far they have drifted from one another,” Klein wrote.

Organizers of an action planned for Monday in New York City hope that groups that have not turned out before will do so to protest under the banner “Jews Say: No More”.

“Our tradition teaches us that if we can protest [against] our people’s actions and we don’t, we are responsible,” said IfNotNow’s executive director, Morriah Kaplan, in a statement to the Guardian. The group is helping organize Monday’s action. “As Jews and as Americans, whose government is funding this atrocity, we all must choose whether we want to bear responsibility for a policy of forced mass starvation.”

The shift is also playing out within institutions whose members want their leaders to take a tougher stance on a country many had long reflexively supported. More than 200 alumni from Young Judaea, a Zionist youth group, this week called on the organization in an open letter to depart from its pro-Israel line to speak out against starvation in Gaza and call for a permanent ceasefire, including a release of the hostages.

“We see our families and friends, colleagues and teachers, rabbis and Jewish institutions – in Israel and abroad – join a growing movement to stand courageously in opposition to these policies,” the letter reads. “Young Judaea cannot remain silent in this moment and maintain any moral credibility.”