(RNS) — In the first months of the Israel-Hamas war, some of the loudest critics and the largest pro-Palestinian rallies originated with progressive Jewish-led groups such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. Both welcome non-Jews, and their Jewish members span from the highly observant to those who define their Judaism apart from religious practice.
IfNotNow has not made a declaration on Zionism, but JVP is explicitly anti-Zionist. Three weeks after Hamas murdered nearly 1,200 civilians and soldiers in its attack on southern Israel and took some 200 hostages, a protest organized by JVP bottled up commuters at Grand Central Station in New York as thousands chanted, “Let Gaza Live!”
Eliana Padwa, a 25-year-old history teacher from the Bronx, didn’t participate in any of JVP’s early protests. Having grown up an adherent of modern Orthodoxy, a sect of no more than half a million believers, or about 5% of American Jews, Padwa was stricken by Hamas’ attack. She vividly remembers the grief that hung in the air in her synagogue on Simchat Torah, the usually joyful holiday that fell on Oct. 7 last year, as she sat with her parents and information trickled in about the scale of the destruction.
In the weeks and months that followed, Padwa became increasingly disturbed by the rising death toll in Gaza, certain the war was making the prospect of peace and security in the region more remote. Even before the war, Padwa questioned Israel’s policies toward Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, a perspective she says is rare among modern Orthodox Jews.
Eliana Padwa demonstrates with other Halachic Left members in New York City. (Image via Instagram/jfrejnyc)
Still, she said, “it’s been a big radicalizing moment for me.”
Over the past year, Padwa said, she noticed more young, observant Jews expressing discomfort with the broader Jewish community’s support for war. In January, Padwa set out to create a place where Jews like her can express their feelings and protest the war, calling her movement the Halachic Left.
The organization now has chapters in five U.S. cities. Many of its members have spent time in Israel or have friends and family who live there. Some have served in the Israel Defense Forces. While demanding an end to the current wars in Lebanon and Gaza, the group does not think of itself as a breakaway religious community of anti-Zionists, said Padwa. “We’re putting forth a way forward that’s not endless destruction and violence. We want that message to be heard within the religious community.”
The Halachic Left held one of its first public actions on Tisha B’av, a Jewish fast day mourning the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem and other calamities throughout Jewish history. This year it fell on a sunny Tuesday in August. Padwa and more than a dozen other Halachic Left demonstrators sat on the sidewalk outside New York’s bustling 96th Street subway station in quiet contemplation.
“This is a holiday about having your entire society crumble before your eyes,” Padwa said at the time. “For me, there’s no way to mourn this year outside of the context of what’s currently happening in Gaza.”
They chose the subway stop, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, for the surrounding neighborhood’s high density of modern Orthodox Jews, sometimes called centrist Orthodox Jews, who have been some of the most outspoken supporters of Israel in the United States.
Modern Orthodoxy, which traces its roots to 19th-century Germany, when Jewish communities were grappling with how to engage with values popularized by the Enlightenment, seeks to integrate parts of secular culture with strict religious observance, particularly in the realm of education, combining contemporary mathematics, science and literature with study of Torah.
One of the movement’s early defining features was its relationship with the Zionist movement. Unlike other types of Jewish Orthodoxy, which were largely hostile to secular statehood, the movement’s embrace of modernism made room for a new position that saw the return of Jews to their ancient homeland as a fulfillment of God’s biblical promise to Abraham.
While most early Zionists were not religious, modern Orthodoxy’s framework has since gained political momentum in Israel. Today it fuels a segment of Israeli society known as the Religious Zionism, which at its most extreme advocates full annexation of the occupied West Bank.
People organized by Halachic Left demonstrate against the Israel-Hamas war outside the 96th Street subway station on Tisha B’av, Aug. 13, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Gili Getz)
The idea of a religious connection to the land also underpins the education that many members of the Halachic Left received early in their lives. “One of the strongest messages of my education was that you’re supposed to love Israel, and anyone who tells you something bad about it is lying and trying to manipulate you,” Padwa said.
After spending a post-collegiate year in Israel, she returned home in 2022 and rejoined her modern Orthodox synagogue. “Judaism is the air I breathe, the water in which I swim,” Padwa said, but politically she felt at odds with what she heard.
Then, the violence of Oct. 7 and the international backlash against Israel’s ensuing war caused many in Padwa’s community to redouble their support for Israel, even as the civilian death toll climbed in Gaza. Programming at her synagogue promoted Israel’s cause, and sermons took on a distinctly nationalist tone.
But Padwa also began hearing “clandestine conversations” among her peers, she said, “like, ‘We’re not sure about this. We’re questioning this.’” She organized an event in a basement cafe on the Upper West Side where fellow religious Jews could speak openly about what it meant to oppose the war.
“I expected to get 10 or 15 people,” Padwa said. “Instead, 50 people signed up.” She scheduled a follow-up conversation over Zoom so people outside New York could participate.
Since the initial demonstration in August, the Halachic Left has kept up a steady schedule of events, from a bake sale to raise funds for families in Gaza to learning sessions such as a panel discussion held in Chicago in October about moving from grief to repair within the Jewish tradition. The Halachic Left often collaborates with other groups, including IfNotNow, believing that the more people who know about the organization, the greater influence it can have.
Noam Weinreich, a 30-year-old modern Orthodox Jew in Chicago, attended Padwa’s initial virtual event after hearing about it through what he called a “whisper network” of religious Jews with anti-occupation views. At that meeting, he said, he felt profound relief.
“Finally, I’m talking to other people who share the same lingo, had the same upbringing, but also share these very taboo views — the desire to even talk about Palestinians,” Weinreich said. He helped write a guide on how to broach difficult conversations about Israel and Palestine at synagogue that was published on the group’s website in late August.
Weinrich believes that for many American Jews born after 1993, when the failed peace agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel known as the Oslo Accords was originally signed, “the story where Israel is the one who seeks peace and the Palestinians are the ones who are refusing has become a lot less compelling.”
He asked, “In the years since, what steps has Israel taken towards giving Palestinians the basic rights that every human is entitled to?”
Many of those who have joined the Halachic Left believe observant Jews have a particular obligation to oppose what they see as an unjust war — and are uniquely positioned to do so. After all, Jewish observance, from prayer in a minyan to finding kosher food, can only be done as part of a broader community. Halachic Left is trying to broaden its own reach by appealing to that sense of commonality.
“Our goal is to actively change the conversation and ultimately to put pressure on those in our community who hold power to stop funding Israel’s actions,” Padwa said. “If our communities can start holding Israel accountable, I think we will see material change.”
