The Jewish Diaspora Movement

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In These Times -  “I want the spiritual technologies of Judaism to be able to ground and nourish a movement that is facing despair after despair after despair,” [Rabbi Louisa] Solomon says. ?“And I don’t want these institutions that are fucking racist and transphobic and Zionist to … gate keep all of the access to those resources and that history.”

This is how Jewish Liberation Learning began: a slow, responsive and emergent educational program that launched in 2023. They hired Jewish educators, several of whom had been recently fired in relation to their activism for a cease-fire. The program was ready, but by then, interest had swelled.

Luckily, as Solomon explains, they are not the only game in town for anti-Zionist Jewish life. As a mass fracture hits American Jewry, new projects have sprouted, attempting to offer not just new options for observance but an entirely new model of Jewishness. 

While activist organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have created a space for a new kind of Jewish identity to flourish, a new network of religious projects is growing to offer a pathway back to Judaism itself. With little funding and support from the larger infrastructure of American Jewish life, this upstart confederation is remaking American Judaism with the same ingenuity that marked the historical Jewish Left’s attempt to celebrate a diverse and ethical vision for Jewish life.