Internal Israel divisions compound anxieties, rabbis say
As the Jewish High Holy Days approach, rabbis in the United States say their congregations are entering the season feeling deeply unsettled — pulled between an uptick in antisemitic threats and sharp divisions within their own communities over Israel. “Jews feel extremely precarious right now,” said Rabbi David Ingber, founder and spiritual leader of Romemu, a fast-growing, nondenominational Jewish congregation in New York City.
Ingber said many of his congregants are politically liberal and opposed to Israel’s policies on Gaza and other issues, yet are troubled by what he described as “vehement assertions that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state.”
“Most of us see Israel as an ancestral homeland,” Ingber said. “What’s disconcerting — we’re being told our own sense of history is illegitimate.”
The unease, he said, is being amplified from more than one political direction. An upsurge of antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment coming from the political right, Ingber said, augments the deep-seated anti-Zionist views of many on the left.
Taken in aggregate, Ingber characterized the period as “the worst uptick of antisemitism we’ve seen in my lifetime.”
“There’s a sense of absolute vulnerability,” he added. “We’re not sure where we belong.”
Even so, many rabbis are determined to embrace the coming days of celebration and reflection.
Romemu is the fast-growing, nondenominational Jewish congregation in New York City where Ingber serves as founder and spiritual leader. The community reflects the tensions he describes: members who are largely liberal and often critical of Israeli government policy, but who also feel what Ingber called an ancestral connection to the Jewish state.
That is the tension Ingber says his congregation is wrestling with at the start of the High Holy Days season, and the one many rabbis say they are determined to carry into the days of celebration and reflection.