OPINION: Rabbis from Maine do not offer a more balanced perspective on Gaza

By Micah-Shalom Kesselman

I am writing in regard to the response to the letter about Christine Barber from Chadi Salamoun and Joshua Eckart-Lee, published on August 6, 2026. The response's author, Ms. Schwartz, writes that she feels "a responsibility to respond" and proceeds to push a narrative that falsely presents Jewish opinion as a relative monolith minimizing, if not outright denying, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and all of Palestine. She does this by relying entirely on a letter published by an out-of-state collection of cherry-picked institutional actors of the sort which are so often granted a complete monopoly of "the Jewish perspective" by media outlets. Almost always, and without a doubt, this media messaging is to the utter detriment of Jewish discourse and safety.

Here in Massachusetts, as in virtually every state, myriad Jewish institutions do, in fact, accurately label Israeli conduct as genocidal in character as well as apartheid. The Boston Worker's Circle (BWC), among the oldest Jewish institutions in Massachusetts, was forced out of the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council. And there is incredible pride, righteousness, and honor to the memory of our ancestors in the BWC refusing to taint its fundamental values to acquiesce Zionist co-option of our culture. Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) and If Not Now (INN) are both sprawling Jewish organizations, with strong ties to Massachusetts, that unflinchingly identify Israel's conduct as genocidal. There are shuls, right here in the Greater Boston Area, as well as elsewhere, that publicly and vocally recognize the apartheid and genocide Israel is guilty of, and its distressing roots in political Zionism as a movement completely distinct from Jewish identity and values. Both internationally and right here in New England, the International Jewish Labor Bund is experiencing a revivification not seen over half a century.

Indeed, it is fair to say that Zionism has always been a fringe movement within the Jewish community and only within the last six to eight decades has it held any legitimacy – largely granted by the intensive and focused support of non-Jewish elements. The historical reality is that many voices in the Jewish community long ago understood the political underpinnings of Israel, Zionism, to be nothing more than a fetid sibling to what was at that time called Hitlerism, eloquently highlighted by Jacob "Yankev" Pat in Warsaw of 1933 when he demanded in an open letter in the Yiddish papers, "Ask yourself, is 'Arabs out' [a Zionist slogan of the time] not the very same slogan as 'Juden raus'?"

The unblemished and shameful reality is that it is the ongoing denial and revisionism of Jewish institutional actors, granted an unearned and inauthentic monopoly on Jewish perspectives by our mass media, that is actually among the most responsible culprits for rising antisemitism. The true irony is that this breathless advancement of a narrative conflating Jewish identity, and safety, with that of the state of Israel is itself an example of one of the most abhorrent and dangerous forms of antisemitism based on the historical record.

And let us be clear that the data is very clear that the majority of American Jews are beginning to understand why the foundational movements for the modern Israeli state were so detested by so many of their forebears – and they are responding as you would expect. This phenomenon is only heightened in the Greater Boston Area, and the northeastern United States in general, which has long been home to Jewish communities with traditional leftist values. So, no, as a Jewish resident in Medford, I would absolutely not say that a bunch of rabbis from a different state offer a more balanced perspective on Gaza (and Israel) than your Jewish neighbors right here in town.

Micah-Shalom Kesselman is a Medford resident.