Jessica Rosenberg, a rabbi, interrupted a speech by President Joe Biden last week and urged him to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

The president was addressing about 200 people when Rosenberg shouted out, “If you care about Jewish people, as a rabbi, I need you to call for a ceasefire right now.”

RT, the Russian news outlet, reported that her outburst gave voice to the Jewish community that does not support the Gaza genocide. 

Brant Rosen, another rabbi from an anti-Zionist synagogue from Chicago, wrote in Truthout that he feels horribly for Israelis who’ve lost loved ones in the 7 October Hamas attack. He said there are many American Jews who are grappling with a lot of emotions. 

NPR interviewed a Jewish woman who took part in a Jewish Voice for Peace rally in Washington who said her decision divided her family.

The woman was identified only by her first name, Ally, and she said she was confronted by her father at dinner. 

“My dad is a staunch Zionist. He said, ‘You better not fucking have gone to that protest,’” she said.

She continued, “He was like, ‘I don’t want to have you in my house right now. You are not welcome at this dinner table.’”

The report said Ally has family in Israel who serve in the IDF. Not only does she want a ceasefire, she wants the grievances of Palestinians to be addressed. 

“My position as a Jew is that it [has] always been our responsibility, according to our religion, to stand up for all those who are targeted, all those who are oppressed, all those who are facing violence. Because as a people, we’ve been persecuted for so long.”

Rosen, the Chicago rabbi, noted that “Palestinians and their allies have long been sounding the alarm that Israel was subjecting Palestinians to a brutally violent apartheid regime against Palestinians with impunity — and there would be terrible consequences if the international community failed to intervene.”

He cited Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian historian, who recently said: “An entire people [has been] living under this kind of incredible oppression, in a pressure cooker. It had to explode.”

The Pew Research Center found about half of Jewish Americans 65 and over say Israel is an essential part of their Jewish identity, according to NPR. “For Jews 29 and under, that number goes down to 35 percent,” the report said.

TRENDPOST: The Biden administration has not called for a ceasefire and—even if it did—there is no indication that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would agree. 

The administration has been internally divided about its approach to Israel. (See “BIDEN SAYS ISRAELI SETTLER ATTACKS IN OCCUPIED WEST BANK HAVE TO STOP, BUT DOES NOTHING TO STOP THEM” 31 Oct 2023, “PROMOTE ISRAELI PROPAGANDA OR ELSE: ONLY ONE SIDE PERMITTED DURING ISRAEL WAR” 24 Oct 2023, and “MUTINY AT STATE DEPARTMENT OVER ISRAEL APPROACH?” 23 Oct 2023.)

There is growing frustration in the U.S. State Department over its complete backing of Israel as the country bombed Gaza into the Stone Age while preventing life-saving humanitarian aid from entering the impoverished coastal city.

There are even concerns about the war’s impact on Biden’s re-election campaign. A high-ranking DNC official told Axios, “The president centered his 2020 campaign on a ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation,’ but it seems as though the administration is currently in a battle for its own soul.”

“I don’t know how you can see supporting the large-scale killing of Palestinian civilians as anything but immoral,” the official said.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Biden is losing to former president Donald Trump in nearly every battleground state.

“The world is falling apart under Biden,” Spencer Weiss, 53, who supported him in 2020 but is now backing Trump, told the paper. “I would much rather see somebody that I feel can be a positive role-model leader for the country. But at least I think Trump has his wits about him.”

Politico noted that the Gaza war is hurting support from Biden’s base. 

Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of the Muslim advocacy group Emgage, told the news outlet that Trump’s Muslim ban is still fresh in the minds of many Muslim Americans, but Biden’s approval of Israel’s bombing campaign could lead to a large block to just staying home on Election Day.

“These numbers reflect the communities who are opposed to the handling of this war. … I absolutely believe they’ve lost progressives. They’ve lost young people. They’ve lost probably a good chunk of the Black community, and like as of this moment, the entire Arab-Muslim community,” he told Politico. “We’re 12 months away, so it’s hard to know where they’re going to be, but this is a snapshot of where the country is right now.”