Responding to the Senate’s Jan. 28 vote to advance legislation affirming the right of local and state governments to penalize institutions that boycott or divest from Israel — legislation expected to come up for vote on Jan. 30 — Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, issued the following statement:
We are deeply troubled by this divisive and counterproductive legislation, which threatens the First Amendment rights of Americans. Those of us who are committed both to a peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians and to free speech must oppose it.
Neither I nor T’ruah, the organization I lead, supports or participates in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. But free speech — including the right to boycott — constitutes an essential component of democracy, a basic human right, and a fundamental value of Judaism. The way to fight distasteful speech is with more speech, not by shutting down the other side. We learn this from the Talmud, where the rabbis frequently use colorful language to challenge and repudiate each others’ opinions, while leaving even rejected opinions in the text for later study.
Download our text study about freedom of speech in Jewish tradition.
In the 1927 free-speech case, Whitney v. California, Justice Louis Brandeis (who was also a Zionist leader) wrote, “the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, [the United States’ founders] eschewed silence.. coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.”
This newly advanced legislation, introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, indemnifies state governments that pass anti-constitutional laws that prohibit doing business with companies or contractors — including individual contractors — that participate in boycotts of Israel, and effectively invites states to pass such laws. These laws are already facing court challenges on First Amendment grounds.
Rubio’s legislation further endangers Israel by equating the country inside internationally recognized borders with the Occupied Palestinian territories, which neither the State of Israel, nor the international community, nor decades of U.S. policy considers to be part of Israel proper. In recent years, both the BDS movement and the extremist pro-settlement movement have attempted to blur the distinction between the settlements and Israel proper. This posture, from either side, delegitimizes the State of Israel as recognized by the United Nations in 1948.
Ultimately, BDS will not be overcome through banning speech, but rather through creating a long-term agreement that protects the human rights and security of both Israelis and Palestinians by establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, both within internationally recognized borders. Sen. Rubio’s legislation does nothing to help Israel AND threatens Americans’ constitutional rights.
T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights mobilizes a network of more than 2,000 rabbis and cantors from all streams of Judaism that, together with the Jewish community, act on the Jewish imperative to respect and advance the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we call upon Jews to assert Jewish values by raising our voices and taking concrete steps to protect and expand human rights in North America, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories.
To learn more or to speak with Rabbi Jill Jacobs, contact Julie Wiener at jwiener@truah.org.