The formula is familiar. A relatively small group of Jewish activists organizes a letter, protest or campaign. The participants emphasize their Jewish identity and are presented to politicians, policymakers and the press as evidence of meaningful Jewish support. What these elected officials and influencers rarely receive is the context necessary to understand how unrepresentative these activists are of American Jewish opinion.

The result is a distorted picture of what American Jews believe, and political cover for individuals and organizations pursuing objectives that most American Jews reject.

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We saw this in 2024, when groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice organized a Jewish campaign against increased funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. 

As threats against Jewish institutions were rising, the campaign urged Congress to reject hundreds of millions of dollars in additional security funding. Meanwhile, organizations spanning the breadth of organized Jewish life, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, the JCC Association of North America, the Union for Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Orthodox Union, were encouraging increased funding. In contrast, a small group of DSA-aligned organizations invoked their Jewish identity to oppose the security assistance that the organized Jewish community had been demanding for years.

We continue to watch this strategy be employed.

As Congress considers H.R. 3565, commonly known as the Block the Bombs Act, a new campaign is recruiting rabbis to endorse a restricted weapons embargo on Israel. The campaign’s website says the letter is “unbranded and unaffiliated” and “does not belong to any organization,” and it describes its participants simply as “diverse Jewish clergy from across religious denominations.”

Look beneath that description, however, and a familiar network emerges.

Among the signers are Alissa Wise, a former Jewish Voice for Peace organizing director; Brant Rosen, a founder of JVP’s Rabbinical Council; and prominent JVP activists Lynn Gottlieb, David Mivasair, Jessica Rosenberg and Abby Stein. Numerous additional signers are members of its Rabbinical Council or contributors to its organizational work. 

The broader Block the Bombs coalition includes the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and American Muslims for Palestine. DSA’s National Political Committee unanimously approved joining the campaign.

The value of attaching a list of rabbis to these organizations’ appeal is obvious. DSA, CAIR and AMP have all faced credible allegations of antisemitism. What could shield their preferred legislation from charges of anti-Jewish bias more effectively than a rabbinic endorsement list?

But the public is entitled to know that this is not a representative uprising of the American rabbinate. It is a campaign whose signatories and organizational allies substantially overlap with a relatively small network of anti-Zionist and DSA-aligned organizations.

Only about 5% of American Jews identify as anti-Zionist while nearly 90% support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Yet the anti-Zionist minority is disciplined, media-savvy and eager to speak. 

This is how tokenization works. A small number of Jews are elevated precisely because their views are useful to political movements whose larger objectives most Jews oppose. Their Jewish identity becomes a shield against scrutiny and a substitute for evidence of broader Jewish support.

Famously, Justice Louis Brandeis argued that the remedy for harmful speech is “more speech, not enforced silence.” He was right, the rest of us must stop allowing these tokenized voices to dominate the conversation.

Too many members of the mainstream Jewish community assume their views are already understood or that established organizations will speak for them. They imagine that an occasional press release will suffice or that obviously marginal positions will be recognized as fringe without anyone saying so. Those assumptions are no longer sustainable.

Every Jew who belongs to this majority should be prepared to pick up a pen or a telephone. Write an op-ed for your local newspaper. Submit a letter to the editor. Build relationships with the reporters covering your community. Offer to speak with local television and radio stations. When a small faction claims a Jewish consensus that does not exist, say so clearly and openly.

Speaking publicly can be intimidating. Most rabbis, educators, volunteers and lay members of the community are not media professionals. They may not know how to pitch an article, prepare for an interview or translate a complicated Jewish concern into language accessible to a general audience.

That is part of why The Jewish Majority was launched. We help members of the Jewish community to articulate mainstream Jewish positions and represent their communities effectively in the press. Jewish leaders who want to use their grassroots voices in support of the community should contact us to learn more.

Jewish anti-Zionists have learned that organization and repetition can make a fringe position look mainstream. The Jewish community must learn the corresponding lesson: Numbers alone do not guarantee representation.

We no longer have the luxury of silence or of hoping that someone else will speak for us.

Jonathan Schulman is the executive director of The Jewish Majority, which provides resources, information and training to help advocates educate the public about Jewish priorities.