Our Principles
These principles are our basic agreements that bind us together and define us as IfNotNow. Actions that violate these principles are not IfNotNow actions. It is all of our responsibility to ensure that they are followed by every member of IfNotNow.
We are organizing our community to demand equality, justice and a thriving future for all Israelis and Palestinians
The Israeli government, with the backing of the U.S. government, subjects Palestinians across the entire land to apartheid — a system of inequality and ongoing displacement that is connected to a racial and class hierarchy amongst Israelis. We are calling on those in power to oppose any policies that privilege one group of people over another, in Israel/Palestine and in the U.S.
We organize our people
We speak powerfully and act publicly to call American Jews into action: in the streets, in our communities, and in our politics. To do this, we must take a firm, loving approach to transform our Jewish communities to fight for a vision of Jewish liberation: which means our safety does not come at the expense of others, but is bound with the liberation of all people.
We can’t do this alone
We know that we will not win equality and justice on our own as American Jews. We stand alongside Palestinians, Israelis, and other movements fighting to end racism, antisemitism, inequality, and militarism. We show up for others with humility and a deep commitment to fighting racism and all forms of oppression that keep us from building powerfully together.
We unite through shared values
We welcome anyone who shares our vision for equality and justice for all. We commit to grappling together with apartheid, Zionism, and the state of Israel— with what these realities have meant for Jews, and with the harm they have caused for Palestinians. We approach each other and our differences with kindness, curiosity, and respect.
We are the Jewish future
We are committed to building a Jewish community that authentically represents the Jewish past, present, and future. We aim to support the leadership of those of us who have been on the margins of our communal leadership — including younger Jews, Jews of Color, Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, Israeli Americans, working class Jews, disabled Jews, and queer and trans Jews. We build deeply with Jews across generations and take pride in our traditions, languages, rituals and practices.
We ground in history and the lived experience of Jews and Palestinians
We remember our ancestors — Jews from across the world in search of safety in the midst of persecution and violence. We remember and witness the ongoing Nakba — where Palestinians have been driven from their homes and denied access to basic resources and rights. We are committed to understanding the impact of U.S. and global imperialism in shaping the current reality on the ground.
We participate in the Jewish practice of teshuva (repentance)
We will engage our community in facing where we have collectively made mistakes, where we have remained silent when violence happened in our name, or when we knowingly supported it to continue. As a movement, we will practice teshuva with each other, knowing we will make mistakes. We will learn from our mistakes and make amends. We will build deep, trusting relationships that support each of us to grow.
We show up for ourselves
We take pride in who we are, and we work to end antisemitism, racism, and the culture of Ashkenazi dominance in all their forms. We acknowledge the existence of anti-Jewish oppression, in the world and in ourselves. We learn from each other’s unique experiences as Jews and commit to unlearning the ways that we have failed to see and affirm each other fully. We commit to asking for what we need from each other, our allies, and ourselves, so that we may all be more whole.
We trust and support each other to take leadership.
.We believe that each of us is capable of leading, and that we will only succeed if we empower and support each other to grow. As leaders, we will care for each other and for the movement as a whole by appreciating, valuing, and developing leaders at all levels of the movement, both volunteers and staff.
We are a nonviolent movement.
We believe that nonviolence is how we will win the hearts and minds of our Jewish community. We are committed to ending the cycles of violence that affect us and that we have perpetuated. We also commit to resisting the ways in which commonplace, nonviolent tactics such as boycotts, divestments, and sanctions are delegitimized in an effort to leave Palestinians with no acceptable form of resistance.
We take care of ourselves and each other.
The tradition of Shabbat teaches us that all people deserve love, joy, and rest. Each person’s spiritual and personal well-being is integral to the vitality of our movement.
We believe that we will win.
We know that we will succeed so long as we have the courage and energy to try. We are not discouraged by the task before us, and hope is one of our most powerful tools. We tackle challenges as opportunities to learn and grow together as we build a flourishing, joyous, liberated Jewish community that stands for equality and justice. If not now, when?
Why We Organize
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
We are IfNotNow, a movement of American Jews organizing our community for equality, justice, and a thriving future for all: our neighbors, ourselves, Palestinians, and Israelis. We are Jews of all ages, with ancestors from across the world and Jewish backgrounds as diverse as the ways we practice our Judaism.
Our tradition was formed through thousands of years of telling and re-telling stories of our persecution and liberation. Every year, we sit together at Passover to remember both the bitterness of slavery and the joy of liberation. We recall the narrow places we’ve left through stories of the lives lost and families displaced – from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the communities from Spain, Iraq, Ethiopia, Morocco, and countless other places around the world. And still today, our community is not free — white nationalists march in American streets chanting “Jews will not replace us,” and for some, the simple act of wearing a kippah is a risk to their safety.
Nevertheless, the resilience of our people is a gift we pass from generation to generation. We carry the imprint of our ancestors who struggled for thousands of years to preserve our tradition: who lit candles in the darkness, adapted ancient rituals for their time and place, built vibrant communities with their neighbors, and refused to dwell in despair.
Our elders taught us that because of our history, we must oppose oppression everywhere — whether it preys upon us or others. It is up to us to keep their wisdom alive. Today, as we hold onto our stories of genocide and expulsion, we must understand them as connected to the historic and ongoing oppression of other peoples.
If I am only for myself, what am I?
We live in a time where it is impossible to ignore the links between the different forms of oppression across the globe. Authoritarians around the world use racism, islamophobia, and antisemitism to divert blame for the insecurity they cause, pitting communities against each other. As we face a raging pandemic alongside mass shooters who target synagogues, mosques, and Black churches, it has never been clearer that none of us can thrive until all of us can thrive — and only collective struggle can ensure a safe future for all.
Despite our tradition of justice, a roadblock stands at the core of our communal life, preventing us from joining this collective fight for the future. So long as we teach our children that our safety can only come through oppressing Palestinians, we will remain severed from our partners in justice.
It is long past time for the American Jewish community to confront our role, alongside the U.S. government, in the systemic displacement of the Palestinian people. We acknowledge with compassion the circumstances that Jewish refugees faced over the past century, leading many to settle in what is now Israel-Palestine. Nevertheless, we must face what these actions led to: apartheid, a system of inequality and displacement that oppresses Palestinians throughout the entire land.
We must detach our rich Jewish tradition from this cycle of violence and end our support for the ongoing Nakba — the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes beginning in 1948 and continuing today. And we must reject the tools maintaining this larger system of oppression: the ongoing military occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, as well as the hierarchy of race, class, and ethnicity in Israeli civil society.
We must end our complicity with the alliance of U.S. military, financial, and political interests that exploits Jewish fear to protect Israel’s system of apartheid. This powerful coalition hides behind Jewish institutions like AIPAC, DMFI, the ADL, and the Conference of Presidents, who all remain convinced that maintaining power over Palestinians is necessary for Jewish safety.
Despite ever-increasing grassroots Jewish support for equality, justice, and human rights for all people, these undemocratic Jewish institutions and leaders claim to speak for us. They exploit traumatic events of our past and present to justify planting trees on top of former Palestinian villages, erasing the Nakba from Jewish classrooms, delegitimizing Palestinian nonviolent resistance, and lobbying for unconditional military aid to Israel.
As we were dehumanized by the oppression we faced, we are now dehumanized by that which we inflict.
If not now, when?
As long as the myth remains that Palestinian rights and Jewish safety are in conflict, this alliance will continue to take advantage of the very real threat of antisemitism to justify their anti-democratic agendas and silence dissent. They will profit as everyone fighting for justice remains confused and distracted, unable to achieve the progressive unity we need to confront the U.S. government’s role in upholding apartheid and win transformative change at home.
Our community faces a choice: Will we continue to teach our children that Jews can only be safe if we have power over others? Or will we recognize that Palestinian and Jewish safety are intertwined, and join together in the fight for equality, justice, and a thriving future for all?
We call on our community to imagine a future beyond “us or them” — where Israelis and Palestinians are both safe:
A future of equality, where everyone from the river to the sea has individual and collective rights to safety, the resources they need to live, freedom of movement, and political representation.
A future of justice, where Palestinians can return to the places they call home, rebuild their communities, and receive reparations for the dispossession they’ve faced — from the Israeli government, the U.S., and other nations that have aided in Palestinian oppression.
A future where Jews and their neighbors can thrive, knowing that none of us are free until all of us are free.
A rising coalition is already fighting for this future, with a generation of Palestinians rising up to demand equality and justice and a growing number of Israelis uniting with them in joint resistance. And in Congress, new voices are speaking out against unconditional aid for human rights abuses on every continent, including in Israel-Palestine.
Many in our community are already choosing, showing up proudly as Jews for a progressive agenda at home and for justice for Palestinians. For those who are still deciding, who feel confused and afraid — we invite you to join us in finding the courage to stand up both for ourselves and for others.
Now is the time for equality for all people — no exceptions. If not now, when?
SEE OUR IMPACT
Over the past few years, we have radically changed the conversation about the occupation in the American Jewish community. Check out some highlights from our campaigns and actions that led to that shift.
How IfNotNow Began & Our Strategy
During the violence of Operation Protective Edge in 2014, young Jews angered by the overwhelmingly hawkish response of American Jewish institutions came together under the banner of IfNotNow to demonstrate their resistance through the beauty of Jewish ritual. Moved to act by moral anguish and inspired by Hillel’s three questions, they organized Mourner’s Kaddish actions in nearly a dozen cities across the country to honor the loss of both Israeli and Palestinian life. They had three demands: Stop the War on Gaza, End the Occupation, and Freedom and Dignity for All.
After the war ended, the founders joined the Momentum organizing community — the same community where Sunrise Movement, Cosecha, By the People, and many more organize for a brighter future — and spent a year developing a long-term strategy. The demand for American Jewish institutions to end their support for the occupation and the need to transform the political status quo has only grown more urgent and clear since then.
We are bringing this crisis of conscience into full public view for our communal and political leaders. Through public action and imaginative ritual, we are demanding that our community take action in the struggle for mutual liberation. Our strategy is inspired by a long legacy of social movements in this country — from the Labor Movement to the Civil Rights Movement to Occupy to Black Lives Matter — that have used nonviolent action to create urgency around moral crises and catalyze massive changes in the mainstream.
We know that those of us who believe in freedom and dignity for all Israelis and Palestinians are the membership, youth, volunteers, and workforce upon which our political and communal institutions depend. IfNotNow is the expression of our generation’s collective power and the cultural shift necessary to build a flourishing, joyous, liberated Jewish community that supports the dignity of all people.
Our logo, inspired by the burning bush, symbolizes our generation’s call to leadership in the Jewish community. Just as Moses was commanded to return to Egypt and fight for the liberation of his people, we too feel called to take responsibility for the future of our community. We know the liberation of our Jewish community is bound up in the liberation of all people, particularly those in Israel and Palestine. The bush burns bright but is not consumed – the fire is not a mechanism of destruction, but rather a force of inspiration and transformation.
