Two rabbis were jeered off the stage at a rally in support of the Israeli hostages in Gaza on Sunday — but the jeering did not come from pro-Palestinian counter-protesters.
Instead, the leaders of Progressive Judaism, the U.K. equivalent of the Reform movement, were booed by other members of the crowd who objected to their comments calling for an end to the war in Gaza and expressing support for the idea of a Palestinian state.
Rabbi Charley Baginsky was holding the microphone and had just finished expressing mourning for the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and soldiers killed in the subsequent war when organizers of the rally, shaking their heads, joined her and Rabbi Josh Levy on stage.
One took the microphone from Baginsky’s hand, with loud jeers audible from the crowd, silencing her as she said, “Every life is precious,” according to footage published by the Jewish News, a British publication.
Baginsky and Levy had moments earlier expressed support for the idea of a Palestinian state, though they joined the theme of the rally and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis in denouncing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan to recognize a state while Hamas continues to hold 50 Israeli hostages in Gaza.
“The idea of a Palestinian state is not the problem. The Palestinian people, like the Jewish people, have the right to self-determination,” Baginsky and Levy said in their shared speech. “What we reject is a methodology that tries to force this future through violence, terror, and the suffering of civilians. Statehood cannot be built on the blood of innocents, and peace will never grow from the soil of fear.”
A comparison of the prepared remarks and video from the event shows that Baginsky, already facing boos, omitted the words “in Gaza” when she expressed mourning for “those innocent civilians in Gaza whose lives have been lost.”
The incident comes at a moment of rupture for many Jews in the Diaspora, as the unity experienced immediately after Oct. 7 has given way to sharp division over whether and how to support Israel’s continued war in Gaza. (While Israelis see “Bring Them Home,” as an anti-government call, it more often represents support for Israel in the Diaspora.) The Israeli government’s decision last week to widen the war, against the urging of the military, the majority of Israelis and world leaders including Starmer, has heightened the divides, which often fall out along denominational lines.
The National March for the Hostages, which ended outside the seat of government on Downing Street, had been designed to bridge the gap. “The ENTIRE Jewish community, alongside allies from across the UK, is uniting for a historic march,” the British Board of Deputies tweeted before the march began. “We are coming together, regardless of our differences, for one purpose: to stand for the hostages. 🎗️”
Afterwards, the group, which itself has been divided over how to respond to the war, denounced what had happened to Baginsky and Levy in a statement.
“We deplore the way a section of the crowd treated the Co-Chief Executive Rabbis of Progressive Judaism today, and that they were asked to leave the stage,” the Board of Deputies said. “Those indulging in this disgraceful behaviour should reflect that if we cannot even hear and speak to other Jews with respect then we have no chance of convincing wider society.”
Police in London said they had made two arrests for assault connected to fighting between attendees of the hostage march. (They also arrested one man who was not part of the march for “common assault and a racially aggravated public order offence.”)
Baginsky and Levy said they were distressed by their experience speaking at the rally, as well as by the immediate response.
“It was not easy to stand there,” they wrote wrote in an essay published late Sunday in the Jewish News.
“We are deeply grateful for the care of those who reached out afterwards, whether they agreed with us or not, because they cared enough to listen. That means something,” they added. “The silence from other quarters is harder to bear.”
Masorti Judaism, the British Conservative movement and a cosponsor of the rally, said it condemned “the abusive behaviour” that caused Baginsky and Levy to be removed and criticized “the clumsy way” the behavior was handled.
“Nothing they said should have earned such very troubling disrespect — and if we wish to marshal the full force of the diverse Jewish world, we cannot be encouraging divisions which only detract from the pain and anguish we all feel for the hostages and the shocking and inhumane conditions they are being kept in,” the movement said in a statement.
The Progressive rabbis said they would not be deterred from participating in community events by Sunday’s events.
“We will not retreat from cross-communal spaces,” they wrote in their essay. “If we are not there, others will shape the Jewish future without us and we will not allow that.”
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