Zionism Is Still Not Judaism
Another Response to Rabbi Ari Jun
Members of Jewish Voice for Peace stage a sit-in at Trump Tower on March 13, 2025.
Our party has, yet again, been vilified amidst the controversy surrounding the Queen City United: Stand in Solidarity Against White Supremacy Rally on March 9th, following the correct decision by the organizers to remove outspoken Zionist, opponent of the Free Palestine movement, and self-proclaimed “progressive” Rabbi Ari Jun from the rally’s speaking program.
The rally was planned in response to a racist demonstration organized by an armed neonazi group on a bridge in the historically Black Village of Lincoln Heights. The handful of fascist instigators were quickly outnumbered and driven out by the Lincoln Heights residents. Jun has since published an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer declaring antisemitism the reason for his removal—a story which has been picked up by publications like The Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post.
In Rabbi Jun’s article, “I’m a Zionist. That shouldn't prevent me from speaking at a rally against Nazis,” he writes: “It is wrong to plan a rally against Nazis at which you effectively exclude Jews from participating.”
This is a gross and deliberate weaponization of antisemitism, and nothing but an attempt to undermine the Free Palestine movement by conflating Judaism with Zionism and anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Not only were Jews not excluded, but multiple Jewish comrades and organizations were involved in the organizing of, and additionally spoke at, the rally. Jun specifically was removed for his political track record, not his Jewish identity.
Jun has come after our party on numerous occasions over the last year and a half. He claimed we looked “like an extremist or hate group” for protesting outside of Greg Landsman’s office last year, after he voted to send billions of dollars in weapons to Israel. He again accused us of antisemitism for exposing the Cincy Pride organizers who kicked our party out of NKY Pride for distributing literature on Palestine and the Israeli genocide. He also berrated a Palestinian woman, Amina Barhumi, in an NPR discussion for acknowledging Israeli apartheid, while denying Israel’s genocide outright.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, 10% to 12% of Gaza’s population has been wiped out. This is over 600,000 Palestinians, and many are still buried under the rubble and unaccounted for in official death counts. Israel has cut off supplies and aid to Gaza, have forced 40,000 people out of their homes in the West Bank, are conducting air raids on civilians in both Southern and Northern Syria, and they continue their bombardment of Southern Lebanon.
Jun continually doubles down on his genocide denial. He calls Israel’s assault on civilians a “war” rather than a genocide, and is conveniently silent about the Nakba, as if all this started on October 7th. To call this a war is to intentionally obscure the genocidal character of the Israeli military's actions and to erase Israel’s history of ethnic cleansing. In an article from February 6th of this year (2025), “Israel Has Thus Far Avoided Ethnic Cleansing − It Doesn't Help for Trump to Push the Idea,” he writes
When critics of Israel have equated this war to genocide or ethnic cleansing, I have been quick to forcefully explain why those terms are not just wrong but also undermine the peace efforts of real Israelis and Palestinians. That I’ve so often spoken out against such hyperbole [our italics] is why I now feel obligated to say something.
After reducing genocide to mere hyperbole and rushing to justify the IDF’s onslaught on innocent civilians, Jun wonders why the left in Cincinnati rejects his leadership. Jun’s lack of introspection is here on full display. He fails to consider any of this. He doesn’t understand why an action largely organized by groups he has attacked for a year and a half would not offer him a microphone. For him the only explanation is antisemitism. It’s incomprehensible to him that there are people who oppose genocide in real earnest.
Rabbi Jun also had nothing to say when the notoriously violent far-right Proud Boys rallied in Columbus last January. In fact, Jun actively opposed efforts of the organized left to confront a 2019 Klan rally in Dayton. Instead, he wrote “I trust our local police to ensure Dayton not become the next Charlottesville” and, in classic McCarthyite language, bemoaned the “thousands of angry counter-protestors, many bused in from around the region.” It never seems to matter to Rabbi Jun that the people protesting these groups are Ohio residents of all faiths and backgrounds; if they don’t align with his beliefs, Jun invalidates their efforts by conjuring outside agitators—a strategy employed by segregationists and anticommunists in the US for nearly a century.
Jun reinforced this idea in his video blog entry, Confronting Nazis, where he says, “vigilantism cannot be the answer…The vigilante justice of confronting the Nazis on the bridge is absolutely heroic in retelling [our italics]. It makes a great narrative.”
We cannot allow comments like these to slide. The fearless response of the Lincoln Heights community to armed fascists threatening their homes was heroic in actual fact. Furthermore, we must state clearly: Anyone calling Black people engaging in self-defense “vigilanties” is a racist.
He continues:
Much as we abhor them, the Nazis, and their behavior, and their language, they weren’t engaging in illegal activity, except at most on technicalities. There are ways for us to change the law to make it illegal in the future…but as of now it isn’t illegal, and physically attacking people for exercising their First Amendment rights is not how we’re supposed to solve disagreements in the United States [our italics].
Rabbi Jun’s readiness to condemn those who actively oppose racist violence is laid bare, as he so often shows when engaging with those who oppose Israel’s longstanding genocide of Palestinians. Moreover, reducing an existential fascist threat to mere disagreements only lends legitimacy to the neonazis and discredits the people of Lincoln Heights.
Jun’s solution for the rising fascist tide is to rely on the state and its laws. With childlike naïveté, he ignores that history time and again—including and especially Weimar Germany and Hitler’s rise to power—has shown that relying on the state to counter fascism is a losing strategy. This was immediately illustrated by Evendale PD’s response to the neonazi demonstration, where cops not only protected the armed neonazis, but escorted them and their weapons to the grounds of a nearby public school during school hours. Moreover, the Trump Administration, along with Elon Musk, who performed a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration, is demonstrating in real time the state's inclination toward fascism in times of economic and political crisis.
Rabbi Jun is not the kind of leader our struggle against fascism and white supremacy needs. In fact, this is the very kind of leadership our movement must reject, because it is this type of leadership that seeks to divert our movement from the path of struggle toward the path of reconciliation and ineffectiveness. Rather than unify with these people, we must protect the movement from their influence.
On the question of unity, Jun writes in his op-ed
The kind of coalitions I am speaking of aren't always comfortable for everyone around the table, but they work. You can’t fight back against existential threats by limiting the number of people who join you. You fight back, successfully, by living within the discomfort of finding allies for specific purposes, even if you know you do not agree with them on all things.
This argument makes sense when your goals really do coincide, but it must be stated clearly: A genuine fight against white supremacy cannot have anything in common with imperialism. We do not desire a seat at the oppressors’ table, as Rabbi Jun does. “Left” leadership that supports capitalism and imperialism, that works with the police, that justifies white supremacy of any kind is not progressive or left at all.
So what kind of unity does our movement need? Who can we have unity with? What is the purpose of unity?
Unity is a requirement for our movement's success, but we should not pursue unity for unity’s sake. We pursue unity for the sake of effectiveness. High levels of organization and coordination between the movement’s leaders and the masses are prerequisites for our success. It is this type of unity which makes our rejection of leaders who wish to defang the movement—like Rabbi Jun—necessary. We need to guard against those who would rather we cozy up with our enemies than actually fight them.
So, who do we unify with? We seek unity with all who genuinely oppose fascism, imperialism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and white supremacy in all forms. We seek unity with those who are oppressed and exploited by the systems we aim to overthrow. We do not restrict our unity lightly, or out of some uneasiness with being in the room with someone we disagree with, like Jun attempts to suggest. We restrict those we build unity with in order to protect the poor and working masses. Fascists can not and will not defend Black and brown communities no matter if it’s in their self-interest to do so or not, and self-proclaimed “progressives” like Jun would always rather work with fascists and capitalist politicians than actually engaging with people outside their communities or safe-spaces. It is our duty to oppose them both, and build unity with those who see the value of all members of the working and oppressed classes and who will fight, rain or shine, for their wellbeing.
As socialists, this is the crux of our politics. We will work with anyone who is willing to faithfully and vehemently fight for those who can’t or won’t fight for themselves, and we will continue to call out those who would rather collaborate with the enemy, whenever and wherever we can!