Just fifteen days after she was hired as a teacher by Westchester Reform Temple, Jessie Sander was fired. Apparently, the synagogue had found out about a blog post filled with anti-Zionist rhetoric that she had co-authored. Sander has since filed suit, alleging that she lost her job due to her political beliefs. Jonathan Tobin comments:
The notion that a person capable of spewing such bile at fellow Jews should be entrusted with the Jewish education of the children of families affiliated with this synagogue seems like the stuff of parody. But in the view of the New York Times, it was worth more attention that it routinely gives to violent attacks suffered by Jews in the greater New York area.
Sander’s lawsuit is just as absurd. She has every right to say or write whatever she likes about Israel or the Jews but no right to be given a platform for her hate by Jewish institutions. For her lawsuit to succeed, the courts would have to rule that Jewish institutions have no First Amendment rights to religious liberty, which entitles them to hire only people who support the tenets of their faith. The point of her effort [is for] the courts to rule that . . . Zionism and Jewish ties to the Land of Israel are not part of Judaism—something that no court in New York or anywhere else in the country is likely to do.
The Westchester Reform Temple’s decision to fire Sander makes it clear that many liberal Jews understand the difference between being critical of the Jewish state and its government’s policies, and [attacking] Zionism itself. Sander’s position wasn’t a critique of the settlement movement or advocacy for a two-state solution. . . . It was a pure expression of hatred for Israel that was fully in line with the worst of anti-Semitic propaganda being spewed by those who, like her, seek its destruction.
There are some who argue that Jewish communities must tolerate arguments like hers. . . . That makes sense to people who see inclusion as the highest value to which a Jewish community can aspire. But while a big tent is, in theory, a good thing, a Jewish community that is willing to treat anti-Semitism as a legitimate point of view, as long as it is expressed in terms that sound familiar to liberals, is one that stands for nothing. And a community that stands for nothing has no future, no matter the age of its members.
Read more on JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/jewish-institutions-shouldnt-be-hiring-anti-semites/