Rabbis for Ceasefire (R4C) began in October 2023 as an ad-hoc group of 80 Rabbis and Rabbinical students across political affiliations and denominations. In that moment of great moral reckoning, we began speaking out with one voice to fulfill the most sacred obligation in Jewish tradition Pikuach nefesh: Saving a life. R4C now has over 420 members including rabbis, rabbinical students, cantors, kohanot, and other Jewish clergy across political affiliations & denominations.
PURPOSE
Rabbis for Ceasefire organizes rabbis and other Jewish clergy to realize well-being for all people by:
- Dismantling Jewish supremacy in policy and rhetoric, making a unique, accountable, and impactful contribution to the Palestinian freedom movement.
- Visioning and modeling a liberatory Judaism, honoring Jewish tradition rooted in freedom for all by integrating a commitment to Palestinian liberation into our Jewish practices.
CORE VALUES
Pikuach Nefesh
We are obligated to act to save lives.
We understand that every life is a universe, including Israeli and Palestinian lives.
We affirm life. We believe Judaism teaches us to choose life and Torah affirms life.
B’tselem Elohim
All life is sacred
All life is sacred. This is true of Jewish and Israeli life no more or less than Palestinian life. However, we live in a world in which Palestinian lives are not treated as sacred. We cannot ignore the imbalance in lives lost in numbers and in the attention paid to those lives before and since October 7. We grieve every human life lost and shattered. This power dynamic prevents us from having the space needed to grieve any life. All life is sacred. And we must continue to insist on it.
We enact the value of the sanctity of all life by working toward sovereignty for Palestinians and fighting anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism. We work toward well-being for all people as part of multi-racial, multifaith, intergenerational, multi-ability, queer affirming movement and community. Our collective intersectional approach aims to dismantle all forms of oppression including anti-Black racism and xenophobia, and works toward racial justice, sovereignty for all Indigenous people, queer/trans/gender justice, disability justice, economic justice, and transformative justice.
Adonai Echad
Well-being for all people
Since before the founding of the State of Israel, there have been rabbis who opposed the displacement and oppression of Palestinians. Many of them explicitly did so solely out of care for Jewish lives, Jewish tradition, and the spiritual and ethical core of the Jewish collective. In current times we do the same, and we add to that our deep and equal care for Palestinian lives and culture.
We also add the understanding that none of us are safe and free until all of us are safe and free. We understand that safety is a felt sense that can only be gained through spiritual work and emotional health, and as we develop relationships of interdependence and solidarity. As students of history, we know that everyone’s well-being is furthered when our neighbors are free from violence and discrimination and living a life of dignity and freedom.
Kavod
Dignity of all people and our capacity to change
We honor the dignity and worth of people and all living things. We honor where people are currently- what their experiences have been and how that has impacted them to think and feel how they do – and we encourage people to always be evolving. Rabbis support Jews to be our best selves by digging deep about our values and grounding in a compelling vision of the future to move toward together. We have faith that people change and evolve their thinking and commitments if they have the room, support, and encouragement to do so.
One of the greatest signs of dignity is having the respect for someone or a group of people to hold them accountable to be the most courageous, self-actualized, and loving versions of themselves. That is what we’re doing as we support R4C members to invite Jewish people to organize in solidarity with Palestinians. R4C will support our members to support their community members to be with what-is, the external conditions and the feelings that come up inside of them; to connect to their deepest longings and visions for their lives and communities; to share ourselves with one another, and through revealing our own journeys offering new possibilities and new hope, and inviting people to come with us toward them.
Ahavah Rabah
With great love
To be a Jew and to be a rabbi is to love Judaism, Jews, and all people, including Palestinians. We manifest our love for Palestinians through solidarity. Rabbis for Ceasefire and the Jewish Left coalitions we are a part of are motivated by love. We embody our love of Jewish people through our work to safeguard an ethical and compelling Judaism, and through fighting for Palestinian freedom.
Teshuvah
Accountability to those closest to the pain
We hold that communities that are most directly impacted by systems of oppression and closest to the pain are experts on those conditions and the solutions. Palestinians set the political horizons for their own liberation. Therefore we consult with Palestinian partners, both in Palestine and in exile, on their diverse perspectives on our work. We act with an obligation to Palestinians to organize as many Jews as possible to support freedom and life for Palestinians.
We also understand that policies of Jewish ethnonationalism, and unquestioning US support for it – while privileging Jewish Israelis – does not ultimately provide them true safety or freedom. We understand the fate of Israelis in the land to be bound up with that of Palestinians, and that Israelis have an essential role to play in the political transformation of their society. We aim to stay resonant and in mutual, respectful, trustworthy relationship with our Palestinian and multifaith partners, and take action in accountability and solidarity with values-aligned Palestinians and Israelis.
L’dor v’dor
Caretaking of Jewish people & Jewish tradition
We are indebted to our ancestors who maintained Jewish tradition for centuries, often when doing so meant putting their lives at risk. We want Jewish tradition to endure as a source of meaning, ethics, connection, and joy. We feel a sense of obligation to steward Judaism as a force of liberation. R4C understands that Judaism is not the same as Zionism or the State of Israel and we challenge their conflation. Resisting this conflation is strategically important to undermine the ways Judaism is used to justify Israel’s actions and is communally, individually, and morally important for Judaism’s future.
Eilu v’eilu
Holding contradiction
The living divine speaks in many voices. We understand that fighting for Palestinian freedom has real material risks for Jews and Israelis, and we know that fighting for Palestinian freedom is the only viable path to freedom and safety for Israelis. We take responsibility to hold contradictions for the sake of collective liberation.