(RNS) — Over the past year, a group of mostly modern Orthodox Jews has met in living rooms on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to discuss Israel’s devastating war in Gaza and to hear from Jews and Palestinians critical of the country’s occupation and government.
In November, the salonlike gathering invited Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University Palestinian-American history professor. Some 70 Orthodox or self-described observant Jews attended.
And on Sunday (March 30), the group will host its first daylong conference. At the forum, Israeli, Palestinian and American Jewish speakers will discuss Jewish power, the occupation, U.S. support for Israel and the moral implications of the Gaza war. It will screen a 20-minute clip of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” which shows the ongoing destruction of a Palestinian village in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers.
The conference is a noteworthy turn. Orthodox Judaism, both in the United States and Israel, has typically espoused a right-wing political orientation that includes unconditional support for Israel. Orthodox and Haredi Jews in the U.S. generally stand apart from the majority of the American Jewish community in their support for President Donald Trump and his policies regarding Israel. Five of the six parties that make up Isr …