Anton Goodman: Fighting for human rights for Jews and Palestinians alike

The Jewish people are not a monolith. Within this religious group, there is enormous diversity of opinions, beliefs, and approaches.

This is especially true among activists, with many religious Jews fighting for their diverse beliefs about the country, politics, war, and regional stability.

While members of Modern Orthodoxy and the Religious-Zionist community are typically assumed to lean to the Right on matters of war, politics, and settlements, this is by no means universal.

Anton Goodman proves this true. A devout British-Israeli Jew with a strong connection to his religious identity, he worked in the past for The Jewish Agency for Israel and Bnei Akiva. But for the past several years, he has been dedicated to activism, having worked for the Abraham Initiatives. He currently serves as the director of partnerships at Rabbis for Human Rights, a group calling for peace and human rights in Israel based on Jewish tradition and values.

The organization has been especially vocal over the past two years as the Israel-Hamas War raged on. Now, with the war winding down, there is much to be said in its aftermath.

What brought me to Israel was the formative experience I had when I was 16 years old. I came here in 1995 on a summer tour with Bnei Akiva from Britain, and it was the first time that I really got to engage with Israel and Israelis. And something just clicked for me.

I came out for [attended] the funeral, and that proved to be a highly impactful, intense, and formative experience of seeing youth of my age in Israeli streets, crying, playing guitars, and lighting candles. It gave me the feeling that I had some agency as well.

From that moment onward, I was hooked, and I knew I wanted to live here.

I’ve always been involved in activism because activism is this intense personal desire to impact both society and the way this country is heading. It’s to use whatever you have at your disposal – your body, your mind, your hands, your time, your effort – to do something about the future of the country.

Activism is a really broad category. I’ve been doing it since I’ve arrived in Israel in different ways, whether it’s educational activism or underground activism.

For the last 10 or 15 years, I’ve been doing activism with Palestinian communities, both those who are Israeli citizens and those in the West Bank. Through this activism, I’ve had an opportunity to have a window into Palestinian society. I’ve made a lot of friends and got a deep understanding of what the day-to-day of their lives looks like.

For over a decade, I’ve worked for the Abraham Initiatives, which is a Jewish-Palestinian civil rights organization aimed at policy change, but for Palestinian citizens of Israel. And while I was doing this, I was getting very involved as well in activism in the West Bank with Palestinian communities there.

As an Orthodox Jew, I’ve also been involved in activism to push back on the growing radicalism and extremism within the Religious Zionist community.

I became even more activist-focused, and I moved to Rabbis for Human Rights.

I’m a Modern Orthodox Jew, and I’m deeply connected to my Jewish and religious identities. It’s something that is of deep importance to me, in terms of how I connect to my people in a spiritual way, how I connect to this land, and maybe most importantly, how I connect to the divine through my religious practice.

I feel a deep pain that Judaism in Israel is becoming more radical and less recognizable. I really feel like we need to come together as a home for Jews of all different shades and stripes to amplify voices and to share a Jewish identity that’s a universalist and humanist identity.

Rabbis for Human Rights is multi-denominational and has members from all streams of Judaism. For me, it’s a huge influence and inspiration on how I’d like to see Judaism move forward: a value-based Judaism that can span different religious practices and relationships with Halacha and tradition, and yet be very much grounded in the present day with this connection of universalism and humanism.

What we do during the olive harvest is we go every day to a different community that faces settler violence. We bring large groups of Israeli activists to harvest olives in solidarity and to try to lower the violence that the communities are facing. So that puts us in the direct line of the violent settlers, which is tricky to navigate.

We’ve been calling for a ceasefire since the second week of the war. There isn’t a military solution to the conflict, and this has been proven in the most painful of ways, with so many innocent people suffering on both sides. And really, what has been achieved?

This has been a standout war we’re still in, to be honest, but this is the 14th round of conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip since 2005. I still don’t see the paradigms changing the conception of how this needs to be played out through military strength.

But for me, a peace plan is not just about maps and about the agreement between leaders. It’s actually about the underlying approach of it. And it has to be a human rights-based approach to peace.

It has to actively say, ‘How are we going to improve people’s lives? How are we going to provide security for Israelis? How are we going to provide basic rights for Palestinians? How are we going to improve the lives of individual communities?’ When they start doing that, I think we’ll see a difference on the ground.

Absolutely. I believe in an Israeli state where there is full equality for all citizens, and that we define ourselves as a Jewish state in a better way, so that it’s not a theocracy and it’s not ultra-nationalism.

At the same time, I believe that the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination and the chance to build their own state. And my dream is to see these states not just living side by side and separated, but with free trade agreements, joint scientific projects, industrial and academic collaborations, interfaith initiatives, and really weaving our lives together.

There’s often a lot of confusion and anger, especially within my community, stemming from people accusing me of being anti-Israeli, which is nonsense. I’m an Israeli citizen. I made that choice about 25 years ago when I moved here. I’m a highly engaged and contributing member of Israeli society, and I believe in the inherent right of the State of Israel to exist.

However, I don’t believe that enables Israel to behave however it wants to. There has to be some kind of framework, both moral framework and humanitarian international law.

I think this is a nonsensical step by the Knesset that’s distancing us from a peaceful future and is actively raising conflict. It’s saying to the Palestinians and the rest of the world that Israel is not a partner for peace.

What I’m more worried about is the de facto annexation that’s taking place every day in the West Bank at the hands of violent settlers. And even in many cases where the Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that these illegal outposts shouldn’t be put up, or that settlers displaced whole Palestinian communities who must be allowed to return – that isn’t what happens in the end.

Unfortunately, the most extremist elements of Israel do not represent our broader society, and our broader society has to speak out against them. These extremist elements, this messianic and violent version of Judaism, are successfully displacing whole communities from their lands with the tacit backing of the police and IDF.

In the West Bank today, it’s very difficult to know who the security official opposite you is – whether it’s someone in their official capacity or it’s a settler who is wearing half a uniform and set up an illegal checkpoint, whether it’s a civilian contractor or it’s actually a member of the army.

And you don’t need to quote me about this; you can take it from the head of the unit to combat Jewish terrorism, in the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency], who said that the situation has become untenable, of these militia-like groups operating in the West Bank. And that’s my experience on the ground. There has been an erosion of the rule of law to such an extent that militias are operating extrajudicially.

With the war winding down, what do you think is the next big human rights issue that peace activists would fight for?

There remain very serious human rights issues in Gaza that we need to prioritize. It’s illegal and immoral to use humanitarian aid as a leveraging tool to punish or reward. Humanitarian aid needs to start flowing in at the right amount in Gaza.

The other human rights catastrophe I’m seeing in front of my eyes is in the West Bank. And it’s something that pains me in two ways. Firstly, to see the human rights abuses that are taking place. And secondly, to see them being carried out in the name of our religion, in the name of Judaism.

I’m so worried that the extent of this is infecting the whole State of Israel, and definitely this government, where extremists have taken positions of power. But I’m also talking about society. If people see this as some kind of authentic Judaism, this violent extremism, where will that lead the rest of us?

People can look online, especially on social media. You can look at our Instagram or Facebook page, which have lots of videos from the ground and of rabbis giving sermons while out doing solidarity work with Palestinians.

I think people will be pleasantly surprised at the breadth and depth of what we’re doing, and the fact that we’re working with Israelis and Palestinians alike. Because human rights is not about ethnicity. It’s about the inherent sanctity of all human life.