09/04/2026
This week's missive from Adam Solender, STAND UP:
Wednesday night, I sat in the packed audience at Easthampton City Hall as the City Council held a public hearing on a resolution calling for the city to divest approximately $454,000 from companies identified as being complicit in human rights violations in Israel and Palestine.
For several hours, speaker after speaker addressed the City Council on this resolution in three minute increments.
There were heartfelt statements about the suffering of Palestinians and the desire for peace. There were arguments about socially responsible investing, labor rights, housing, immigration, ICE, and policing. Those are legitimate subjects for public discussion, and no one should be discouraged from bringing them before elected officials.
But as the evening unfolded, the resolution became about much more than municipal investments and governance.
Again and again, we heard Israel described using some of the most charged accusations in the political vocabulary: “apartheid,” “genocide,” “occupation,” “war criminals.” Assertions about Israel, the Israeli military, and American companies were often presented as established fact, without the historical or legal context necessary to understand them. Complicated events were reduced to simple explanations. Different issues were conflated. And familiar anti-Israel canards were repeated often enough that, in the room, they began to sound like conventional wisdom.
What was striking was how many unrelated movements and causes had been gathered under the same umbrella. Labor organizations, tenant advocates, peace activists, immigration advocates and others were presented as part of a common campaign. The message seemed to be that opposition to Israel's policies, and, at times, opposition to Israel itself, was simply another expression of progressive politics.
That should concern all of us.
Criticizing the Israeli government is legitimate. Israelis themselves do it every day, often loudly and passionately. Americans have every right to criticize Israeli policy, including its conduct of the war in Gaza. But there is a profound difference between criticizing the decisions of a government and portraying the country itself as uniquely illegitimate or inherently criminal.
Israel's existence should not be put on trial every time a community debates an international issue.
Nor should a city government be turned into an instrument for a political campaign about a complicated conflict halfway around the world. Easthampton has pressing responsibilities to its own residents. Its elected officials and financial officers have to determine whether municipal investment decisions should be driven by political objectives, whether the city has the legal authority to take such action, and whether doing so is consistent with their fiduciary responsibilities.
Those are not technicalities. They are fundamental questions of responsible government.
The Council ultimately did the “right thing” by referring the resolution unanimously to its Finance Committee. That gives the city an opportunity to examine the legal, financial and practical questions before voting. It also gives the public more time to consider what divestment would actually accomplish.
But the most important part of the evening may have been the people who stood up and opposed the resolution.
They knew which way the vast majority of the room felt given the keffiyehs, banners, pins and numerous “Free Palestine T-Shirts.” They knew that speaking against the prevailing sentiment could be uncomfortable. They had to stand up, give their name and their home address before providing their comments. Some were Jewish and spoke personally about antisemitism and their connection to Israel. Others simply questioned the wisdom, legality or effectiveness of the proposal.
They stood up anyway.
That matters.
It is easy to speak when you know the room agrees with you. It takes something different to stand at a microphone when you believe the dominant narrative is wrong—and to say so calmly and publicly.
For the Jewish community, that kind of courage is becoming increasingly important.
We cannot assume that someone else will correct the misinformation. We cannot retreat from difficult conversations because they have become uncomfortable. And we should not allow the volume of a political movement to convince us that its arguments are necessarily accurate.
We can listen to pro-Palestinian voices and recognize suffering without accepting every accusation made against Israel. We can believe in peace without embracing a movement that treats Israel as the sole cause of a conflict that is decades old and extraordinarily complex. We can disagree with Israeli government policy while defending Israel's right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state.
And we can say all of that without apology.
The lesson from Easthampton is not that everyone has to agree with the Jewish community. Democracy does not work that way.
The lesson is that we have to be willing to stand up when it matters.
Stand up for facts.
Stand up when history is distorted.
Stand up when legitimate criticism crosses into something else.
Stand up for our neighbors who are afraid to speak.
And stand up for the right of Jews to participate fully in civic life without being asked to disavow Israel in order to be accepted.
We should do it respectfully. We should do it intelligently. But we should do it proudly.
Because there is nothing wrong with being Jewish.
There is nothing wrong with caring about Israel.
And there is nothing wrong with standing up and saying so.
