Transcript:

‘With the help of the almighty, because there’s a press conference about anti‐Semitism on the college campuses, and we would just like to clarify that the State of Israel, and its supporters, are the exacerbators of anti‐Semitism. People equate being Jewish with being pro the State of Israel, and all the actions and the horrific expelling of the Arab people — what they’re doing — the oppression of the Palestinians, uh, against blaming [sic?] Jewish people as a whole.

‘And Jews, because they are Jews, we oppose the actual occupation of Palestine, of the Holy Land, we oppose all the actions that emanate from the State of Israel. It’s against our religion to kill, to steal—it’s against the Jewish religion to have a so‐called Jewish state. And it’s, uh, if you would just go to [unintelligible] the book of the, um, [unintelligible] you’ll find there’s not one Israeli flag that belongs [unintelligible] Jews, because it’s against our religion to occupy, it’s against our religion to have a Jewish state.

‘And by equating Judaism and Zionism, that is really creating bloodshed, hate, mistrust, between Jews and Arabs and on college campuses and people are ignoring the elephant in the room, they’re ignoring this fact: that Zionism is creating anti‐Semitism, and if you would just remove this terrible impediment of peace from the Holy Land, then we’d be able to have peace.’

Another Rabbi:

‘The point is, that pro‐Israeli groups, councilpeople, are doing a press conference on the steps of city hall claiming that anti‐Semitism is going [on] in New York universities. And the reason why they feel so is because recently, there is a strong movement within the New York universities, as in other universities, to bring the awareness of Palestine, and to have people understand that crimes are being done to the Palestinian people from the very beginning — [unintelligible] decades back — to the present day. Unfortunately, the people who commit these crimes are people from Jewish descent, leading, running the State of Israel, or actively operating in the IDF (in the Israeli Defense Force).

‘Now, this is a problem, because we find so many people who support Israel, and then because they support the crimes, there is so much hate directed towards this people. This is very unfortunate, because sadly, so many people are suffering hatred and threats because of the crimes committed by the State of Israel, and the State of Israel insists that they represent all Jews, then all Jews are accountable.

‘And this is not the case. So many people — and that’s why we are here — so many people, Jewish people, don’t support Israel, disagree with all Israel stands for, disagree with the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel. According to Judaism, Jews are forbidden to create a sovereign homeland for themselves, even without any crimes to it! We are waiting for the Messiah, for a godly future [sic?], where God himself will redeem all people from the holy [sic?] exile of two thousand years. We are forbidden to fight any nations, to end exile by any means.

‘Now, but in addition to the basic, Jewish religious opposition to Zionism, all these crimes committed to Palestine, is simply not Jewish. It’s not religious. All of this is ridiculous. The State of Israel does not represent, in any way, the Jewish religion. We have to remember the great difference between Judaism, which is thousands of years old, which is a religion only, the service of almighty god, versus Zionism, the philosophy behind the State of Israel, which is a purely political, national movement, which should never be conflated together.

‘Now, when we are talking about the rise of anti‐Semitism in New York universities, yes, there is a rise in New York universities of awareness that Israel is wrong. That doesn’t mean that hatred towards Jews [sic], and I personally know these activists, these movements, these organizations in New York promote the cause of Palestine and they have no hate towards Jews. They are terribly concerned [with] what is being done to their families, to their people, back home in Palestine. And it happens to be that as a Jewish person, as Jewish people, we share the pain, the feeling of these Palestinian people because we understand how wrong this is.

‘And we share the feelings because we feel threatened by this conflict, very similar to how the Palestinians feel. And we believe that all of this is ridiculous. Now, when we’re talking about the rise of anti‐Semitism, what we are saying is that anti‐Zionism is not anti‐Semitism. If anybody is upset with the crime done — God forbid — by a Jewish person, doesn’t make that upsetness anything against Jews, it’s against an individual that committed a crime, it’s against a crime that has been committed.

‘I can guarantee you — let me conclude — I can guarantee you that no Jewish person in CUNY, in any university, is being attacked for wearing a kippah. If anything, they’re being criticized for raising an Israeli flag, for identifying themselves, associating themselves, with IDF (with the Israeli Defense Force). And unfortunately — no, I’m not justifying hate — but unfortunately, I’m so troubled that this happens, and that is why we do all what we do, and this is why we want to explain to people: please, drop Zionism. Don’t associate yourself with Israel. Don’t support the IDF. And then we would have no hate.

‘I have no problem visiting Levant. I have no problem to meet Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas. I have no problem to meet those people and they have no problem with me. Why? I’m Jewish. I’m obviously Jewish. I visited Gaza with my religious garb and no Palestinian had problems with me.’

(Sorry for all the gaps, but I tried as hard as I could.)