An alphabet soup of anti-Zionist groups operate around Pittsburgh

On Sunday, anti-Israel protesters gathered outside the Shadyside home of University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Joan Gabel.

The group that coordinated the event, Pitt Divest from Apartheid, published Gabel’s address on its Instagram account, and called for protesters to wear masks, cover tattoos and identifying marks, park away from the protest so their license plates wouldn’t be photographed, and turn off their phones and delete metadata information from photographs taken.

That rally occurred nearly six weeks after protesters illegally trespassed and encamped on Pitt’s property at the Cathedral of Learning and violently clashed with police. It was preceded by an April event that began as an encampment on the university’s property and later moved to Schenley Plaza.

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Several other protests took place at Carnegie Mellon University following Hamas terrorists’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages. The protests began almost immediately after Israel entered Gaza, beginning a long war defending the world’s only Jewish state.

A loose confederacy of progressive organizations including Pitt Divest from Apartheid, Jewish Voice for Peace Pittsburgh, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Pittsburgh, Against Carceral Tech and CMU Students for Palestine organized and promoted the events.

While membership and participation in these organizations’ activities are fluid, a few groups coordinate the majority of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist activity in the city. And while they all claim to not be antisemitic, some have called for the elimination of the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh, the Student Coalition for Israel and other Zionist organizations.

Some also have demanded that Pitt and CMU divest from investments in Israel and companies and organizations that have relationships with the Jewish state; boycott study abroad programs, fellowships and research collaborations with Israeli universities; remove the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism from Pitt’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion website; and have regularly chanted and published phrases and slogans, including “Globalize the intifada,” that are considered antisemitic by much of the mainstream Jewish community.

Locally, three groups have taken an outsized role in the creation and promotion of protesting Israel and its war against Hamas: Pitt Divest from Apartheid, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Pitt Divest from Apartheid
PDA has aggressively promoted the anti-Israel encampments and urged its followers to pack the courthouse when those charged with breaking the law at its events are required to appear for hearings.

The group’s Instagram account includes links to its demands of the university, petitions and a list of Israel-affiliated programs and groups at Pitt.

Despite its name and its constant calls against the University of Pittsburgh and its chancellor, PDA is not affiliated with the university, according to Pitt’s Senior Director of External Communications Jared Stonesifer.

In a social media post titled “Our Recent Demands,” PDA attempted to mitigate its calls for the elimination of Hillel and other Jewish groups, claiming it took “no issue with their role as one part of the fabric of Jewish life on campus.”

In that post, PDA also stated, however, that those Jewish groups promote “Zionist ideology” while claiming to represent the “totality of Jewish students at Pitt.” It also took issue with a Jan. 24 event sponsored by Hillel where an IDF soldier spoke.

Laura Cherner, the director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Community Relations Council, said those statements are antisemitic because they go beyond criticism of the Israeli government or its actions.

“We’re seeing groups and individuals who are denying what happened on Oct. 7, regularly engaging in Holocaust inversion, calling for the termination of Jewish university groups on campus, claiming that any Zionist or Zionist entity is a legitimate target for protests or threats,” Cherner said.

Students for Justice in Palestine
Unlike, PDA, Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt is a student group affiliated with Pitt.

On Instagram, SJP has reposted unsubstantiated claims, including that “Israel beheaded a child and burned displaced Palestinians alive in their tent.”

The group also has echoed accusations at rallies and online that Israel is committing “genocide” and has called for both Pitt and CMU to divest from the Jewish state while leading anti-Israel chants at various protests and rallies.

In an Oct. 9 article, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center of Extremism said the national SJP organization has “explicitly endorsed the actions of Hamas and their armed attacks on Israeli citizens and voiced an increasingly radical call for confronting and ‘dismantling Zionism on U.S. college campuses.’”

The article quoted an SJP statement that called Hamas’ massacre of Israelis “a historic win for Palestinian resistance” and called for “Not just slogans and rallies but armed confrontation with the oppressors.”

The organization’s local chapter signed onto an open letter penned by the national organization that said, “There will be no classes or compliance with our institutions so long as their shameless profiteering off of our genocide persists.”

The letter demands divestment from Israel, references “colonial institutions,” and claims universities’ “profit and reputation are more important than the lives of Palestinians and the will of their students.”

Kelly Fishman, regional director of the ADL’s Cleveland office, which covers Pittsburgh, said that while it’s important to recognize that groups such as SJP have the right to protest and to exercise free speech, it is also important to make sure these groups are funded internally and not from outside sources, which can be problematic and promote outside agendas.

When groups like SJP participate in activities like encampments “it becomes problematic,” she said.

“When you are infringing on other people’s rights, you are no longer just protesting something you disagree with. You are making it unsafe for someone to attend classes,” she said. “You are instilling fear. When we see red handprints, people with their faces covered, those are ways to intimidate someone.”

Jewish Voice for Peace
While ADP and SJP may differ in their university affiliation, one commonality is the relationship they forged with Jewish Voice for Peace.

On its website, JVP claims to be “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world,” organizing “grassroots, multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of U.S. Jews into solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle, guided by a vision of justice, equality and dignity for all people.”

While numbers are hard to come by, Cherner noted that total membership in the anti-Zionist organization most likely accounts for “less than .05% of the U.S. Jewish population. Compare that to an organization like AIPAC, a Zionist organization that claims to have 3 million members.”

JVP, she said, “represents a small fringe minority within the Jewish community.”

The group’s views, she said, don’t reflect mainstream Jewish beliefs, pointing to a Pew Research Center study where 80% of Jewish Americans said that caring about Israel is important or essential to being Jewish.

StandWithUs MidAtlantic Regional Director Julie Paris said that JVP is “an openly anti-Zionist organization that has always aligned itself with the most dangerous forces seeking Israel’s destruction.”

The organization, she said, works with groups that openly celebrated after Oct. 7.

On the organization’s website, JVP said it was horrified by the massacre committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians but noted “an occupied people have a right to resist, including the use of force. But the targeting of civilians is not permitted.”

“It is our fervent belief that Palestinians gaining their freedom is not only the only viable option for Palestinians, but in doing so, Israeli Jews will be safer too,” the website segment concluded. “The true path to safety is through every single person being able to exercise their rights to safety, dignity and freedom.”

Locally, JVP has held “shivas” for “all the Palestinians and Israeli lives lost.” Conversely, it has participated in a “die-in” on Forbes Avenue to “call attention to the genocide currently being enacted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli military in Gaza.”

If JVP has not been effective at making strides into the mainstream Jewish community, it has been successful at providing cover to groups like Pitt Divest from Apartheid and Students for Justice in Palestine, who often reference “Jewish coalition members” or point to Jewish activists at protests. Those remarks can be confusing for those outside the Jewish community who don’t understand or recognize the differences in Jewish thought and movements.

Other groups
While ADP, SJP and JVP are the largest and most active anti-Zionist groups in the city, there are a host of other groups providing support and sympathy.

BDS Pittsburgh promotes the BDS movement and has called for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Against Carceral Tech participates in most of the protests on CMU’s campus and calls for “no tech for genocide.”

The Democratic Socialists of America supported the encampment on Pitt’s campus and the attempt to have Allegheny County Council approve a resolution calling for a cease-fire.

DSA also is circulating a petition to have a referendum placed on the November ballot prohibiting Pittsburgh from “investment of allocation of public funds, including tax exemptions, to companies that conduct business operations with or in the State of Israel unless Israel ends its military action in Gaza, fully allows humanitarian assistance to reach the people of Gaza, and grants equal rights to every person living in the territories under Israel control.”

The referendum is supported by all of the anti-Zionist groups operating in the city, as well as several smaller organizations like the Thomas Merton Center and the Alliance of South Asian Progressives in Pittsburgh. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.