Rabbi Brian Walt

Raised in South Africa, Rabbi Brain Walt has written about how his upbringing makes it impossible for him to “ignore Israel is an apartheid state.” He has also written in-depth about his spiritual and ethical journey to find a Judaism without Zionism.

The identification of Israel’s treatments of Palestinians under Israel’s control as apartheid is not a recent phenomenon. Rabbi Walt shares his view here.

He states, “The confiscation of vast tracts of Palestinian land, discriminatory zoning practices that restrict Palestinian housing while towns with thousands of homes are built for Jews, the creation of huge exclusive Jewish settlements on the West Bank, intense restrictions on freedom of movement, imprisonment without trial, the arrest of children in the middle of the night -– these are only some of the discriminatory policies reminiscent of the injustices that Goodman and I witnessed as young people growing up in South Africa.” Rabbi Walt ends, “It is about ending systemic discrimination and oppression and about the struggle for dignity and human rights for all.”

Rabbi Walt also shared his view of Israeli apartheid in this February 17, 2021, Truthout OpEd. He describes the “systemic inequality and discrimination” he saw in Israel, a country who he loves dearly.

Rabbi Brian Walt serves on the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinic Council and was the founding executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights–North America (2003-2008), now known as T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. He has also written “When Silence is Betrayal.”

Latest Posts

A Burglary Motivated by Racism

A Burglary Motivated by Racism

Haaaretz journalists Gideon Levy and Alex Levac reported on a West Bank burglary case in 2020 in which a small Palestinian business was repeatedly burglarized by Jewish settlers. Was this burglary motivated by racism? Mohammed Mahmadi, 29, left his restaurant job in...

read more
Curt’s Hebron

Curt’s Hebron

Curtis Bell, President of Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, spoke to the First Unitarian Church’s Department of Social Justice about his two months in Hebron and what he learned about the Palestinian experience under Israeli occupation. Video...

read more
Virginia Tech GPSS

Virginia Tech GPSS

The Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) at Virginia Tech passed a resolution in October 2021 demanding that the University’s administration enact an academic boycott of Israel and institutions “complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation.” The...

read more
Jerusalem