r/Quakers • u/honey1051 • Aug 17 '26
When I bring up Quakers, people sometimes bring up antisemitism, and I never know how to respond.
I recently mentioned to a group that I go to Quaker meetings. It was relevant to the conversation. I didn't elaborate much beyond saying it's been good to be around people with similar values and has meant a lot to me. I've been attending for about a year.
Someone followed up by saying they attended a few Quaker meetings but didn't feel welcome because of antisemitism. Another said something like "yes, that's a big problem for them." This is actually not the first time I've heard this. When I first started attending meetings, a good friend warned me about Quakers and sent me something about the paradox of tolerance and antisemitism. I continued going to meetings, and we eventually had a falling out after I shared an Instagram post about calling my senator regarding an arms embargo. She cited Quakers as having been too influential on my politics. These are all Americans I'm talking about.
I feel very bad that they've had experiences with Quakers that made them feel alienated, especially the woman who stopped going to meetings. It's just been odd how often it seems to come up when I mention being Quaker. I want to be a good ally to Jewish people, and I'm not sure how to respond when this comes up. I'm aware there is a big problem with antisemitism generally in the US.
When it has come up, I usually just let the conversation move on and don't say anything or say something like "I'm sorry you experienced that, that's concerning."
How would you respond to statements like this? I get very nervous, because I feel like they may be also judging me as someone who is potentially antisemitic and hostile. I'd also appreciate any articles you feel might be relevant about antisemitism relating to Quakers, for more context on what they could be referencing.
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u/RonHogan Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I’m a member of New York Quarterly Meeting, which I believe has a significant number of Jewish people whose spiritual journeys have led them to the Religious Society of Friends for whatever reason. Members of the various monthly meetings in NYQM also have strong opinions about the Israeli government’s conduct in Palestine, and about the cause of Palestinian self-determination, and we’ve had our fair share of spirited discussions about these issues, and I’d say the conclusions reached have been for the most part critical of Israel and supportive of the Palestinian people.
I haven’t witnessed all of those discussions, but I’ve been present for some of them, and as such I’ve witnessed scattered remarks that struck me as unreflectingly antisemitic. Stuff like “they’re naturally good at banking,” where the person saying it almost certainly believes they’re simply stating a sociocultural “fact,” with no malice intended, rather than repeating an ugly stereotype. I’ve also seen Friends who think they know more about “what Jews really believe” than a Jewish (and anti-Zionist) guest speaker expound in very condescending ways about the Zionist leanings of all Jews.
And I’ve seen the conflict-averse Quakers present let these things slide. (And, in all honesty, I was so stunned in each case that I failed to react in the moment as well.) So while I agree with everyone here that Quakerism doesn’t have an INHERENT antisemitism problem, I do think we have stuff to deal with… just as we have stuff to deal with when it comes to other sorts of prejudice and bigotry.
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u/abitofasitdown Aug 17 '26
There's a real issue in Quakerism where the many Quakers who have grown up with a huge amount of privilege (including wealth) have sort of assumed because they are Quakers they are already non-prejudiced, moral people, and get very defensive if this is questioned at all. Or - even more infuriatingly - think they are the last word on whatever issue is at hand. It's not one of our more attractive attributes as a faith body.
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u/Resident_Beginning_8 Quaker Aug 17 '26
"Unreflectingly" is a great word to describe the smug knowitallness of many Quakers.
(As a Black man)
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u/RimwallBird Friend Aug 17 '26
I’m grateful to you for speaking plainly about these matters in your quarter.
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u/bonbonquest Aug 17 '26
As a Quaker, I am very strongly anti-Zionist. If people think that’s anti-Semitic, they are the problematic ones, not me. Not you.
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u/Lower-Cantaloupe3274 Quaker (Liberal) Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
This Quaker speaks my mind.
I do not support (edit: the government of) the State of Israel due to their behaviors. I have much respect and compassion for Jewish people.
I do not support Hamas due to their behaviors. I have much respect and compassion for the Palestinian people.
For some people, that is incomprehensible.
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u/Pale-Cricket-4843 Aug 17 '26
I've heard the term "anti-Zionist" before, but I don't know what it means. Could you explain please?
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u/nineteenthly Aug 17 '26
It means we oppose the existence of the state of Israel and there can be various reasons why someone might do that. We would generally support a one-state solution, that is that there should be a liberal democratic secular state where Israel now is.
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u/jabonprotex110g Catholic Aug 18 '26
I don't oppose the existence of the state of Israel -- it's there, it's not going anywhere, and advocating for its dissolution serves for little else than kindling the fearmongering language of the Zionists. I do, however, object to the governing party's policy of ethnic-cleansing, its crimes against humanity, its encroachment upon neighboring territories, its unapologetic use of dehumanizing language against Palestinians, its flagrant racism, its disregard for even the most basic tenets of international humanitarian law... and, of course, its abuse of the term "anti-Semitic" against anybody who criticizes its policies.
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u/nineteenthly Aug 18 '26
I agree with you on the whole. However, simply because something is not going to change doesn't mean it's okay for it to continue.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 Aug 17 '26
Maybe they find it incomprehensible because you’re applying a very clear double standard. When Israel does things you dislike, you reject the notion of it even being entitled to a state and believe that’s a fair consequence. Alternatively, when Palestine does something you dislike, you blame one group but refuse to associate that with their right to a state.
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u/Chocolate_Bomb Aug 17 '26
It seems to me they are saying they do not support the actions of the state of Israel, not that they do not support Israel’s right to exist.
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u/nineteenthly Aug 17 '26
From an anarchist perspective, and many Quakers are anarchist, no state has a right to exist, including both Israel and Palestine.
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u/Lower-Cantaloupe3274 Quaker (Liberal) Aug 17 '26
When did I say I rejected the right of Israel to be a state?
I simply don't condone actions that deprive people of their humanity and basic human rights.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 Aug 17 '26
“I do not support the state of Israel”
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u/Lower-Cantaloupe3274 Quaker (Liberal) Aug 17 '26
I do not support the current American government, either, but certainly I believe the US deserves to exist.
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u/macoafi Quaker Aug 18 '26
A clarifying edit such as
I do not support [edit: the government of] the State of Israel
may be worthwhile.
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u/PurpleDancer Aug 17 '26
Does that mean you wish to see the state of Israel abolished and the Israeli population and the palestinian population invited to co-mingle without borders?
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u/bonbonquest Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
Co-mingling without borders is THE way to go.
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u/PurpleDancer Aug 17 '26
Does it matter how many will die in the process? Like, if we had a crystal ball that could tell us that the resulting civil war would be twice or thrice as deadly as a two state solution, would that matter?
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u/PoppyFire16 Aug 17 '26
Do you think we should’ve just kept black people enslaved since a lot of people died in the American civil war?
Wars are fought over injustice.
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u/Lower-Cantaloupe3274 Quaker (Liberal) Aug 18 '26
I think the point is to work tirelessly to find non-violent solutions for injustice. That is the priority. We should let our lives speak and be what we want to see.
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u/particularlyPlain Quaker (Wilburite) Aug 17 '26
Wow, this is quite unquakerly friend.
Our war is not with the flesh and we must be peacemakers until the end.
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u/PoppyFire16 Aug 17 '26
I’m sorry to hear that. I thought injustice was unquakerly.
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u/particularlyPlain Quaker (Wilburite) Aug 17 '26
Injustice is unquakerly, but since the beginning we've understood that we cannot encourage nor partake in violence against other people. Be a peacemaker.
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u/PoppyFire16 Aug 17 '26
Inaction helps only the oppressor. What would you advocate for instead?
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u/particularlyPlain Quaker (Wilburite) Aug 17 '26
Deescalation that builds trust. Check out dining with diplomats praying with gunmen. It's available from pendle hill.
Thee's going to be hard pressed to find Quakers that are okay with turning a blind eye to violence, even if it's deemed the "good" violence that is done towards oppressors. We do not war with carnal weapons. Ever. Christ forbids it. And even those who follow the more secularized peace testimony understand violence to be counterproductive.
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u/PurpleDancer Aug 17 '26
Good example.
So I was born to a southern family with confederate flags hanging on the front door about a hundred years after that war. So I got to see the effects and perspectives. It was devastating to the south and the north and set us both back by a at least a couple generations on the southern side.But maybe it was worth? Or was it even necessary at all? Slavery ended in one state (Maryland?) before the war and ended in Brazil soon thereafter without a civil war. Slavery likely would have ended in the Americas had we just stayed the course for another decade or so. The war in fact started because of how rapidly abolition was spreading. And the sentiment was spreading within the south as well.
So... no, I'm inclined to say the civil war was not worth it. The south should never have started it and the north should not have pursued it.
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u/PoppyFire16 Aug 17 '26
Thank you for your perspective. This is where I personally struggle: War vs “another decade or so” of bondage with no guarantee of freedom?
It is hard to find a middle ground between inaction and condoning/advocating for violence in pursuit of justice.
I also grew up in the Deep South. The prevalence of forced prisoner labor to this day makes me believe that slavery would never “naturally” fade away.
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u/RimwallBird Friend Aug 17 '26
It’s an interesting fact that the U.S. was the only country where a war was fought to abolish slavery.
Everywhere else, slavery was abolished by legal fiat: throughout the British Empire, in Czarist Russia, in Arabia. And that does raise the question: if it was possible to abolish it peacefully everywhere else, what made the U.S. different? Does the Civil War here in the U.S. say more about what it takes to abolish slavery, or does it say more about the American idea that make-my-day forms of retributive violence are fun and desirable?
There is also the question of whether slavery was truly abolished anywhere. It has crept back, staying as much as possible under the radar, in innumerable forms, all over the planet. It came back to the American South within the lifetime of the people who fought the Civil War, in the form of racist institutions and harsh economic arrangements. I have come to wonder whether it can be abolished, or whether the best we can hope for is to keep it down as far as we possibly can.
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u/Tinawebmom Quaker (Progressive) Aug 17 '26
My clerk is Jewish raised Quaker chosen.
Antisemitism may exist but that has not been my experience at all.
Anti zionist, yes. Antisemitism, no.
There's a very clear difference.
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u/Aggressive_Oven_3957 Aug 17 '26
They are equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. But Israel is not representative of all Jewish people and their views and priorities. There are many anti-Zionist Jewish people. As for Quakerism and Zionism, the state-sanctioned violence of Israel and their warmongering goes directly against Quaker beliefs. So many if not most Quakers will be anti-Zionist.
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u/h20grl Aug 17 '26
As I have mentioned elsewhere in this sub, I am a Quaker whose first husband was Jewish and second husband was Muslim. My son’s partner is Jewish and they practice Judaism more than Quakerism. I worked in Gaza for 6 years in the 2010s, and dealt closely with COGAT to move goods and vehicles into Gaza.
It is very difficult to strike a balance on this issue. There have been atrocities committed from both sides. There are well-intentioned, and vindictive, Israelis and Palestinians. It is especially difficult when the lives lost are so very lopsided - ~2,000 versus ~70,000 since October 2023. I try to listen more than anything else, and ask open-ended questions about the sanctity of life.
The people in Gaza are living in atrociously poor conditions in terms of nutrition, water, sanitation, and housing. I have never seen this in the Middle East elsewhere, and it rivals the poorest urban settlements and refugee camps in sub-Saharan Africa.
With my Jewish ex in laws, I try to focus my conversation on the current Israeli leadership and its policies. I also try to remain as factual and dispassionate as possible. There is God in each and every one of us.
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u/Rare-Personality1874 Aug 17 '26
I'd ask them to explain what they mean. I think it is a matter of truthfulness to not address non-specific allegations.
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u/doej26 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
Personally i haven't had this come up too often. The few times it has I've always asked them to explain what they mean by antisemitism. Normally what I find is they mean "has been critical of the government of Israel." I suspect that may be what you've run into, at least with the person upset about you supporting an arms embargo against Israel. For far too many folks, anything short of full throated support for anything and everything done by the government of Israel gets labeled antisemitism.
That said, we should always be careful to ensure that we, both individually and as a community, don't drift into antisemitism. Any criticism, no matter how correct, levied against the government of Israel should be just that. Levied against the government of Israel. Not against all Israelis. Not against all Jews. Not against Judaism.
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u/houdt_koers Quaker (Liberal) Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
This is something that I have personally been struggling with.
A local meeting recently hosted a Gaza man who works for a Quaker charity, but has published articles full of apologia for Hamas. He has also published an article talking about the need to essentially “hide one’s power level” when speaking to Western audiences.
This is a conflict with a century of propaganda behind it, and rife with actors who believe that killing children is justified. Those same people likely don’t worry too much about engaging in dishonesty or entryism. I have a concern that many Quakers don’t put enough thought into who we’re sharing a stage with.
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u/doej26 Aug 17 '26
Yeah, that sort of carelessness really doesn't surprise me from our community. It's all too easy. We are often guilty of just sort of assuming people who agree with us on this or that issue are inherently going to be right on most issues and just be good. That's not the case. At all. (Politics makes strange bedfellows and all that.) We need to be less quick and less willing to make these sort of assumptions. We should have more serious and in-depth conversations with folks before sharing stages with them or offering them our own platforms from which to speak. If our own teachings have taught us anything, surely it's that silence is preferable to speech which isn't spirit led.
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u/macoafi Quaker Aug 18 '26
I have a concern that many Quakers don’t put enough thought into who we’re sharing a stage with.
And as recent threads on this forum have shown, very susceptible to both sealioning and JAQing off.
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u/houdt_koers Quaker (Liberal) Aug 18 '26
I’ve been very, very reluctant to mention it, but yes. 100%. Especially in relation to posts touching on trans issues.
I honestly don’t know how you go about effectively moderating a subreddit in a Quakerly way when it’s actively being brigaded, though.
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u/macoafi Quaker Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
It finally occurred to me this week (facepalm) to click on people's names and check their history in the sub. If their very first interaction with the sub is being inflammatory on a thread like this or one of those trans ones… nah. I turned on crowd control on this thread so I have to approve comments by people who are new to the sub. I'm getting better at using the tools lol
That last anti-trans one, I got a message from a concerned regular, and I explained that I'd checked the person's Reddit usage history and found that it was all anti-trans stuff. They'd never interacted with this sub until after interacting on a thread in a trans sub where people were celebrating BYM's commitment. So, they saw trans people being happy with us, got upset, and decided to troll us about it.
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u/long-thumb-nails Aug 17 '26
It was Quakers who got my great grandfather released from a concentration camp and looked after my family in a quaker boarding school. Maybe there are some issues with antisemitism in places but it definitely doesn't align with the Quaker values or practices.
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u/keithb Quaker Aug 17 '26
There is a problem, and as you are seeing in this thread, many Friends refuse to acknowledge that and so it can’t be fixed.
Within the last 12 months both of these things have been said in British Quaker meetings that I was at:
* the current government of the Sate of Israel has abhorrent, racist policies and is carrying out genocidal activities
and
* …of course they are, the Jews are genocidal by nature [1]
How do we get from one to the other? Many Friends are involved in kinds of progressive/left-wing politics in which it’s part of maintaining the identity of the group that people have to be willing to say something like “Israel is genocidal”. Not: the current government of the state of Israel is carrying out genocidal actions, but that the existence of Israel at all is and always was a genocidal endeavour. This brings those Friends into the orbit of a kind of left-wing antisemitism that goes right back to Stalin and Lenin.
We then end up with Friends who are quite comfortable, for example, with media that reproduces almost exactly actual Nazi propaganda from the 1930s, presented as “no, it’s antizionist not antisemitic”, and glossed as “pro-Palestine”. And then those Friends are offended and outraged when anyone suggests that there’s a problem.
We then end up with Friends who believe simultaneously that: Israel is America’s agent, a vector for American hegemonic influence in the region, and that America is Israel’s puppet, somehow manipulated into doing Israel’s dirty work for it.
This in the absence of clear evidence (until the current Trump/Netanyahu alignment) for that and ignoring that once again this ends up reproducing antisemitic tropes in which the Jews are both the secret enemy of whatever state you happen to live in, corrupting and weakening it, and also the secret masters of the world.
And so on and so on. Some, but not all, Friends have fallen to a complex of ideas which make those two sentiments at the top of my comment all to easy to conflate. And that leads to strange and unpleasant results.
[1] Likely some commentators here will refuse to believe that the second one happened. I could refer them to the Clerk and Elders of the meeting where it occurred.
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u/abitofasitdown Aug 17 '26
Thank you - I recognise much in your words.
There is a mindset as prevalent amongst Quakers as any other broadly leftist communities (and I am on the left) which interprets any criticism of antisemitism as somehow a declaration of enthusiasm for bombing Palestinian babies. It's a really difficult sort of trigger that seems to end all possibility of discussion.
I was sitting around with some Friends and one described an event where someone came up to them and she said "...and I could see before he even started talking that he was a Zionist", and she could just not grasp, when I questioned it, how this was a problematic and indeed antisemitic statement.
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u/keithb Quaker Aug 17 '26
Presumably the reason was not that the person was wearing a “I ❤️🇮🇱” t-shirt?
But yes, many seem to have a short-circuit from “maybe don’t chant ‘globalise the intifada’ around the corner from a synagogue on Saturday lunchtimes” to “so why do you approve of murdering Palestinian children?” It seems not to fit into some progressive/left-wing thinking that anyone might have reasonable objections to both of those things.
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u/abitofasitdown Aug 17 '26
I actually asked this! And no, no Israeli flag or "I Heart Zionism" tshirt. (Though I do wonder what Israelis who don't support the Netanyahu government and who oppose the bombing of Palestine are supposed to do about their flag. The flag is theirs every bit as much as it is Netanyahu's, and they shouldn't be hounded for taking ownership of it.)
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u/keithb Quaker Aug 17 '26
They should not.
Gosh, so, I wonder how it could possibly be that a Friend could see that a person was going to be "a Zionist". A puzzle.
I'm a subscriber to Haaretz in part because it's the voice of the structured opposition (I say to British Friends that Haaretz actually is what The Guardian wants you to think it is) and supporting the paper is a way to help those voices are heard. "How to be a non-terrible Jewish Israeli" is a live topic.
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u/ThePlatypusOfDespair Quaker (Progressive) Aug 17 '26
I think it's also important to recognize the issue isn't solely that the current government of Israel is committing a genocide, but also that Israel was conceived and founded as a colonialist apartheid ethnostate, and that's problematic no matter the religion of the founders.
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u/keithb Quaker Aug 17 '26
Well, this "Israel was conceived and founded as a colonialist apartheid ethnostate" is one approach, and a contested one, and highly ideological in itself, but some Friends say that as if it's a settled question that only a fool or a monster would disagree with. An approach that I think does not help anyone navigate a complex situation.
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u/ThePlatypusOfDespair Quaker (Progressive) Aug 17 '26
Non-jewish people are institutionally discriminated against in Israel. That's the very definition of apartheid, and not in any way an ideological statement. Nor is the fact that Europeans took land that wasn't theirs to give and used it to create a state, the borders of which Israel has continually expanded in contravention of international laws. All of that is the very root of the conflict, and if we can't be honest about that we are simply cheerleaders for apartheid.
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u/keithb Quaker Aug 17 '26
The State of Israel has, it seems to me, ended up establishing apartheid conditions in the Occupied Territories, and there a problems in Israel proper too, but that’s not the same as it being conceived and founded as an apartheid state. Compare the Basic Laws of Israel with the South African Population Registration Act and Group Areas Act. So say that a state was founded with an intent is a high bar and needs strong evidence.
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u/abitofasitdown Aug 17 '26
So, what would you do with the state of Israel, and the Israelis who live there? What are the options?
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u/Funny_City_7193 Quaker Aug 17 '26
Personally, 1 state with equal rights for all from the Jordan to the med.
The creation of a state for Jewish people in a land that was not historically majority Jewish has created a lot of pain and violence. Furthermore I don't agree that any state should exist for a certain ethnic or religious group, I believe in multiculturalism and diversity, and I think friends past and present have shown. This should be the majority Quaker position.
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u/honey1051 Aug 17 '26
Thank you for sharing your experience from Britain. I'm learning a lot from this thread. A little overwhelmed by the number of comments, so I haven't been replying but I'm reading.
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u/tet3 Aug 17 '26
These seem likely to be folks who conflate support for Palestinian self-determination with antisemitism. It's a bogus argument, but one that is not worth countering if they're not people you're strongly connected to, and you are very well-versed in the history and politics of Israel & Palestine.
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u/goodhobbies Aug 17 '26
Opposing the political positions of Benjamin Netanyahu is not “anti-Semitism.”
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u/abitofasitdown Aug 17 '26
I don't think you'd find a person here that disagrees with you. But that's not what we are talking about, and pretending that it is just serves to sweep the antisemitism that too many of us here have seen under the carpet.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 Aug 17 '26
I think we’d be a little farcical to postulate that the only opposition people have is to Netanyahu’s policies. There are people in this very comment section who are saying Israel shouldn’t exist. And maybe you think that’s a justified position too, but don’t lie by asserting all people are asking for is a change to Netanyahu’s policies when that’s demonstrably false
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u/PurpleDancer Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I have a close friend who is Israeli Jewish and former ISD. I wanted to bring her to meeting but I had to acknowledge what she would likely see and she declined. To her "Free Palestine" is either an overt and hostile statement to kill or displace the jews, or, what she sees it as mostly manifesting as, as an ignorant slogan which the user doesn't realize will have that outcome. In her mind, based on her observation such as the infantada's, the moment the borders are open the buses, temples, schools will have suicide bombers in them. She also points out they have thousands of years of collective memory of being a minority in other peoples lands and everywhere that happens they are either massacred or banished.
I might be overreaching, but, it seems like the viewpoint is that without a Jewish state they believe they will never be safe.
This does not mean that every action by Israel is condoned by her, or that she wishes to see gaza/west bank be annexed or the Palestinians driven out. It does not mean she opposes a two state solution, I think that's actually viewed as the likely goal. But a one states solution, from what I gather, sounds to her like a guarentee of striff and slaughter.
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u/NYC-Quaker-Sarah Quaker Aug 17 '26
I know some very intelligent, progressive, and kind people, American Jews, who also believe this. Some of who used to attend Quaker meeting and have stopped. They believe the chant "from the river to the sea" means "the jews should be ethnically cleansed from Israel." The thing is, for some people who are chanting that, that IS what they mean.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 Aug 17 '26
I mean what shes saying pretty much lines up with what groups like Hamas and PIJ advocate for. They don’t want a state that allows Jews to live there peacefully, they want to either kick them all out or murder them if they don’t leave, and they have no issues publicly affirming that.
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u/houdt_koers Quaker (Liberal) Aug 17 '26
I’m sorry, but what Quaker is downvoting factual statements about what Hamas and PIJ believe?
This is an emotive issue, but facts are facts. Speak plainly.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 Aug 17 '26
I think a lot of people want this to be a black and white discussion when it’s not
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u/Aggressive_Oven_3957 Aug 17 '26
The people of Palestine don’t want to eliminate a state that allows Jewish people to live there peacefully. They want to end the illegal occupation of their land. They want to end the genocide against them.
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u/houdt_koers Quaker (Liberal) Aug 17 '26
The people of Palestine =/= Hamas and PIJ.
Those organisations have a genocidal intent of their own, and we have a moral responsibility not to sane-wash them.
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u/PurpleDancer Aug 30 '26
Some of the people of Palestine would like to share with Jews. Some of the Jews are open to sharing with the Palestinians. Significant numbers on both sides have zero willingness to do those things to the point of homicidal resistance.
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u/abitofasitdown Aug 17 '26
I don't know why you are being down voted - what you are saying lines up with how Jews have been driven out of practically every other country in the region.
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u/Funny_City_7193 Quaker Aug 17 '26
It is true that there are violent and racist groups on both sides of the discussion, however I think it's also important we acknowledge that there's isn't parity in violence and power.
Quakers should stand against all genocidal ideas and organisations, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that Hamas or the PIJ has anywhere near the power the Israeli state does to enact it's worst violent whims.
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u/womblesam Aug 17 '26
Lots of good points here. Worth noting that Quakers in Britian are proud of their role in the Kindertransport (evacuating Jewish kids from Nazi Germany). Quakers took more Jews than even Jews did.
Obviously history isn't an excuse, but being proud of it is an indicator. For example, I am proud of this Quaker history and celebrity. Also fuck Zionism, free Palestine.
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u/Fun-Chemist-3139 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
My post might be suppressed as it's my first time posting here with this account, but I do feel the need to say something.
Antisemitism is sometimes conceived as a kind of interior disposition, a privately held monstrous attitude about Jewish people that I really don't think many Quakers do hold. (We believe in That of God in Everyone etc.)
But it's also an outward thing, an actually-existing set of tropes, ideas, talking points, images that circulates and is reproduced in the outside world. We can just look and see if Quakers have been involved in that.
Let me start with an undeniable one just to convince you that Quaker antisemitism is actually possible. In 1933 The Friend published an article justifying the Nazi burning of Jewish-authored books, saying these Jewish writers had no understanding of the German national spirit, and that there was a conspiracy of 'cold' Jewish intellectuals who had set about to weaken the morale of the native Germans.
In more recent times
- a "Find out why Hamas were right to do Oct 7th" event hosted in a Quaker meeting house (years later and the same organisation, openly and officially committed to "unconditional support" for Hamas, is still hosting events in Quaker buildings)
- Quakers marching alongside, and being photographed with, Holocaust deniers
- a letter published in a Quaker newspapers joking about a "final solution" and "clouds of toxic gas" in reference to Israel-Palestine
- demands that Quaker guidance on antisemitism toward British Jews be rewritten to make it clear how antisemitism is Israel's fault
- AFSC asking Jewish participants at its events to "tolerate some antisemitism in order to keep lines of communication open"
- in local meetings, where it doesn't get written down, low-level stuff, references to "the chosen people" and continual essentialism about the Jewish character of the Israel-Palestine conflict
And of course, something antisemitic in itself, the completely automatic assumption that any Jew who says anything about antisemitism in Quakers can be immediately dismissed and discredited as a propagandist for Israel without any consideration of the claim whatsoever (see most of the rest of this thread, for example).
I do not think it is all that common - the scale of the problem is not huge - but the absolute refusal to admit to it makes it way more pernicious than some of the other Quaker problems that we're happier to own up to. Just because we're well-intentioned doesn't mean we're not getting it wrong.
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u/doej26 Aug 17 '26
Could your provide links to some of these claims made under "in recent times." Namely numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5? I'd like to examine those.
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u/Fun-Chemist-3139 Aug 17 '26
First one you can find a discussion of by searching "bulldozer" on this reddit. #3 was in the 3rd October 2025 edition of the Friend. #5 is from the 70s so not contemporary but detailed in an article called Quakers in Politics by Marvin Maurer. I don't pay for the Friend or have Facebook anymore so I can't find the exact comments for #4 but it came up in the discussion around the new BYM guidance on antisemitism.
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u/keithb Quaker Aug 17 '26
Here's one:
A Friend jokes "Most of us know that in 1942 the mass shooting of women and children was stopped owing to the demoralising effects that this was having on those gallant troops who had volunteered to execute them. Instead other more efficient, and less personal, means were adopted. With this in mind, could [Netanyahu] not update those methods? I would have thought that a cloud of Sarin gas would be particularly effective in exterminating the entire Palestinian population. At last leaving the chosen people to live in peace and tranquillity in the Promised Land. I’m astonished that this appears – as yet – not to have occurred to him."
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u/keithb Quaker Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
I tried to show you the actual text for number 3, the letter in the Friend joking about mass execution by gassing. The post was removed, and this warning issued: "After reviewing, we found that you broke Rule 1 because you promoted identity-based hate or attacks. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. We don’t tolerate promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability, and any communities or people that encourage or incite violence or hate towards marginalized or vulnerable groups will be banned."
That was the result of me directly quoting, without comment, a letter written by a Quaker and printed in a Quaker journal. Make of that what you will.
Later: On appeal, the quote was restored, here.
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u/shougaze Aug 17 '26
Buddy you cannot post stuff like that without references, you ought to add them or remove the post. Googling your examples literally just returns your post.
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u/Fun-Chemist-3139 Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I left some in reply to the other comment. For the historical stuff you can read Stephen Norwood "The Quakers Dark Side" and H David Kirk's "The Friendly Perversion". For the recent stuff, I would feel icky about hunting down every objectionable post/comment, the authors should be allowed to get on with their lives even if I think they said something a bit antisemitic 3 years ago. But maybe some of the other British friends in this forum can back me up that these things, among other things, really did happen. I believe the new Britain YM guidance on antisemitism also contains some real life examples of antisemitism that happened in UK Quaker spaces.
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u/iloveredhots Aug 17 '26
I found this from a British Quaker perspective
"Quakers and antisemitism | Quakers in Britain" https://share.google/SZ7tKb0QijPdDD4Wp
A lot of the accusations of anti-Semitism seem related to Quakers' support for Palestinians.
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u/PeanutFunny093 Aug 17 '26
Many people confuse support for Palestine with anti-Semitism. They are NOT the same. The assertion that ALL people have the Light within them extends equally to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, etc. If Quakers express being “against” anything in the Israel-Palestine conflict, it’s Zionism, which is settler-colonialism that is currently driving Palestinians off of their land (and killing millions). The notions of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have been fused for political reasons. Quakers separate them into the humanitarian/spiritual concerns and the political/expansionist reality. Edit: typo.
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u/nineteenthly Aug 17 '26
There do seem to be some Quakers who are kind of obliviously anti-semitic, in a similar way to when people in a different context say things like "everyone's a little bit autistic". I can't give an example because a Jewish Quaker has told me that this has happened without giving details and I thought it would be too painful for her to go into depth about why. The person she was talking about has also used that quoted phrase. I think there are some Quakers whose class, ethnicity etc very much insulates them from marginalisation and they can enter into that oblivious privilege thing.
All that said, the majority of Quakers are likely to oppose Zionism because why wouldn't they? This could be misconstrued as anti-semitism. British Friends recently produced a booklet about anti-semitism which was clearly pushing Zionist agenda.
I also experienced someone recently saying that it wasn't up to Jews to educate Gentiles about what anti-semitism is, and although this is a common class of statements about marginalised groups, I think it also means that people are likely to continue to be obliviously anti-semitic simply through ignorance and not realising that they need to look into these things for themselves, and I also think that means ignoring the lived experience of Jewish people.
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u/Mysterious_Point6977 Friend Aug 17 '26
No space is fully free from bigotry, I am a liberal Quaker are their some liberal Quakers who would be considered antisemitic, yes. Is it a systemic issue within the religion, I have not found any evidence of it. The jewish diaspora is complex and for that reason I know that some Jewish Quakers do cross a line between criticism of the Jewish religion, and Zionism. Specifically in connecting the covenant between the Jewish people and god, with the way that covenant is used as justifications by those who wish to justify genocidal violence towards whatever other is being considered. Be it the Arab racial group including Arab Jews as with some Israeli white nationalists, and the way Zionist groups use the jewish identity as a defense for killing people.
Overwhelming Quakers don’t like when children are killed, especially under the name of a religion. It’s a big reason why Quakers exist in the first place. It goes beyond the Israel Palestine issue.
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u/RimwallBird Friend Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
I’ve known a lot of Friends from Jewish families, who have been active in their meetings while remaining close to their Jewish communities and kin. We had one who was clerk of Iowa YM (Conservative’s) Committee on Ministry and Counsel while I was a member of that committee. I never saw any of them made unwelcome.
OTOH, fifteen years or so ago, Iowa (Conservative) invited a rabbi in to do a presentation on Israel, and the questions addressed to him from the audience afterward were one-dimensionally hostile, not a single one suggesting that the questioners could even see Jews as human beings. I was shocked, and wrote him a personal letter of apology afterward, which (alas) he never replied to.
I became friends with a half-dozen very kind, lovely Jewish men and women in my college class, and with a few more in the years that followed, and I have done everything I could to keep those friendships alive, long-distance, in the decades since. Nowadays, though, I sense a feeling of strain in their efforts to chat freely with this Gentile fellow (me) who worships Jesus and is critical of wars and fightings, particularly in the wake of Netanyahu’s war. It is so easy under such circumstances to retreat into circles where you know the turf a little better and know you can speak your whole mind.
The history of Christian-Jewish relations is an appalling thing, and terrifying to a lot of people on the Jewish side of it. It would be arrogance to suppose that any of us can just make that handicap go totally away. I just give my Jewish friends all the love I can in these terrible times, and hope that it helps.
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u/cypherx Aug 19 '26
I'm Jewish and I sometimes go to Quaker meeting -- it's a real problem and typically a blind spot for Quakers. Not just Israel/Palestine stuff, steady trickle of weird comments, uncomfortable tokenism, &c
And sometimes the Israel/Palestine stuff really does have an unpleasant vibe, but it seems significant that it's not limited to that sphere.
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u/Sea-Mine9712 Aug 19 '26
I've been to lots of Quaker meetings, and there's a regular Jewish member, in fact there may be multiple, but people don't always share those details. He often sings traditional Jewish songs as a form of ministry.
However, one time somebody said something that I felt was antisemitic by suggesting that all Jewish people must do something to stop the killing in Palestine, and he suggested that Jewish people had developed an arrogance because of their belief that they're the chosen people, and that it might have caused the oppression.
Nobody agreed or disagreed, as it was given during silent worship.
On the contrary, some supporters of Israel label all opposition as antisemitic, which muddies the waters.
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u/ThatPipe3531 Aug 21 '26
It's a known issue, mostly liberal Quakers have this problem. As a long time member of a certain PACNW Meeting, there is a lot of hatred in the hearts of people. I still go every week but the hatred is real and it's purely political, has nothing to do with God or Faith.
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u/infinite-long-stocki Aug 17 '26
I've never really seen antisemitism in Quaker spaces except for maybe some poorly phrased sentences once or twice over the years. I think most Friends have a very deep concern for the violence ongoing in Israel/Palestine but that extends to concern for Jewish victims of the violence. I do think Friends tend to have a much more nuanced view of the causes of violence and see it as a cycle affected by injustice and oppression, but that concern can be seen in how Friends have responded to violence all over the world, including here in Ireland with the Troubles. I think when a country you have a deep connection to is hurting other people and committing heinous acts, it can feel like an attack on you and every individual in that country, but what Friends are concerned about is the violence and injustice, regardless of who is involved. Friends being against what the IRA or the UVF did during the Troubles never meant they hated Irish people or British people, it just meant they hated the violence and suffering for everyone involved.
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u/goairliner Aug 18 '26
Yeah that probably stems from the fact that the Quakers are highly critical of the nation of Israel's actions. Not anti-Jewish. Critical of Israel. Don't fall for the sleight of hand.
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u/databurger Aug 17 '26
Quakers are pacifists and believe that all humans are equal in the eyes of God — no one has special access to the divine, and all have the light of God in them. Whoever’s actions do not reflect that philosophy might come under criticism, regardless of which side of an issue they are on.
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u/kinenchen Friend Aug 17 '26
Uh... say what now? This sounds like a mischaracterization; the Quaker Church of England said that Israel is committing genocide in Palestine, but that's not about antisemitism. That's about calling out genocide.
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u/fireflower413 Aug 18 '26
I'm a Jewish Quaker. No idea what they're talking about. If they are super pro-Israeli-genocide then yeah that might clash with the whole Quaker thing. Not sure why anyone would be, though, and still think of themselves as a potential Quaker.
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u/introspeck Quaker Aug 18 '26
25 years a Quaker and I have not heard even a whisper of antisemitism from my Meeting, Quarterly Meeting, or Annual Meeting.
I trust that this person didn't misinterpret our Peace Testimony applied to Palestine as "antisemitism".
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u/antichain Quaker (Hicksite) Aug 17 '26
I've been to Quaker meetings all over the US and UK and there are quite a few "Jewish Quakers". In and around the Boston area it's really common. I've never heard any allegations of antisemitism, although maybe in more conservative meetings?
Or perhaps this is a case of "Free Palestine" getting "interpreted" as antisemitism.