Asia Pacific Report
Two independent Jewish Voices groups in Aotearoa New Zealand have written an open letter to the government condemning the Zionist “colonisation” project leading to genocide and criticising the role of the NZ Jewish Council for its “unelected” and “uncritical support” for Israel.
The groups, Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation, have also criticised a scheduled meeting this week between Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and other ministers and the NZJC.
“The NZJC is an extremist voice. Their politics are harmful, and their actions jeopardise the good standing of Jews in Aotearoa,” the open letter said.
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“We protest in the strongest terms that Israel’s advocates are being given Prime Ministerial access.”
The alternative voices also appealed to be consulted along with representatives of the Muslim and Palestinian communities “who have lost the most to racism in recent years”.
“Hear us out before you act,” the open letter said.
The full letter (dated 16 February 2025):
We are Jewish New Zealanders, members of Alternative Jewish Voices and Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation. We understand that your office has scheduled a meeting this week with the NZ Jewish Council (NZJC) and additional ministers. We object in the strongest terms. The NZJC is unelected coterie, forever uncritically aligned with Israel. That is not the Jewish community.
We have documented in depth that the NZJC is not representative. They are not elected. Their constitution outlines a regional structure for indirect democracy, but much of that structure does not seem to exist.
They are not accountable to the community. Their president has broadcast her intention to “disempower as much as possible” Jews like Alternative Jewish Voices (AJV) members who “raise their voices”.
Several of us attended the Wellington Regional Jewish Council’s last community meeting, in 2021. The meeting roundly disavowed the Jewish Council’s tone and their relentless focus on Israel.
Indeed, the NZJC’s constitution does not even mention Israel or Zionism. The Wellington Regional Jewish Council dissolved itself after that meeting, acknowledging that they have no community mandate. They haven’t been heard from since. So much for regional representation.
Through public and private channels, members of the Jewish community have repeatedly asked the NZJC to embrace some positive, rights-based vision of the future.
Instead, through Israel’s 15-month “plausible genocide” in Gaza, the NZJC’s militarism has only become more overt. Juliet Moses was to share a platform with IDF’s head of infantry doctrine Yaron Simsolo at an Auckland event in March, until Jewish objections drove Simsolo’s session offsite.
This is not solely an issue for the Jewish community. For years, we have protested that the Jewish Council’s related Community Security Group shares politically slanted information about New Zealanders with Israel’s embassy.
They interpret objections to Israel’s occupation as a security threat to the New Zealand Jewish community, and they share their views of individual Palestinian, Muslim and other New Zealanders with a regime accused of genocide against Palestinians. This creates particular risk for Palestinian New Zealanders, should they ever travel to Israel or the Occupied Palestinian Territories to visit family and whānau.
Let us say this clearly: there is nothing essentially Jewish about Zionism. Zionism is a project of colonisation, erasure, apartheid, ethnic cleansing — finally, of genocide. Institutions that wrap their nationalism in our Jewishness are shielding the brutality that we witness daily.
In this country, the NZJC has been a leading voice in the campaign to confuse Jewish with Zionist, enabling decades of oppression in our names.
The NZJC does not serve, represent or account to the Jewish community. How many Jewish New Zealanders would choose a representative who, like NZJC president Juliet Moses, retweets defences of Elon Musk’s Nazi salute?
The NZJC is an extremist voice. Their politics are harmful, and their actions jeopardise the good standing of Jews in Aotearoa. We protest in the strongest terms that Israel’s advocates are being given Prime Ministerial access.
It’s not hard to guess what the NZJC will be asking for: some special “antisemitism regime” that uses our Jewish identity to shield Israel from the directives of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They will be asking to divorce the Jewish community from our shared mahi of antiracism and our human rights framework. They will be seeking some exceptional status, suppressing principled protest for Palestinian rights and the criminal accountability of Israeli leaders.
That conversation should not take place without representation from the Muslim and Palestinian communities. They are the New Zealanders whose voices are being silenced, and frankly they are the communities who have lost the most to racism in recent years.
Prime Minister, any meeting with the NZJC ought to be recorded in the ministerial diaries as a session with Israel’s ambassadors. And damn it, they will be doing it in our name. We are also the New Zealand Jewish community, and we are so tired of being used this way.
We would like to join your meeting with the NZJC, bringing Jewish diversity into the room. If you will not open this meeting to the real breadth of the Jewish community, then we wish to schedule a second meeting which includes Muslim and Palestinian representation.
We work closely with the Muslim and Palestinian communities in Aotearoa, modelling the change that we would like to see in the Middle East.
Hear us out before you act.
