Presentation to NJ Legislature Committee Was NOT “Hate-Filled Rant Against Jews”: A Rebuttal to Hillary Goldberg’s op ed in Algemeiner
Photo caption: The author at Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, Occupied Palestine
by Rich Siegel July 4, 2025
I traveled to Trenton to speak before a committee of the NJ Legislature on June 23. The purpose of this session was to hear comments on Bill A 3558, which seeks to make the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of Anti-Semitism law in New Jersey. I did not intend to write about it until I read Hillary Goldberg’s totally distorted account of what occurred. I will now set the record straight.
First, a little background is necessary. Hillary Goldberg is a member of the Teaneck, New Jersey town council. I am a long-time resident of Teaneck, and recently have been a frequent speaker at town council meetings. My focus has been to try to get the town council to take action against the frequent illegal Israeli real estate events that take place in Teaneck. Those events feature the sale of Israeli real estate and West Bank settlement real estate directly to New Jersey Jews, as well as providing logistical support, information, and services relevant to those sales.
Hillary Goldberg has made libelous statements on social media, about me and other residents who don’t agree with her Zionism. At one town council meeting she turned her chair around when I began speaking, and gave me her back for the entirety of my three minute presentation. Somehow, even after such egregious unprofessional behavior, she remains on the town council.
I am a Jewish activist for Palestine. This makes me unpopular in Teaneck, a community which features a large Zionist Jewish population, many of whom are Modern Orthodox. I have participated in organizing demonstrations there and elsewhere in Bergen County.
Early on the morning of June 23 I drove to the Palestinian-American Cultural Center in Clifton, New Jersey, to board a bus which had been secured by that organization, to bring concerned parties to this event in order to speak.
When I was growing up in a Zionist Jewish environment I was often told that any Arab would kill me if he had the chance, just because I’m a Jew. That actually did not happen on this bus trip. In fact it was a pleasant and friendly experience, as all of my encounters with the Palestinian community have been, both here and in Palestine. It’s part of my cult-survivor experience to remember the absurdities I was taught as my lived experience disproves them over and over again.
Needless to say, Hillary Goldberg was not on the bus with me. She also wasn’t at the state house in Trenton. I expected to see her there. I looked around for her and did not. So her op ed must have been based on listening to the recording of the session.
Goldberg accurately describes the announcement made by Jason Shames, CEO of the federation of Northern New Jersey, directing all those who had come to speak in favor of the bill to leave. The reason: They were hurt and insulted that the vote was not to take place that day, that enough time had passed to where it should have been voted on that day, and they also felt that they were given insufficient notice. I have no opinion on this.
What this walk-out accomplished was that the presentation of over two hours of speakers became an overwhelming majority against the bill. There were only three or four speakers in favor. Presumably they either disagreed with the walk-out or arrived late and were unaware of it.
Hillary Goldberg describes what happened during two hours of presentations this way: “Speaker after speaker rose not to oppose hate against Jews, but to accuse Jews of causing it. Jewish existence itself became the target. The committee had front row seats to a masterclass on anti-Semitism, delivered as testimony against the very definition meant to expose it”.
Put plainly: That did not happen. Hillary Goldberg leaves out some very important details, notably that many of the speakers were Jewish, including me. My own impression of the session was that the speakers consisted of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, representatives from various organizations and religious institutions, who all expressed a few major points in harmony. Worth stating again, this was a very diverse group that spoke in agreement on major issues.
The major issues were these:
- There is no need for a bill to define anti-Semitism. No group of people is calling for, or have ever called for, any definition of hatred specifically against them.
- There is no need for a bill to single out anti-Semitism as there are already very good laws in effect at the present time in New Jersey that address hate crimes against ANYBODY.
- Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is inaccurate. Zionism is a political movement. Judaism is a religion. The existence of many anti-Zionist Jews (including myself) proves that Zionism and Judaism are not the same thing and that therefore anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are not the same thing.
- And here is where the cause becomes urgent: Conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is an affront to free speech guaranteed in our First Amendment. Making the false determination that Anti-Zionism is the same thing as Anti-Semitism effectively criminalizes criticism of the state of Israel. This is particularly relevant at this time because many people feel that the state of Israel is worthy of much criticism after almost two years of genocide in Gaza, increased violence in the West Bank, and attacks on both Lebanon and Iran.
Hillary Goldberg continues: “What happened in Trenton wasn’t a discussion. It was erasure. A systematic assault designed to replace the global Jewish consensus that Zionism is central to Jewish identity with fringe theology serving as a fig leaf for ancient hatred”.
Clearly Ms. Goldberg has never visited the Mea Shearim neighborhood in Jersusalem, although I am aware that she has been to this wonderful city. That particular neighborhood is characterized by Orthodox Jews who display Palestinian flags and who dedicate their lives to opposing Zionism and Israel and supporting the Palestinian cause. I have been to that neighborhood and was honored to be a guest in the home of Rabbi Hirsch, the head rabbi of the Neturei Karta movement in Jerusalem, a movement that Goldberg dismisses as “fringe theology”. I am very familiar with that theology, and in my opinion it’s not “fringe”. It’s Judaism. I am not Orthodox and am not a member of that community, but I share an awareness with them about Jewish theology.
There is no “global consensus” placing Zionism as “central to Jewish identity”. There has always been Jewish objection to Zionism. And while anti-Zionist Jews were reduced to a small minority in recent years, that number has been growing by leaps and bounds as the direct result of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, especially among progressive and secular Jewish populations, and especially among the younger generation.
Having covered the most important points of why Goldberg’s account of this meeting were inaccurate and unfair, I feel it’s also important to expose a cherry-picked quote that she used. Goldberg took a quote made by former Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer, which only made sense in the context of what she said prior to the statement which was quoted. That part was omitted.
I’ll omit all of it. But I’d like to present another quote from Jaffer, which Goldberg also omitted: “All good and decent people stand up against hate, including Anti-Semitism”. Hardly a “modern blood libel”, and yes Goldberg said that, too.
She also inaccurately placed Jaffer as the first speaker after the walk-out was announced. She wasn’t. I was. I introduced myself as a Jewish anti-Zionist, and made a short presentation about Jewish hero Marek Edelman, possibly the greatest Jewish hero of the 20th century, whom few people have heard of. Why? Because he was an anti-Zionist. This commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising refused to go to Palestine after the war, and while enjoying a successful career as a surgeon in Poland, was a supporter of the Palestinian cause throughout his life. That’s why Holocaust Museums and Zionist historians generally would like to pretend he didn’t exist.
I suppose my rebuttal to Goldberg’s op ed will earn me her back again next time I speak at a Teaneck town council meeting. So be it!
Rich Siegel
Director, Deir Yassin Remembered
Teaneck, NJ
