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jewish voice for peace action
‘Genocide Is a Bad Investment’: Passover Seder Protests NYC Comptroller Plan to Reinvest in Israel
"Passover, our festival of liberation, compels us to ensure that our city’s funds do not underwrite the Israeli government carrying out genocide," said an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace.
Apr 09, 2026
More than 500 New Yorkers gathered for an "emergency Passover Seder" outside the office of New York City comptroller Mark Levine on Wednesday, where they called for him to divest the city's pension fund from bonds tied to Israel.
The city's former comptroller, Brad Lander, chose not to renew the nearly $40 million worth of investments in 2023. But in January, Levine reversed course, announcing plans to resume investment in the bonds, describing them as sound assets.
After Israel helped pressure the US to launch a war against Iran and began a new invasion of Lebanon—campaigns that have collectively killed more than 3,000 people—the city's chief fiscal officer is facing renewed pressure to stop what Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) described as a "plan to fund Israeli bombs with city pensions."i
Protesters with the group stood outside the comptroller's office holding signs reading "Apartheid is chametz" and "Genocide is a bad investment."
"Passover, our festival of liberation, compels us to ensure that our city’s funds do not underwrite the Israeli government carrying out genocide in Gaza, enabling rampant settler violence in the West Bank, bombing Iran, and destroying entire villages in Southern Lebanon," said Jay Saper, an activist with JVP who works as a children's teacher and Yiddish translator. "Comptroller Levine’s plan goes against the will of New Yorkers who do not want our city's money to be used to fund genocide and war."
Levine took office in January after Lander left the post to challenge Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman for his seat representing New York's 10th congressional district.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been a vocal opponent of using any city funds to support Israel. But while he has publicly pushed back against the decision to resume purchasing Israeli bonds, he lacks the power, as mayor, to personally overrule it.
"I don’t think we should purchase Israel bonds,” Mamdani said in January. “We don’t purchase bonds for any other sovereign nation’s debt, and the comptroller has also made his position clear, and I continue to stand by mine.”
Though Levine has expressed strong support for Israel, saying he has "very deep personal ties" to the country, the attendees at Wednesday's Seder said the money spent on Israeli bonds could be better used to help New Yorkers.
"New Yorkers deserve to have their city funds in bonds that prioritize financial stability, accountability, and the long-term security for city workers," said New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. "They should invest in life and the livelihoods of our communities, not the complete opposite. We cannot go backward to something financially unstable and, more importantly, morally bankrupt."
Last year's JVP Seder was held to call for the release of Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who was imprisoned by immigration agents and threatened with deportation by the Trump administration for activism on campus against Israel's genocide in Gaza. More than 100 JVP activists were arrested after occupying Trump Tower in Manhattan to demand his freedom last spring.
This year, Khalil—released from detention after a judge's order last June—was in attendance at the Seder.
“Just as you prayed for my freedom last year, today let us all pray together that by next Seder the Israeli genocide will have ended,” said Khalil.
(Video by Jewish Voice for Peace)
The Seder comes amid a public reckoning for Israel, including among many American Jews. A Pew Research poll released on Tuesday found that an unprecedented 60% of American adults view Israel negatively, compared to just 37% who view it positively.
A majority of American Jews have expressed disapproval of the war launched by President Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Iran. Meanwhile, a poll last year found that around 4 in 10 American Jews believed Israel's actions in Gaza constituted genocide.
Rabbi Abby Stein of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinic Council said the hundreds of Jewish people in attendance on Wednesday were “reclaiming our beautiful, ancient liberation holiday from those who would weaponize it, and Judaism itself, as tools of colonialism and supremacy—ideas that have been historically, and are, the opposite of what Judaism is and should be."
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'Stop Arming Israel,' Jewish-Led Groups Tell DNC Leaders at Party Summit
"The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel."
Dec 12, 2025
Jewish Voice for Peace Action on Friday led a coalition of groups demanding that the Democratic Party stop providing arms to the Israeli government.
Speaking outside the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting in Los Angeles, Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP Action) held a press conference calling on Democrats to oppose all future weapons shipments to Israel, whose years-long assault on Gaza has, according to one estimate, killed more than 100,000 Palestinian people.
While carrying banners that read, "Stop Arming Israel," speakers at the press conference also called on Democrats to reject money from the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), which has consistently funded primary challenges against left-wing critics of Israel.
JVP Action was joined at the press conference by representatives from Health Care 4 US (HC4US), Progressive Democrats of America, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action (CAIR Action), as well as a retired teacher and former member of the United Teachers of Los Angeles Board of Directors.
Estee Chandler, founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, warned Democrats at the press conference that they risked falling out of touch with public opinion if they continued to support giving weapons to Israel.
"The polls are clear,” Chandler said. "The American public is demanding decisive action to end US complicity in the Israeli government’s war crimes by stopping the flow of weapons to Israel, and the Democratic Party refusing to heed that call will continue to come at their own peril."
The press conference came a day after the progressive advocacy group RootsAction and journalist Christopher D. Cook released an "autopsy" report of the Democratic Party's crushing 2024 losses, finding that the party's support for Israel's assault on Gaza contributed to last year's election results.
Chandler also called on Democrats to get behind the Block the Bombs Act, which currently has 58 sponsors, and which she said "would block the transfer of the worst offensive weapons from being sent to Israel, including bombs, tank rounds, and artillery shells that are US-supplied and have been involved in the mass killing of Palestinian civilians and the grossest violations of international law in Gaza."
Although there has technically been a ceasefire in place in Gaza since October, Israeli forces have continued to conduct deadly military operations in the enclave that have killed hundreds of civilians, including dozens of children.
Ricardo Pires, a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said last month that the number of deaths in Gaza in recent weeks has been "staggering" given that they've happened "during an agreed ceasefire."
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Stefanik Backs Far-Right Israeli Push for West Bank Control at Confirmation Hearing
The U.N. ambassador nominee also shrugged off the Nazi salutes made by Elon Musk on Inauguration Day.
Jan 21, 2025
As U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik faced questioning by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday regarding her nomination for a top diplomatic position, the rights group Jewish Voice for Peace Action called on lawmakers to consider her "record of antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, and anti-democracy rhetoric and policy" and block her confirmation.
Stefanik's (R-N.Y.) record was reinforced at the hearing as she was asked about her views on Palestine, expressions of antisemitism in the United States, and far-right Israeli leaders' political agenda, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) recalling a meeting he had with the congresswoman after President Donald Trump nominated her to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
At the meeting, Van Hollen said, Stefanik had expressed support for the idea that Israel has a Biblical right to control the entire West Bank—a position that is held by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, but runs counter to the two-state solution that the U.S. government has long supported.
"Is that your view today?" asked Van Hollen, to which Stefanik replied, "Yes."
Van Hollen noted that Stefanik's viewpoint also flies in the face of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions and international consensus about the Middle East conflict.
"If the president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, we're going to have to look at the U.N. Security Council resolutions," said the senator. "And it's going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed, which is a view that was not held by the founders of the state of Israel."
Stefanik also refused to answer a direct question from Van Hollen regarding whether Palestinian people have the right to self-determination, saying only that she supports "human rights for all" and pivoting to a call for Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas.
Jenin Younes, a civil liberties attorney, said Stefanik expressed "religious fanaticism, pure and simple" at the confirmation hearing—which was held as Israeli settlers and soldiers ramped up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
"That [Stefanik] will now play a major role with respect to our foreign policy in the region is terrifying," said Younes.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action noted that in addition to supporting "the Israeli government's brutal genocide of Palestinians," Stefanik has also "amplified the antisemitic Great Replacement theory"—which claims the influence and power of white Christian Americans is being deliberately diminished by Jewish Americans and immigration policy.
Despite her support for the debunked conspiracy theory, Stefanik made headlines last year for her accusations against college students, faculty, and administrators over the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that exploded across campuses as Americans spoke out against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza. The congresswoman said the protests were expressions of antisemitism and pushed for the resignation of university leaders who declined to discipline students who spoke out against Israel.
The hearings where Stefanik lambasted college leaders "were part of a broader campaign to silence anti-war activism and dissent on college campuses while forwarding the MAGA culture war campaign against [diversity, equity, and inclusion], critical race theory, and LGBTQ+ rights," said JVP Action.
An exchange between Stefanik and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday also raised questions over Stefanik's views on antisemitism. Murphy asked the nominee about the Nazi salute twice displayed by billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk—whom the president has named to lead his proposed Department of Government Efficiency—at an event Monday night.
" Elon Musk did not do those salutes," Stefanik asserted.
Murphy countered by reading several comments from right-wing commentators who applauded Musk's "Heil Hitler" salute.
"Over and over again last night, white supremacist groups and neo-Nazi groups in this country rallied around that visual," said Murphy.
JVP Action said Stefanik has "deeply embraced Trump's anti-democratic agenda."
"Her nomination must be blocked," said the group.
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