Abby Alfred is a strategic consultant based in Portland. She has lived in Jerusalem where she worked with both Israeli and Palestinian organizations, including dialogue and peace building organizations.

My husband and I have been trying to navigate raising Jewish children within a landscape of institutions that have been at odds with what we’re looking for in community. The two of us grew up very engaged with our respective Jewish communities; to be without this for our children is a loss felt by each of us.

So, the recent letter from institutional Jewish leaders calling upon political leaders to reject the term “genocide” in reference to Israel’s violence toward Palestinians was another embarrassing reminder us that there is still no formal Jewish organization in this community into which we can comfortably integrate our family. And further, that their clinging to the delusions of a democratic, morally superior safe haven for Jews is politically isolating them and leaving them impotent to actually help ensure Jewish safety in Maine.

I recognize that leading any community— and especially a Jewish one in 2026 — is an incredibly difficult task. And yet, even as these leaders claim to be carefully and thoughtfully navigating the complexities of Jewish fears and feelings, they continuously regurgitate the same messages that have pushed families like ours farther away.

We have heard repeatedly from Jewish institutional leaders that Jewish unity and “wrestling with complexities” together is an essential and core Jewish value. And yet, the resulting positions are always, somehow, a stance with Israel (often with the empty caveat that criticism is OK!) however depraved the government may be.

So now, almost three years into Israel’s (yes, I will say it) genocide, I am not surprised — but I am sad (and angry) — that nothing has changed. That letter illuminated the fact that institutional Jewish leaders continue to both lack moral courage to take an actual stance against the horrors Israel has carried out, and to really hear so many of us.

Despite the countless hours of videos most of us have seen of flattened hospitals, dead children, grieving parents, laughing IDF soldiers; despite the chorus of genocide scholars asserting Israel has been committing a genocide, they continue to insist that we must just come together and figure out how to be a community.

They refuse to listen to the experts and yet wonder why Jewish institutions are being sidelined politically, which is not much of an invitation to anyone with a conscience to participate in dialogue with them.

Despite their claims that they wrote this letter in the name of Jewish safety, I fail to understand how anyone can think that denying a genocide protects Jews.

My anxiety about allowing my children to participate in Jewish activities has only increased since that letter was published. The term “genocide” does not increase antisemitism; the denial of it, to reconcile their continued support of the state that lives only in their imaginations, does.

I wish we had Jewish leadership in this state that instilled trust and inspired hope. I believe community is essential for safety — Jewish and beyond— which is part of why it’s devastating to continuously see Jewish institutional leaders take positions that alienate Jews from the broader community, and alienate many Jews from Jewish institutions.

I am grateful for the many other Jews in our community who understand that safety comes from solidarity, and that we don’t need a safe haven on the other side of the world to build the Jewish lives we want right here in Maine. These are the people with whom my husband and I will continue to build community; these are the people who help us instill Jewish values in our children about love, humanity and justice for everyone.

I’m thrilled to see political leaders moving in this direction. Maybe someday, these Jewish institutions will join us, too.