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About 20 protesters affiliated with IfNotNow gathered Tuesday morning outside a downtown San Francisco building that houses the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund and other organizations.

The company that manages the building informed tenants about the protest around 9:15 a.m. and suggested that employees work remotely for the day. The demonstration, which targeted JCRC and its support for Israel, lasted less than an hour. 

IfNotNow is a Jewish-led group that launched in 2014, straining to end what it considered hawkish political support in the U.S. for Israel and to oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Since then, it has evolved into one of the more visible groups that challenges American Jewry’s support for Israel. It has often allied with strident anti-Israel factions of the pro-Palestinian movement, including Jewish Voice for Peace, which rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

IfNotNow, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., no longer defines itself as an organization opposed primarily to the occupation, but more broadly as one opposed to American institutional support for Israel, including from the U.S. government, Jewish federations, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It has organized dramatic protests that have intensified during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, blocking bridges on major roads across the U.S. and demonstrating outside the White House in a protest that led to 30 arrests.

On Tuesday in San Francisco, protesters called on the JCRC to undertake a “cheshbon hanefesh,” or an “accounting of the soul,” that is customary during the month of Elul prior to the High Holidays. Protesters, some wearing prayer shawls and kippahs, held signs saying “This is your Elul wake-up call,” “Jews 4 a Free Palestine” and “JCRC are you living your Jewish values?” Demonstrators prayed, chanted, sang and blew the shofar.

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The group is known for embracing Jewish teachings, prayers and symbols; its name is derived from an aphorism of the Jewish sage Hillel and its logo is a representation of the burning bush from the story of Moses. 

The precise demands of the protest were difficult to pinpoint.

IfNotNow regional spokesperson Jay Goldstuck told J. that the protest’s purpose was to implore JCRC to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and for a hostage “exchange.”

However, an IfNotNow press release stated that the protest was calling on JCRC “to change its stance and condemn war crimes committed by the State of Israel in Gaza.” The press release alleged that JCRC had “fought ceasefire resolutions in the Bay Area,” a reference to the organization’s advocacy in city councils across the region amid a raft of resolutions related to the Israel-Hamas war in the weeks and months after Oct. 7. In San Francisco, for example, JCRC lobbied the Board of Supervisors to add a condemnation of Hamas in its cease-fire resolution, which the body did before passing the measure in January.

IfNotNow also accused JCRC of labeling “all speech against Israel as antisemitism.” JCRC’s working definition of antisemitism states that criticism of Israel “may cross the line into antisemitism when stereotypes and myths are used, the intent is discriminatory, or when only Jews are not allowed the right to national self-determination.”

JCRC declined to comment on Tuesday’s protest.

JCRC serves as a public liaison between the Bay Area Jewish community and local civic groups and government leaders. While taking progressive stances on social issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights, it is sometimes a target of left-wing activists because of its staunch support for Israel. JCRC opposes anti-Zionism in the public square, including in K-12 schools, universities and city councils.

IfNotNow’s website states that it is committed to ending “Israel’s system of apartheid,” which it considers to pervade the entire country, a claim fiercely rejected by Israel’s supporters who point to, for example, voting rights afforded all citizens of the country, as well as the presence of non-Jews across nearly all spheres of Israeli life from the IDF, to the Knesset to the Supreme Court. In terms of Zionism, Goldstuck told J. that the group does not “take a stance on the future of the land.”

IfNotNow has said it welcomes both Zionists and anti-Zionists in its coalition, and yet the small number of protesters on Tuesday — much smaller than scores of anti-Israel protests in the Bay Area since Oct. 7 — reflects the needle the group is trying to thread.

By being open even to Zionists — a toxic term in the pro-Palestinian movement — the group likely loses some credibility and support among the activist left. But in the minds of many American Jews, the group is no more moderate than the most staunchly anti-Zionist activists. 

IfNotNow is also comfortable with even the most strident criticism of Israel, including claims of genocide, which the group alleged as early as December. IfNotNow did not blame Hamas for the Oct. 7 attack, but Israel itself and the U.S.

The victims’ “blood is on the hands of the Israeli government, the US government which funds and excuses their recklessness, and every international leader who continues to turn a blind eye to decades of Palestinian oppression, endangering both Palestinian and Israelis,” according to an IfNotNow statement reported on Oct. 11 by the Times of Israel

Asked about its relationship with JVP and other anti-Zionist groups, Goldstuck said that IfNotNow has a “longstanding partnership” with JVP and welcomes support from multiple corners of the pro-Palestinian movement.

“We create a really broad tent in our organizing work where we welcome people who identify as anti-Zionist, and we welcome people who identify as Zionist,” Goldstuck said. “As long as the people in our tent align with our movement principles. We are a nonviolent organization fighting to end U.S. support for Israeli apartheid.”