In the immediate weeks following the October 7 Hamas attack, Jews in America began to feel attacked on a clear and local level. Israel’s fight with Hamas in Gaza immediately hit very close to home, particularly at Teaneck Town Council and Teaneck Board of Education meetings, where Hamas sympathizers went on record, baldly whitewashing murder, rape and decapitation of Jews in the name of freeing Palestine “by any means necessary.” They even justified the October 7 murders and kidnapping of civilians, including women, children and babies, saying it was the result of the “genocide” allegedly being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza prior to that date.
While many members of the Jewish community looked on, stunned at the mainstream normalization of antisemitic tropes and outright declarations of war against the Jewish people, another group formed to take decisive action on a grassroots level. Calling itself BCJAC, the Bergen County Jewish Action Committee initially began by advocating for Teaneck’s Jewish community to vote in the November 8 election, which had three spots open on the Board of Education. The three candidates endorsed by BCJAC were successful, beating the other candidates by approximately 1,000 votes.
BCJAC distinguishes itself as a 501(c)(4) organization, a nonprofit with social welfare in mind, with freedom to lobby. And rather than an issue-focused national advocacy organization like the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition, BCJAC is interested in local elections and issues, and in coordinating on micro- rather than macro-levels.
For example, last week, in a matter of hours, BCJAC organized a rally on the Teaneck Municipal Green to protest Teaneck High School’s proposed “Walkout for Palestine,” which was set to take place the following day. While the walkout did go on as planned, the BCJAC took many decisive actions in addition to organizing the rally.
“Our public schools should be places where students of all backgrounds feel safe and come together to learn,” said Emma Horowitz, a Teaneck resident and BCJAC’s president. “In Teaneck this past Wednesday [November 29], students were afraid to come to school. Many stayed home. That should have deeply embarrassed everyone in Teaneck. Our superintendent and board of education failed all of us.
“And they failed despite ample warning,” said Rachel Cyrulnik, a Teaneck resident and BCJAC’s vice president. “Thousands of people sent them letters. Communal leaders and organizations reached out to them. An impromptu rally was held on the municipal green and attended by over 1,000 people. They ignored all of them. On the contrary, they made a bad situation worse and did something that, to our knowledge, virtually no other district which has faced similar walkouts has done—they invited students to hold their rally on school property during school hours, and effectively turned a walkout into a school-sponsored event.”
BCJAC executive committee member Yigal Gross explained that the incident at Teaneck High School reflects deeper issues. “We have a board of education and superintendent that treats Teaneck’s Jewish residents with contempt, that makes and then obstinately doubles down on poor educational decisions, that seems oblivious to student safety and that is generally failing Teaneck’s students. Students who miss class to march around the school’s football field chanting ‘From the river to sea,’ and then applaud speakers who describe America as ‘the most racist country on earth’ are not engaging in a valuable civic exercise. They are wasting their time and being failed by their district,” he said.
According to BCJAC executive committee member Tirza Bayewitz, BCJAC is currently focused on three primary objectives: (i) promoting communal advocacy; (ii) promoting civic engagement and representation and (iii) promoting interconnectivity among individual Bergen County Jewish communities.
“We are a team of volunteers from a variety of religious and professional backgrounds unified by a sense of dedication to our community and conviction that BCJAC’s work is of critical communal importance,” said Bayewitz.
Moving forward, Gross said that community members need to channel anger or frustration into constructive solutions. “Organizationally, we are approaching this process with great care and humility. There are a lot of talented people in our community and a diversity of opinions, and we are actively consulting as many of them as we can to formulate the appropriate communal response.”
To learn more or to get involved, please email [email protected].
