Jewish Community Condemns NACL October 7 Event at Arkansas State Capitol

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Taste of Olam Haba, a progressive Jewish congregation in Arkansas, condemns the National Association of Christian Lawmakers’ October 7 gathering at the Arkansas State Capitol and rejects the use of Jewish grief and the memory of those killed on October 7, 2023, to advance a Christian nationalist political agenda.

According to NACL’s announcement, today’s event brings together U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Arkansas elected officials, religious leaders, and representatives of Christian Zionist organizations under the banner “We Remember. We Pray. We Stand With Israel.”

We believe this event is a disgraceful use of a day of mourning.

Israelis continue to grieve those killed and taken hostage on October 7 and the many losses that have followed, while living through prolonged instability, rocket fire, and war. In Gaza, the scale of destruction is staggering. Rebuilding has barely begun, and people continue to live in devastating conditions amid ongoing Israeli attacks and immense suffering.

To remember October 7 should mean mourning every life taken and recommitting ourselves to a world in which such horrors are not repeated. It should deepen our opposition to antisemitism without requiring us to ignore Islamophobia or anti-Palestinian racism. It should move us toward a future in which Israelis and Palestinians alike have safety, dignity, freedom, and the ability to determine their own futures.

We welcome genuine solidarity from our Christian neighbors. We are grateful for interfaith partners who stand beside Jews against antisemitism and beside Muslims, Palestinians, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and all communities targeted by hatred or political exclusion.

But solidarity with Jews is not the same thing as Christian Zionism. And support for Jewish people should never require Palestinians to surrender their humanity. We firmly reject the idea that aligning ourselves with Christian Zionism or Christian nationalism will make Jewish people safe. NACL openly describes its work as an effort to organize lawmakers around a “Biblical worldview” and to “restore the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation.” That political project does not represent us. Jewish safety cannot depend upon subordinating our lives, our traditions, or our political future to a Christian theological vision.

We refuse the false choice that tells Jews our safety must come at the expense of someone else’s freedom.

Palestinian death does not bring back the people murdered on October 7. The destruction of families and communities in Gaza and the West Bank does not heal Jewish grief. Revenge cannot resurrect the dead, and permanent war will not create lasting safety for Israelis, Palestinians, or Jews anywhere.

Three years after October 7, we believe another path is possible.

We see it in Israelis who have demanded that the lives of hostages be valued over the continuation of war. We see it in bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who, despite unimaginable loss, have chosen reconciliation rather than vengeance. We see it in Jewish and Palestinian activists working together for equality, democracy, human rights, and a shared future. And we see it in people protecting Palestinian communities in the West Bank, lawyers defending equal rights, and families who have transformed grief into a demand that no other family endure what they have endured.

These voices offer a far more courageous response to October 7 than another rally equating Jewish safety with unconditional support for a state or a military.

On this October 7, we mourn.

And in our mourning, we choose life. We choose solidarity over supremacy, relationship over dehumanization, and the difficult work of peace over the seductive promise of revenge.

There is no future in which one people is safe because another is permanently unsafe.

Our future must be shared.