Choose Democracy (Bochrim BaDemocratia) is a campaign launched in January 2023 to mobilise thousands of people across the UK Jewish Community to demonstrate solidarity with Israelis fighting for Israel’s democratic future.

We want Israel to flourish as a homeland for the Jewish people and a democratic state that seeks to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants”, as stated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Our community often finds itself defending Israel from external attacks. But now, more than ever before, the threat comes from within. We cannot be silent as Israel’s new government seeks to undermine the rule of law and curtail human rights, limit the freedom of the press, remove legal protections for minorities including LGBTQ people, migrant workers, and asylum seekers, claim the Jewish people have exclusive rights to all the Land of Israel and the West Bank, prevent the viability of a future two state solution, rescind the legal status of non-Orthodox conversions undertaken in Israel, erode religious freedom, pluralism, and freedom of choice, and endanger women.

We have a choice. We either remain silent or stand in solidarity with those across Israel fighting for democracy.

Thousands have signed, including:

Rabbi Charley Baginsky, Liberal Judaism
Rabbi Margaret Jacobi, Birmingham Progressive Synagogue
David Davidi-Brown, New Israel Fund
Rabbi David Mason
Hannah Weisfeld, Yachad – Executive Director
Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, Masorti Judaism
Rabbi Alexandra Wright, The Liberal Jewish Synagogue
Dame Margaret Hodge MP
Adam Wagner
Mike Katz, Jewish Labour Movement
Alex Sobel, Jewish Labour Movement
Raymond Simonson
Izzy Lenga, Jewish Labour Movement International Officer
Ella Rose
Hannah Rose
Andrew Gilbert, London Jewish Forum
Professor David-Hillel Ruben, Jewish Labour Movement; Magen Avot Synagogue
Professor Stephen Miller, Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue
Professor Lily Okalani Kahn
Professor Gillian Raab, Sukkat Shalom Edinburgh Liberal
Professor Irit Samet, NNLS
Professor Malcolm Rustin, West London Synagogue
Rabbi Lea Muehlstein, Arzenu
Rabbi Zahavit Shalev, New North London Synagogue, Masorti Judaism

Supporting Organisations:

Arzenu UK
Habonim Dror UK
Jewish Labour Movement
Liberal Judaism
LJY-Netzer
Masorti Judaism
Meretz UK
Movement for Reform Judaism
New Israel Fund
Noam Masorti Youth
RSY-Netzer
Union of Jewish Students
Yachad
We Democracy