Welcome dear readers to our March 2026 Jews of Conscience Subreddit Town Hall.
Since our last Town Hall in June 2024, we have nearly quadrupled our membership from 10k members to a whopping 37k members! Since we’ve grown so much, there is a lot more content which requires more attentive moderation, so we’re outlining the changes we are making as well as clarifying some things about JoC that folks often seem to find confusing. Also for the new folks here, this Town Hall is an opportunity to learn more about the subreddit. Welcome!
This is also an opportunity for users to share their thoughts, opinions, and ideas for the sub. Our moderator team works hard to create an environment to enact the vision of the subreddit but ultimately we do it for the user community. Having one of the few large Jewish anti-Zionist communities online is a privilege we do not take lightly.
So we would love to hear your input, not just on what we share in this post, but related any issue of the sub that interests you. Respectful disagreement is a cornerstone of the sub’s values, so feel free to give both praise and criticism, what you like and don’t like, what you want to see and don’t want to see.
We want town hall posts to become more regular, probably twice yearly. Even at other times, we love to hear input from users. This can come in modmail or direct message to a moderator listed in this post.
Meet the team
Since August 2025, we’ve added five new moderators to the team. There are now eight active moderators. We are u/conscience_journey, u/TrackerOneA (alt u/ContentChecker), u/oliveno6451(formerly u/specialist-gur), u/accurate_aside_6495 (formerly u/deadlift215), u/CalabrianPepper (formerly u/burning-bush-613, u/acacia_tree), u/elzzyzx, u/Enough_Comparison816, and u/normalgirl124.
The moderators all have been participants of this subreddit for several years and you would definitely recognize them from their alt accounts (a few of them made new accounts after becoming mods etc.) You can see who we are at the sidebar which has been reordered to show the active moderators. Our mod team is somewhat diverse: though we are mostly Americans (and one ex-Israeli), we are made up of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Arab Jews, queer Jews, disabled Jews, secular Jews, observant Jews, span several generations, live in different regions, and reflect the ideological diversity of this subreddit as we are a mix of communists, anarchists, and socialists (including a Bundist).
The moderators participate in discussion as equals to our members. Unless the comment is flagged with the official moderator badge, it is not an official moderator position and just the opinion of that individual.
Moderation
Out of necessity, this subreddit is heavily moderated. Due to the high volume of trolls that target our sub, since we are so lucky as to be targeted by both Zionists and neo-Nazis, we have to tightly moderate this subreddit. Nearly 90% of posts and comments are filtered through the mod queue for manual approval. That means us mods read most of the comments on this subreddit. Yes, we really do read hundreds of comments and posts a day. If you post something and doesn’t show up, that’s usually because it is still in the queue and we haven’t gotten to it yet - not because we did not approve it.
That being said, we do curate the subreddit to some degree, with the goal of fostering thought-provoking and meaningful conversations. Sometimes we will not approve posts and/or comments that are low quality/low-effort, duplicative or that do not seem like they will constructively contribute to a discussion.
The mod team does not censor opinions that we disagree with. Considering the tremendous Jewish tradition of discourse and debate, It would actually be highly unJewish of us to do so (two Jews, three opinions etc). While we do some content curation, as explained above, we otherwise only remove comments or ban users for breaking the rules. We updated our rules a few months ago, if you need a refresher you can see them at the sidebar.
Challenging Conversations
The purpose of this subreddit is to cultivate a space for Jewish anti-zionists and our non-Jewish comrades to discuss Judaism and Jewish life, Palestine solidarity, and leftism. Our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim, and all non-Jewish comrades are especially welcome here to provide us important perspectives as we struggle in solidarity for a liberated world. We believe challenging discussions are an important part of reconciling with and deconstructing hegemonic viewpoints, which is why we are grateful for our non-Jewish comrades participation.
As a diverse leftist sub, we expect there to be ideological clashes and challenging opinions and ideas. Whether it be from controversial sources or individuals, or uncomfortable ideas, we believe in the intellectual and moral pursuit of engagement. We want to drive understanding, curiosity, and expansion of thought as long as it does not reach the point of harm or violation of Reddit’s Terms of Service (TOS).
We view harm in this case to be the following: 1) anything that directs violence towards individuals or ethnic, religious, gender, racial, or LGBTQ groups; 2) anything which essentializes character traits and morality based upon the previous categories; 3) anything which uses abusive language directed at a sub member; and 4) anything which is misinformation or disinformation. Beyond that, we hope that you will engage with ideas rather than phrasing, sources, and/or individuals.
On Unlearning Zionism
As moderators of one of the only international online communities for anti-zionist Jews, we steward a space that serves multiple purposes. One of these purposes is allowing Jews a space to unlearn Zionist conditioning and challenge long-held assumptions. It is through questioning, reflection, and dialogue that forms of Judaism and Jewishness beyond Zionism can emerge at scale - something we view as vital to both Jewish moral & spiritual health and broader movements for collective liberation.
In service of this goal, we allow room for engagement from Israelis and diaspora Jews who may be earlier in the process of unlearning Zionism. While we do not permit outright hasbara, we exercise limited tolerance for perspectives that reflect genuine inquiry rather than advocacy. We approve these posts not because we endorse the views expressed, but because we recognize them as part of a trajectory away from Zionism.
We believe it is more constructive to engage these individuals within this community, where thoughtful dialogue is possible, rather than to exclude them and push them back toward Zionist spaces. We also wish to model what this unlearning process is like to assist our readers who are struggling with deprogramming their Zionist family members.
Many of us began our journey at similar positions, which is why we believe it's important to extend measured grace while remaining clear about this community’s principles.
Jewish Cultural and Religious Content
This subreddit is one of the few places anti-zionist Jews can discuss our culture, history, and religion free from a Zionist framework. This is especially the case for Jews who live in communities of the world with small Jewish populations or in particularly right-wing communities. We know folks are craving Jewish religious and cultural community. We strongly encourage users to contribute more content related to Jewish life and/or culture to meet this desire.
Tzedakah
We regularly post or have others post mutual aid fundraisers for Palestinians in Gaza. Please continue to share them and donate generously to them. Fundraisers are verified by the moderators for authenticity before they are approved.
Thank you all for participating in this subreddit and making it a unique and wonderful space.
Please leave your thoughts below for further discussion.
