IfNotNow demonstration

Members of the leftist Jewish protest group IfNotNow rallied outside the New York City offices of AIPAC on Monday.

The protest targeted a new Israeli law that allows Israelis to build on land in the West Bank privately owned by Palestinians.

“We know that fifty years of pro-Israel-at-any-cost politics enforced by the American Jewish establishment made this brazenly unjust law possible,” said Sarah Lerman-Sinkoff, an IfNotNow leader, in a statement issued by the group. “It’s time for a change of leadership in the American Jewish community.”

The protesters said that the action involved a “street theater” performance, in which the protesters “voted” to claim AIPAC’s office for themselves.

“The #JewishResistance temporarily became the ‘new management’ of the privately-owned office,” the group said in its statement. “After a brief rally, the group left, because unjustly seizing other people’s land to deprive them of freedom and dignity is wrong.”

The protest is part of a string of actions by IfNotNow in advance of AIPAC’s national conference in March. IfNotNow plans to organize a “massive demonstration” of that event, the group said.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com