Profile

Rhetoric

  • Repeatedly refers to Judaism as “tribal,” “isolationist,” “exceptionalist” and to contemporary Jews as “paranoid”
  • While speaking at a Sabeel conference, Braverman “claimed that Zionism is killing the soul of the Jewish people and that ‘some day we will be on our knees in contrition.’”
  • Braverman has compared the Nazi Holocaust to the State of Israel, called Zionism a threat to Jewish identity and has “criticized the exploitation of Christian feelings of complicity in and guilt for the Holocaust to promote Zionism.”

Political Advocacy

  • Advocates supercessionism: “Christianity came to take Judaism, what was wonderful and revolutionary about Judaism – you know monotheism, one God, ethical monotheism – pull it out of its tribal framework and make it universal.  It’s obvious, that is where Judaism was supposed to go… the Jews said ‘thanks very much, we’re going to stay with what we have, we’re the Chosen People, we’re the Elect, thank you, thank you.’” (Statement at 2014 Friends of Sabeel-North America Workshop:  Toward a Post-Nakba Theology: The Urgent Role for Faith Communities to Bring About Peace Based on Justice). Click here to read quotes from Braverman’s speech at the workshop.
    • Supercessionism or replacement theology is the idea that “the church has permanently replaced Israel in God’s plan.”  It is used in the Israeli-Palestinian context to delegitimize Israel and Zionism.  It draws from, and revitalizes, historic Christian anti-Jewish teachings
  • Promotes Christianity as being more mature than Judaism: “I’m preaching at this church, I’m preaching, and I know how to do this, it’s just like synagogue except you got a lectionary that is so much better than just the Five Books of Moses and a selection from the Prophets” (Statement at 2014 Friends of Sabeel-North America Workshop). Speaking at a 2010 Sabeel conference at a northern Californian church, Braverman caricatured Jews as having “to get over the exceptionalism, isolationism and the paranoia and the sense of being special and apart… And the psychological issues involved in there are deep.”
  • Praised the book Zionism Unsettled published by the Israel-Palestine Mission Network (IPMN)
    • “Zionism Unsettled is a monumental achievement. This comprehensive, compassionate, and fearless critique of Christian and Jewish Zionism should be taken up by churches, seminaries, universities, and community groups who are ready to move away from the destructive impact of Zionist ideology and theology. This is a true gift and invaluable tool for a church that today must follow its social justice calling, as it did in the struggle against Jim Crow and South African apartheid.”
    • IPMN, which has promoted antisemitism on its Facebook page, is an activist group affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, USA.  It is centrally responsible for lobbying the the Presbyterian Church to divest from companies doing business with Israel.