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Simone Zimmerman - Wikipedia

Simone Zimmerman - Wikipedia


Simone Zimmerman

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Simone Zimmerman
Zimmerman speaks in 2024
Born1990 (age 35–36)
Los Angeles, United States
EducationBA in Middle Eastern Studies
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Years active2009–present
OrganizationIfNotNow
Known forActivism opposing Israeli occupation

Simone Zimmerman (born 1990[1]) is an American left-wing Jewish activist.[2] She co-founded the lobby group IfNotNow,[3][1] created to oppose the American Jewish community's support for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.[4][1]

Zimmerman was briefly appointed as Jewish outreach coordinator for the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign.[5] She was dismissed from the campaign after Facebook posts came to light in which she had insulted Benjamin Netanyahu and Hillary Clinton, leading to denunciations by leaders of major Jewish organizations.[6] In 2019, Zimmerman was named director of the nonprofit organization B'Tselem USA.[7]

Early life

Zimmerman was raised in a Ashkenazi Jewish community in Los Angeles, California. She attended a Jewish day school and participated in cultural and religious programs that emphasized a strong connection to Israel. Zimmerman was involved with Conservative Jewish Zionist organizations in her youth.[8] As part of an exchange program, she lived in Israel for a period, during which her engagement with the country deepened.[citation needed]

During Zimmerman's freshman year at the University of California, Berkeley, she was involved with the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the university's Israel Action Committee. She said she became disillusioned with pro-Israel advocacy after becoming aware of Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians. In 2012 and 2013, she became national leader of the anti-occupation group J Street U.[9][10] She later gained prominence as an activist advocating for Palestinian rights and a critical reassessment of the American Jewish community's relationship with Israel.[citation needed]

Zimmerman says her perspective on Israel shifted at Berkeley, where she encountered Palestinian students sharing personal accounts of their experiences during a heated debate over a divestment resolution. Realizing the absence of meaningful responses from her own community to this testimony, Zimmerman started questioning the narratives she had long accepted. She says her journey toward activism intensified after a visit to Israel in 2013, where she witnessed firsthand the impact of occupation in East Jerusalem, particularly in Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families faced brutal evictions.[11]

Activism

During the 2014 Gaza War, Zimmerman led regular protests at the offices of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP), in which the names of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the conflict were read aloud.[1][9]

In 2016, Zimmerman was briefly appointed as the Jewish outreach coordinator for the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign.[5] The Washington Free Beacon published her social media posts from March 2015, in which she described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "an arrogant, deceptive, cynical, manipulative a**hole" and said he had "sanctioned the murder of over 2,000 people this summer". She also criticized U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with vulgar language.[12][10] Jewish establishment leaders, including former Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman, CoP executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein, Zionist Organization of America president Morton A. Klein, and World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder, called for her firing.[6][10][12][13] She was suspended from Sanders's campaign six days after being hired.[3]

Zimmerman has criticized pro-Israel lobbying organizations such as AIPAC, arguing that their narratives discourage critical dialogue about Israel. She has spoken about how many Jewish schools and institutions promote unconditional support for Israel while marginalizing voices that advocate for Palestinian rights.[14] Her views have drawn both praise and criticism. Critics, including some in the Jewish community, view her activism as overly critical of Israel. Supporters view her activism as part of a broader movement advocating for justice and human rights. Her participation in protests, including sit-ins at pro-Israel organizations and her criticism of the Birthright Israel program, have been central to her activism.[14]

IfNotNow

In 2014, Zimmerman co-founded IfNotNow, a nonprofit organization that seeks to end the American Jewish community's support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine.[4] The group emerged as a response to the 2014 Gaza War and challenged mainstream Jewish institutions, such as AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League, for their unconditional support of Israeli policies. IfNotNow organized protests and sit-ins, demanding accountability from American Jewish leaders and institutions that, in its view, ignore Palestinian suffering. Zimmerman's activism brought her both support and backlash; critics called her anti-Israel and self-hating, while she gained a following among young Jews disillusioned with U.S. Jewish organizations' traditional pro-Israel stance.[15]

In 2019, Zimmerman was named director of B'Tselem USA, a nonprofit organization that documents human rights violations against Palestinians in the Israel-Palestine conflict.[7]

Israelism

Zimmerman is featured in the 2023 documentary Israelism,[2] a film that examines the indoctrination of young American Jews into pro-Israel activism and highlights people who underwent political transformations after engaging with Palestinian perspectives. In the film, she describes her realization of the many complexities and contradictions in the narrative she grew up with and her eventual shift toward activism for Palestinian rights.[14][16][17] She describes how it feels to be a young U.S.-born Jew in a country of pro-Israel indoctrination and mass mobilization that demands that young Jewish Americans be pro-Israel even in instances of obvious and unambiguous human rights violations against Palestinians.[14][18] She recalls being branded as anti-Israel due her criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank. She says in the documentary:

As more and more American Jews are speaking out in support of Palestinian freedom, now they just say instead we're overt antisemites, we hate all Jewish people or, even worse, that we're not Jewish at all.[non-primary source needed]

Later work

In 2025, Zimmerman interviewed actress Hannah Einbinder for Zeteo.[19][non-primary source needed]

References

  1.  Heilman, Uriel (April 13, 2016). "Meet the Outspoken Critic of Israel who is Bernie Sanders' New Jewish Outreach Director". The Jerusalem Post. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved April 28, 2026.
  2.  Goldberg, Emma (October 30, 2025). "What the Jewish Left Is Building for Itself". The New York Times. ISSN 1553-8095. ProQuest 3266640724. Retrieved April 29, 2026. Simone Zimmerman, 34, a longtime left-wing Jewish activist
  3.  Riesman, Abraham (August 6, 2018). "IfNotNow Co-Founder Simone Zimmerman Detained and Questioned by Israeli Authorities". Intelligencer. New York Media.
  4.  Landau, Noa (August 5, 2018). "IfNotNow Founder Detained for Hours at Israeli Border". The Forward.
  5.  Guttman, Nathan (July 25, 2016). "Simone Zimmerman Breaks Silence on Bernie Sanders, the Democrats — and Israel". The Forward.
  6.  Arom, Eitan (January 25, 2017). "30 under 30: Simone Zimmerman". Jewish Journal. Retrieved April 29, 2026.
  7.  "IfNotNow's Simone Zimmerman New B'Tselem U.S. Director". The Jerusalem Post. March 5, 2019. Retrieved April 28, 2026.
  8.  Hess, Tobias (February 3, 2024). "American Jewish Peace Archive: Simone Zimmerman". Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Bard College; Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities. Retrieved August 12, 2025.
  9.  Sichel, Jared (April 19, 2016). "What Simone Zimmerman Represents About Millennial Jewry". Jewish Journal.
  10.  Horowitz, Jason (April 14, 2016). "Bernie Sanders Campaign Suspends Jewish Outreach Coordinator for Vulgar Remarks About Netanyahu". First Draft. The New York Times. Retrieved January 25, 2025.
  11.  Zimmerman, Simone (July 1, 2013). "Blind Israel Advocacy Will Lose to BDS". Haaretz. OCLC 635016457. Retrieved March 30, 2025.
  12.  Kornbluh, Jacob (April 14, 2016). "Abe Foxman Calls on Sanders to Fire New Jewish Community Liaison for 'Anti-Israel' Comments". Haaretz. OCLC 635016457. Retrieved February 11, 2025.
  13.  "Sanders Suspends Jewish Outreach Director Who Blasted Israel, Netanyahu". The Times of Israel. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. April 15, 2016. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  14.  Wolfson, Sam (November 12, 2023). "Raised to See Israel as a 'Jewish Disneyland', Two US Film-Makers are Telling a Different Story". The Guardian. Retrieved March 26, 2025.
  15.  "Former Sanders Adviser and Netanyahu Critic Detained at Israeli Border". The Times of Israel. August 6, 2018. Retrieved March 30, 2025.
  16.  "Info". Israelismfilm.com. n.d.
  17.  Goodman, Amy (January 22, 2024). "'Israelism' Examines American Jews' Growing Rejection of Israel's Occupation". Democracy Now! (video with transcript).
  18.  "'Israelism': How Deep Do Indoctrination and Israeli Army Glorification Go?". Al Jazeera English (video). April 21, 2024. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  19.  "Why Hannah Einbinder Said 'Free Palestine' — And What Came Next" (video). Zeteo. October 26, 2025. Retrieved November 15, 2025 – via YouTube.

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