Several groups of rabbis are planning to boycott Donald Trump's speech at a major pro-Israel meeting in Washington on Monday, accusing the GOP front runner of inciting hatred.
The group of rabbis will boycott Trump's scheduled appearance at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the largest pro-Israel policy gathering of the year.
Rabbis David Paskin and Jesse Olitzky, the organisers of "Come Together Against Hate", a play on the conference's theme "Come Together" emphasised that the demonstration was aimed specifically at Trump, not AIPAC as a whole.
"This is not about policies, this is not about parties, this is about one particular person, Donald Trump, who has encouraged and incited violence at his campaign rallies," said Paskin, a rabbi in Florida, who has organised 300 Jewish people to protest on Monday.
"We are against the hatred, the incitement of hatred, the ugliness that has engulfed this political season."
Come Together Against Hate are set to either boycott the speech entirely or walk out silently when Trump is introduced, assembling outside the building to study love and decency in Jewish scripture.
"We're hoping thousands of people will join us in that protest," Paskin said. "We're going to be providing the antidote, we believe, to what Donald Trump is espousing."
An AIPAC spokesperson told CNN that the group has a "longstanding policy" of inviting all the active presidential candidates to its conference during the election season, refusing to comment directly on the planned protest.
The Jewish population has more widely condemned Trump during his election campaign.
"At every turn, Mr Trump has chosen to take the low road, sowing seeds of hatred and division in our body politic," said the Union for Reform Judaism, which represents the largest Jewish denomination in America in a statement.
Although not naming Trump explicitly, the American Jewish Committee alluded to the dangers of "presidential campaign violence", saying:
"We do not draw analogies to the rise of communism and fascism lightly, but both of those tyrannical movements rose to power replacing democratically elected governments, by virtue of threats of, or actual, violence against their opponents."
