Category Archives: Judaism

Jewish Solidarity with Black Lives Matter: We Can’t Have it Both Ways

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The Black Lives Matter movement has just taken a huge and important step. A new coalition called Movement 4 Black Lives recently released “Vision for Black Lives,” a powerful, comprehensive policy statement released by thirty grassroots organizations and endorsed by sixty others.

“Vision for Black Lives” is the product of a collaborative research and writing process that took more than a year by an eight person team – and is intensely relevant to the current political moment. Team member Marbre Stahly-Butts summed up the purpose of the statement this way: “Democrats and Republicans are offering anemic solutions to the problems that our communities face… We are seeking transformation, not just tweaks.”

In contrast to the hollow posturing that counts for political discourse in the US, the M4BLM platform offers an important alternative vision: a deep analysis of how systems of oppression intersect and the devastating impact they have on people/communities of color. It’s particularly vital because it doesn’t come from a political party, think tank or special interest lobby, but rather directly from the grassroots communities most impacted by racism and oppression. In so doing, it represents a huge step toward the creation of a real movement for social and political change in our country.

As journalist Collier Myerson recently wrote in Fusion:

This is a really, really big deal. By shedding its previous identity as a largely reactionary, structureless movement, Black Lives Matter seeks to definitively lead the national discussion on the safety, health, and freedom of black people. Painting the movement with a broad brush is a seismic shift. And it’s a shift that Occupy Wall Street never put in motion, a failure which many point to as the reason for the movement’s eventual dissolution. The list of demands set forth by M4BL explicitly unifies organizations across the United States—and though the goals are purposefully lofty, it’s a significant move towards harnessing the power of local groups into something bigger.

Vision for Black Lives has been welcomed enthusiastically by many allies in this growing movement (such as those fighting for immigrant justice for instance). And as for the Jewish communal establishment? For its part, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston angrily “disassociated” itself from the statement, calling it “false” and “malicious”. Why? Because in the midst of this vast and extensive platform, the M4BLM statement referred to Israel’s “genocide” against the Palestinian people and expressed its support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Actually, I wouldn’t expect anything else from an organization such as the Boston JCRC. Earlier this year, in fact, David Bernstein, the President and CEO of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs (the parent organization of JCRCs around the country), wrote an op-ed in which he thoroughly denounced “the solidarity between the Black Lives Matter and Palestine movements” and made a strong pitch for finding allies that will help them drive a wedge into Black-Palestinian solidarity. (Notably the Boston JCRC statement referred to its “friends and neighbors in the African-American community” who share their views on Israel and Zionism.)

I was very disappointed however, to read a statement released by Tru’ah – a progressive rabbinical organization that advocates for human rights that has in the past articulated strong support of BLM. Yet in their immediate response to the M4BLM platform, T’ruah spent almost all of its wordage decrying the genocide reference and BLM’s support for BDS.

Though I have many friends and colleagues in T’ruah whose work I respect greatly, I find this statement much more disturbing than the one released by the Boston JCRC. While the latter group openly vilifies the BLM movement, T’ruah purports to stand in solidarity with them. As opposed to more conservative Jewish establishment institutions, I’ve always had the impression that T’ruah truly “got it” when it came to the BLM movement.

On T’ruah’s website, for instance, you will find a powerful “Prayer for Black Lives Matter“. You will also find a post written by Rabbi Susan Talve and Sarah Barasch-Hagans entitled “10 Rules for Engagement for White Jews Joining the Black Lives Matter Movement,” a smart and insightful document that appears to grasp the complex issue of allyship. Among the rules listed are “Practice Deep Listening and Less Talking;” “Do Your Own Communities’ Work” and “Hold Yourself Accountable”.

In the rule, “Go outside of your comfort zone while staying in your lane,” the authors write:

Pay attention. Don’t hide when it gets messy. We all have a role to play and we will all make mistakes. Accept guidance. Remember this is a movement to awaken compassion. No name calling. “Call people in” rather than calling them out. Give the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. We are all sad and scared (or should be). Faith communities can be bridge builders, healers, and witnesses in this movement to make Black and Brown lives matter.

Sadly, T’ruah itself has broken its own rule by releasing this statement. If they truly purport to stand in solidarity with BLM, they cannot publicly “call them out” because their new platform lands outside their comfort zone. If they were to be true to their own articulated values, T’ruah should have reached out to them, engaged with them and tried to understand where they were coming from, thus opening a real dialogue. T’ruah does not give the BLM “the benefit of the doubt” when it issues an immediate counter-statement such as this; tantamount to a group in a position of power saying to an oppressed group, “we will stand in solidarity with you but only on our terms.”

The claim that Israel is committing “genocide” against the Palestinians undeniably pushes all kinds of buttons for many Jews. But there are also Jews and Israelis who feel it is not an inappropriate word to use, particularly in regard to Israel’s regular military assaults against Gaza. Likewise, while the BDS call is extraordinarily controversial for many Jews, there are also Jews who respect it as a legitimate call for nonviolent resistance from over 150 Palestinian civil society organizations. And it is simply not true to claim, as T’ruah does, that “the BDS movement (rejects) Israel’s right to exist.” On the contrary, the goal of the BDS call is equal rights for Palestinians as well as Jews.

But even if T’ruah feels it is wrong for BLM to refer to Israel in this manner, it can’t claim to stand in solidarity with them while publicly calling them out over the parts that make them uncomfortable. Rather, they should hold themselves to their own standard by “calling BLM in,” engaging with them and be “bridge builders” – especially in the places where there is pain or disagreement.

At the end of the day however, I don’t think this is T’ruah’s issue alone – it’s a challenge for the entire progressive Jewish community at large. If we claim to ascribe to a power analysis that views systems of oppression as intersectional and interrelated, we simply constantly cannot make an exception when it comes to Israel. The black community is increasingly finding common cause with Palestinians – and for good reason. Both are oppressed by the same systems, the same weapons, and the same security companies. It is not by coincidence that American police departments around the country are increasingly trained by the Israeli military.

If we truly seek to be to relevant this undeniably growing movement, we need to make these connections as well. No matter how uncomfortable it might make us.

“Occupation is Not Our Judaism” – Some Final Thoughts

video by A. Daniel Roth

Even though I’ve been back from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence delegation for almost a week now, I’ll take this opportunity to end this series with some final closing thoughts. There’s so much I wasn’t able to cover – and so much more to say about what I did – but I do at least want to highlight some of my major takeaways from this amazing experience.

To start: I have no doubt in my mind now that a genuine diaspora-based Jewish movement for Palestinian solidarity is rapidly growing. It’s real, it’s broad based and its gaining some serious traction. When I was first invited by CJNV founder Ilana Sumka to join this delegation, I went to their website and read that the trip would include Jews who come from a wide spectrum of organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street, Open Hillel, If Not Now and Students for Justice in Palestine. I will admit I was dubious. It was simply unprecedented for a Jewish organization to bring such an ideologically diverse array of Jews together to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.

But I also knew that if anyone could build such a Jewish coalition together, it was an organizer such as Ilana, who invests her head and her heart in creative and inspiring ways. The mission and values of CJNV are powerfully straightforward: the conviction that all individuals are equal based on our shared humanity and therefore have the right to be treated equally under the law; a commitment to principles and practices of nonviolent resistance; and unwavering opposition to Israel’s unjust occupation.

In our group there were obviously real political differences (i.e. BDS, the specific meaning of “occupation” and one state vs. two) but in the end we weren’t there to debate our issues – we were there to stand in solidarity with Palestinians. Because of our diversity we had a real strength in numbers; indeed it’s hard to dismiss 40 diaspora Jews openly responding to a call from Palestinians to stand with them in their struggle. It will be even harder next year, when CJNV organizes 200 diaspora Jews to answer the call. I have no doubt in my mind that there will be at least that many participants – if not more.

I also believe that this movement is the real deal because the majority of participants on this delegation were Jewish millennials. I’ve seen this coming for a while now: back in 2010 I wrote that there was a growing generation of young proud Jews who were openly rejecting the Jewish establishment’s orthodoxy on Israel. And I noted that they were “growing in number (and) rapidly finding their voice.”

Well, I’ve believe they’ve found their collective voice. Journalist Peter Beinart, who has also been warning the Jewish establishment about this phenomenon for some time, attended our action and later wrote in Ha’artez that after talking with these young activists, he “realized how formidable a challenge they’re likely to pose to the American Jewish establishment in the years to come.”

Another takeaway from this experience for me was the critical importance of solidarity as a discipline as well as a value. Far too often, leftist activists approach this kind of work using what I would call a “liberal benevolence” paradigm – i.e. helping oppressed people on their own terms rather than taking their lead from those who are most directly affected by this oppression. It was very clear to us through the course of this delegation that the leadership of CJNV had cultivated genuine, longtime relationships with Palestinians activists and Palestinian resistance groups on the ground. And every step of the way, we were reminded that the actions we undertook were at the request of our Palestinian partners.

It was crucial for us to understand that in the end, this is not ultimately our struggle – and that as diaspora Jews we have real power and privilege that we cannot take for granted. On the contrary, we were there to leverage our privilege to support the Palestinian struggle and to shine a light on a system that privileges one group of people over another in such blatant and immoral ways. In Susiya, the only reason the Palestinian villagers could return to visit their original homes was because as Jews, we could purchase tickets to an archaeological park for our entire group. In Hebron, we were well aware that as diaspora Jews, we could garner publicity about Tel Rumeida to an extent that would never be afforded to Palestinians alone. We were also we aware that as diaspora Jews, we were treated far better than the Palestinian activists from Youth Against the Settlements, who were arrested virtually on the spot by the IDF and Israeli police as we continued to work and sing.

It is our hope that through our privilege, we were be able to spotlight the courageous leadership of Palestinian nonviolent leaders such as Aziz and Eid Hathaleen of Umm al-Kheir, Nasser Nawaja of Susiya, Issa Amro of Hebron and Zuheir Elrajabi of Batan al-Hawa and so many others who engage in resistance every single day in their communities. It has been our honor to get to know them, to support their struggle and to do what we can to bring their work to the attention of the world so that many more might stand with them as well.

Yet another gift from this delegation: the opportunity to get to know the Israeli members of the Palestine solidarity community. It is too often said that there is “no longer such a thing as the Israeli left.” While this may be true politically, there is a small but thriving movement of Israeli grassroots activists who actively support the Palestinian struggle and are themselves worthy of our support. I’m referring to groups such as Tayush, All That’s Left, Rabbis for Human Rights and Breaking the Silence among others, who join direct actions, document abuses, help rebuild homes and provide legal support with their Palestinian partners. These Israeli activists are intensely stigmatized and marginalized by Israeli society – and are too often physically harmed in the process. To my mind, however, they are all that remains of the Jewish ethical soul in Israel. As the far right continues its inexorable political ascendance, I do believe these activists are among only ones left standing between sanity and the abyss. It was such an honor to work alongside them as well.

One final takeaway:

I mentioned in an earlier post that our Cinema Hebron action took place at an old factory owned by Jawad Abu Aisha. The Abu Aisha family is in fact, a venerable family in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. Like many families there, they originally had amicable relations with the Jewish communities up until the late 19th/early 20th centuries. This relative peace was tragically rent asunder in 1929 when growing Arab-Jewish tensions resulted in the brutal murder of 67 Jews in Hebron. The trauma of this moment remains fixed in the memory of many Jewish Israelis. What is lesser known is that many more Jews would have been killed had they not been saved by their Palestinian neighbors.

The Abu Aisha family were among those neighbors. And to this day they keep a sacred record of their family’s redemptive act in 1929:

The paper that (Muhammad) Abu Aisha keeps in his pocket … is a faded photocopy of a page of “The Hebron Book,” a deluxe album that was published at the start of the 1970s in order to perpetuate the memory of the Jewish community that lived in the town until the massacre in 1929. Even though he does not read Hebrew, he knows very well what is written on the page, an account of those among the Arabs of Hebron who risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbors. At the bottom of the page is a blurred photograph of two men embracing. “This is Ya’akov Ezra and this is my father, Hamed Abu Aisha,” says the elderly man.

As radical Jewish settlers began to move back into the heart of Hebron in the 1980s, the Abu Aisha family, like many other Palestinian families in that area, became targets of harassment and abuse. For at least two decades now the Abu Aisha family lives in what is known as the “caged house” in Tel Rumeida, with iron bars across their windows to protect them from settler violence. Their house and its adjoining properties are considered prime real estate by the extremist settler community who has been gradually encroaching on their property with the tacit permission of the Israeli civil authority.

But as our group worked alongside Palestinians from Tel Rumeida to clear garbage and weeds from the Abu Aisha’s property that Friday morning, I couldn’t help but think of the time not so long ago when the Jews and Palestinians lived together, side by side, not separated by “sterile roads” and caged windows.

And I couldn’t help but think that in some small redemptive way, our action might somehow be bringing Hebron that much closer to such a time once again.

Breaking Ground at Cinema Hebron

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This past Friday, I had the honor to participate in an incredible, unprecedented mass action of civil disobedience in the H2 section of Hebron – in the heart of Israel’s unjust and illegal occupation.

I’ll start with a little bit of history:

In 1968, a year after Israel conquered the West Bank, a group of radical religious settlers led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, led a group of followers to a hotel in Hebron – with the government’s support – to observe a Passover seder. When it was over, they refused to leave; and following a negotiation with the government, they were allowed to create a settlement to the east of Hebron that they named Kiryat Arba Since that time, Jewish settlers gradually moved into Hebron proper. Over the years tension gradually increased in Hebron. Things changed drastically in 1995 after Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Muslim worshippers in the Ibrahimi mosque. Fearful of reprisals, the IDF imposed increasing curfews and restriction of movement on the Palestinian population.

In 1996, as part of the Oslo agreement, Hebron was divided into two sections: H1 and H2. H1 is locally governed by the Palestinian Authority and is home to approximately 120,000 Palestinians. Tens of thousands of Palestinians live in H2 along with 600 Jewish settlers. Since the Second Intifada, Israel increased their security crackdown on this part of the city, blocking off major streets to Palestinians – most notably the main commercial road, Shuhadah Street. (The army refers to them as “sterile roads”).

Virtually every Palestinian shop in H2 has been closed and their doors welded shut by the army. Because the Palestinian residents of Shuhadah St. are not allowed to walk on the road, they must enter and exit through the rear of homes because they cannot leave their own front doors. Because of these measures – and the ongoing harassment and violence at the hands of Jewish settlers – what was once the busting commercial center of Hebron has become a ghost town. 42% of its Palestinian homes are empty and 70% of its Palestinian business have been shut down.

We visited Hebron earlier this week and it was a truly chilling experience. Our group went on a tour led by Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli army veterans who are speaking out about the abuses the IDF are committing in Hebron. I did a BTS tour in 2008 during my first real foray into the reality of contemporary Hebron. Today, the situation there is even more dire if such a thing is possible.

With Colm Toibin in Hebron

Before we started our tour, we witnessed an incident in which a settler attacked an Israeli photographer and damaged his camera. As it turned out the photographer was the celebrated photojournalist Oren Ziv. who was accompanying a private BTS tour for Irish author Colm Tóibín. The incident was captured on film by a member of our delegation. He gave a copy of the video to Ziv so he could press charges against the settler for damages. (We never found out whether or not he actually succeeded).

As we walked down Shuhadah St., the intimidating presence of the settlers was impossible to ignore. At one point we saw Tóibín and his tour guide on the side of the road. A car with two settlers drove up and the driver proceeded to scream obscenities at them for ten minutes.

Hebron’s settlers are truly the most brutal, ideologically extreme and heavily armed of the entire settler movement. They walk and drive the streets with impunity and full protection of the IDF. As is the case throughout the West Bank, Jews are governed by Israeli civil law – and as a result the army cannot and does not intervene when settlers harass Palestinians. However, since Palestinians are subject to military law, they face dual oppression from soldiers and settlers alike.

After our BTS tour we walked to the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron to meet with Issa Amro, founder/director of Youth Against the Settlements. YAS is an increasingly powerful and important Palestinian nonviolent organization; among other things, it sponsors the annual Open Shuhadah Street campaign and regularly organizes/empowers the youth of Hebron.

Issa is truly a visionary leader in the Palestinian popular resistance movement. He has been arrested and detained countless times for his activism but has clearly become well known throughout Hebron as force to be reckoned with. Palestinian activists such as Issa tend to infuriate the Israeli military because their principled commitment to nonviolence cannot be quelled militarily. Although he and his comrades have been arrested and detained numerous times, YAS has come to represent a ray of hope for the Palestinian residents of Hebron.

We met Issa in the YAS center, which has an interesting history all its own. Originally Palestinian-owned, the building was taken over by settlers several years ago. But through a methodical campaign of legal pressure and nonviolent resistance, the settlers were eventually evicted and it was turned into YAS’s central headquarters. Last November, the center was raided by the IDF and temporarily declared a “closed military zone” (I’ll get back to this term later). Still, Issa and YAS remain steadfast.

With Issa Amro of Youth Against the Settlements

On Thursday we prepared to return to Hebron for our nonviolent direct action, which had been almost two years in the planning by YAS and the Israeli anti-occupation collective All That’s Left. The Center for Jewish Nonviolence was invited to be part of this action as well so that its message could be strengthened through the solidarity of diaspora Jewry. CJNV has cultivated a strong relationship with both YAS and ATL and other Israeli/Palestinian partners on the ground. It is truly a sign of the times that diaspora Jews are joining this increasingly broad-based solidarity movement.

The goal of the action was to begin the process of turning an old metal factory in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron into a movie theater: Cinema Hebron.YAS chose to build a movie theater so that the isolated, segregated Palestinian residents of H2 could have a place to come together in community – to experience even a little slice of normalcy in this intensely abnormal, unjust environment. It was also designed to be a statement to the settler community that the Palestinian residents of Hebron will continue to resist the theft of their property – and that Jews from around the world are ready to stand in solidarity with them.

The factory is owned by Jawad Abu Aisha, the patriarch of a prominent family in Tel Rumeida. As was the case with the YAS center, Jewish settlers were gradually encroaching toward this particular property – and based on past history, it seemed it was only a matter of time before it was taken it over completely. Tel Rumeida is heavily desired by settlers and has long been one of the tensest areas of Hebron. (This past March, Tel Rumeida made the news after a solider was filmed shooting a wounded Palestinian in the head while he was lying in the street.)

We spent all day Thursday preparing for the action, which was prepared down to the most minute detail. Our plan was to go to the old, cluttered site, begin the process of cleaning it up and announce our intention to turn it into Cinema Hebron to the press. Inevitably the IDF and police would show up and eventually declare it a “closed military zone” – their standard operating procedure when dealing with protests.

Legally speaking, the military needs to get a signed order to declare a closed military zone, but they often dispense with that pretense. Our plan was to keep cleaning up the site until the soldiers returned with their order. In the meantime, we would put up a mock marquee, pass out Cinema Hebron popcorn, give interviews to press, chant and sing, and do our best to clean up the site before they soldiers and police ordered us out.

There were 60 participants all told – 40 from CJNV and another twenty from Youth against the Settlements and All That’s Left. Our group split up into three “pods” – Green (those who would work until the soldiers returned but would not take an arrest), Yellow (those who would would be willing to be arrested if it was deemed necessary by our leaders) and Red (those who would stay until they were arrested.)

cinemahebron As an extra precautionary measure, we drove to the site in separate vans to the site. Unfortunately, the military was somehow tipped off that there was some kind of action being planned for Hebron that day – and the van coming with ATF activists from Jerusalem was stopped en route. Our CJNV delegation all made it in safely, however. We gathered in an old metal warehouse until we were given the word that our tools had arrived. Then we put up the marquee and got to work.

The site was heavily overgrown with high weeds and all kinds of scrap metal everywhere. As we started raking, hauling, piling junk we sang a every Jewish song and civil rights chant we knew. In short order settlers started to gather, peering at us through the front gate. The IDF and police arrived soon as well – we worked for about an hour or an hour and a half before they actually entered the site. They began arguing with the Palestinian owners and after some back and forth, they eventually fell back and we continued with our work.

After another hour or so, they returned and announced that the area was closed military zone. At this point, the some members of our delegation left and the rest of us sat down in the middle of the site, continuing to chant and sing. A police officer came up to us and told us that our presence on the site was illegal and if we did not leave in two minutes, we would be arrested (below). When our two minutes were up, they started to physically remove us (see the clip at the top of this post). They shoved us to the back of the site, gathered us together and ordered to take out our passports. They then asked the six Israelis from our delegation to take out their identity cards and led them away. We were sent out in the other direction and told to leave the site.

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Photo: A. Daniel Roth – http://allthesedays.org

At that point we gathered together and discussed what to do next. It seemed clear to us that the Israelis were targeted because they were easier to process – and that the authorities likely wanted to avoid the bad publicity of arresting internationals. When we received word from our lawyers that our six friends had been taken to the police station in Kiryat Arba, we decided to walk there together and demand their release.

After walking for only ten minutes or so we were stopped by five soldiers who told us we couldn’t continue because the area was (you guessed it) a closed military zone. We refused to leave and said we simply wanted to visit our friends in the police station. Thus began a stand off, during which the lead soldier called his commander four or five times. They clearly had never dealt with a group like ours and were somewhat bewildered that we wouldn’t leave when ordered. Finally Issa arrived and argued loudly with the soldiers. I’m not sure how he managed it but we were finally told we could continue along a detoured route.

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We eventually made it to Shuhadah St., continued down the road, passed the Ibrahimi Mosque and headed up a hill that led us in the direction of Kiryat Arba. As we walked in, we were joined by soldiers who silently walked alongside us. It quickly became clear to me that they weren’t there to impede us but rather to protect us from angry settlers. (I’m fairly sure this was the first time the residents of Kiryat Arba had ever witnessed a group of singing diaspora Jews walking down the street wearing “Occupation in Not Our Judaism” T-shirts ).

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Photo: A. Daniel Roth – http://allthesedays.org

We finally arrived at a gated area and faced yet another gauntlet of soldiers. After yet another round of back and forth, we were sent around to the front gate. Then we walked down a residential community to the end of the street where the police station was located. We talked to the guard at the front gate and explained we wanted to see our friends inside. After other policemen gathered we were told that our six friends were indeed inside but that we would not be allowed to see them. At this point, increasing numbers of residents from the neighborhood had come to mock and taunt us. Many of them filmed us with their cell phones. Eventually we sat down on the ground in front of the station gate and began to sing and chant once more.

The leaders of our delegation were in cell phone contact with the lawyers and our friends inside, who told us they could actually hear us singing and calling out their names. They were in the process of being interrogated by the police one by one but were otherwise fine. By this point quite a crowd had started to gather around us. We kept on singing as more police cars arrived. The original officer came back to us and told us that this was an illegal assembly – and that we had two minutes to disperse before they arrested us.

Photo credit: Jewish Forward

After talking with our lawyers, we decided against taking an arrest. They told us they believed our friends would likely be released in several hours, adding that our arrest would not help their cause and might even hinder it. So after spending an hour at the station we got up, walked together down the street and gathered near the front gate. As Shabbat was getting closer, we sang Shalom Aleichem and Lecha Dodi together with our other songs. Then together, we walked to a YAS home in H1 to meet up with the rest of our crew, eat a late lunch, debrief, share stories and nap after our physically/emotionally exhausting experience. Eventually we boarded our bus and returned to Susiya, in the South Hebron Hills where we would spend our Shabbat.

That evening just after a gorgeous sunset, we made a circle on a rocky hill and I began to lead our Shabbat service. As I prepared to lead Lecha Dodi, the prayer that welcomes the Shabbat bride, I heard someone shout. I looked up and saw two cars pulling up. Our six friends got out, grinning ear to ear as we cheered their arrival. After lots of hugs and laughter, we all continued with our service.

Shabbat had arrived.

(PS: You can read about our Cinema Hebron action here and here and our Shabbat in Susiya here).

Solidarity in Hevron: Occupation is Not Our Judaism

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I’ll soon be traveling Israel/Palestine this weekend with 40 other Jews from around the world as part of a solidarity delegation to Hebron and the South Hebron Hills sponsored by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. CJNV is a relatively new organization that has been doing important work bringing Diaspora Jews to Israel/Palestine to stand in solidarity with Palestinians in nonviolent actions against the occupation. Last year, CJNV traveled to Tent of Nations (a very special place about which I’ve written many times before) to plant trees to replace the 1,500 fruit bearing trees that had been destroyed by the IDF. More recently the CJNV participated in an action at the World Zionist Congress to protest the complete absence of the occupation from the World Zionist Organization’s agenda.

The name of this new campaign is entitled “Occupation is not our Judaism” and will include work in the village of Susiya (which recently experienced home demolitions that left 26 Palestinians homeless) and planting in the nearby village of Umm Al Khair (see photo above). We’ll also be standing in solidarity with Palestinian residents of the city of Hebron – I’ll be writing more about this aspect of our work in the coming days.

I’ve visited and written about the injustices wrought upon Hevron in posts from past visits – and since that time the situation has only grown more dire. You may have read about the recent visit to Hevron by authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman. After their experience there the clearly shaken Chabon was quoted as saying:

(This is) the most grievous injustice I have ever seen in my life … this is the worst thing I have ever seen, just purely in terms of injustice. If saying that is going to lose me readers, I don’t want those readers. They can go away and never come back.

For more on the daily reality faced by Palestinians in Susiya and the South Hevron Hills, check out the clip below:

Finally, like everyone else in our country I’m following recent events in Louisiana, Minnesota and Dallas, and am mindful that racist state violence is all too brutally real right here at home as well. As I leave, I’m taking to heart the very wise words that my friend, the historian/writer/activist Barbara Ransby has just posted on her Facebook page:

In these difficult and trying times, as we grieve the horrible murders of our people, suffer the skewed media coverage that attempts to relegate our work to the gutter, and witness the backlash that has already begun, our response must be sober and strategic. Fear is understandable. But a fierce fortitude is what is required. And a principled unity is necessary today more than ever.

Whether it’s here or anywhere else in the world, I’m more convinced than ever that my place is to be accountable to those affected by this violence and take our cue from their “fierce fortitude.”

I look forward to sharing my experiences with you in the coming days.

For Shavuot: They Saw the Thunder

A Palestinian farmer harvests barley on a farm near the border of southern Gaza Strip with Israel

Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Looking up from the barley harvest
they heard the sounds, like the blaring of trumpets
echoing across the hills.

Thick smoke rose up like smoke from a kiln
and then they saw the thunder,
fire sparking and flashing
as mortar shells fell from the sky.

The orders came in:
we have set bounds for the village
take care not to cross it
lest you be put to death.

They were sent out on the third day
and headed east into the hills
to the place where the Moabites once lived.

While back home, the unharvested barley
scattered like dry grass in the wind
and homes toppled into piles of stone.

Those were the days
the judges ceased to judge.

On Passover, Israel and Demographic Threats

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout)

Crossposted with Truthout

The weeklong Jewish festival of Passover is coming to a close, but like many Jews around the world I’m still digesting the myriad questions, answers and discussions that ensued as we retold the biblical story of the Exodus at our seder. While it’s a story our community returns to over and over again, I’m continually astonished at the ways it provides a frame for understanding struggles for liberation past and present.

This year, I’ve been contemplating one aspect of the story in particular: when a new pharaoh arises over Egypt “who did not know Joseph.” We immediately learn in no uncertain terms that this new ruler was considerably more xenophobic than his predecessor:

And (Pharaoh) said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us.” (Exodus 1:8-9)

To use contemporary parlance, Pharaoh clearly views the Israelites as a “demographic threat” to the Egyptians.

The demographic threat meme, of course, has been played out countless times since the age of the pharaohs. It has certainly been a deeply woven thread in the fabric of American culture from our very origins. To cite but one example: Centuries before Donald Trump started railing against Mexican “criminals” and “rapists,” Benjamin Franklin wrote a 1751 essay in which he bemoaned the influx of “Palatine Boors” into the colonies who would “shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion.”

So yes, as an American, I can’t read these words from the Exodus story without connecting it to an ignoble aspect of my own country’s legacy — one that is all too real even today.

And as an American Jew, I can’t help but connect it to another country that also purports to act in my name.

Indeed, ever since Israel’s establishment, Zionist leaders knew well that the future Jewish state would only be “viable” if it could create and maintain a demographic Jewish majority in historic Palestine. In the late 19th century, this must surely have seemed like a tall order, since Jews constituted but 2 to 5 percent of the population. By 1947, following decades of Zionist colonization and Jewish immigration, their number had swelled to 32 percent. Under the UN-sponsored partition plan, the percentage of Jews allotted to the new Jewish state would have been 55 percent.

During the 1948 war — known as the War of Independence by Zionists and the Nakba (“catastrophe”) by Palestinians — the issue of demographics was solved through the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and Israel’s refusal to allow them to return. However, the demographic stakes were raised once again in 1967, when Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza and began a military occupation that exists to this day.

In 2010, Jews officially become a minority population from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea; around the same time, it was determined that the Jewish majority in Israel proper was slowly diminishing. For some time now, Zionists have been warning that the Palestinians’ birth rate poses a “demographic threat” to the future of the Jewish state.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this rhetoric is that it doesn’t only come from Israel’s far right, but from liberal Zionists, who use the demographic argument to advocate for a two-state solution. Witness, for instance, the words of J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami:

When it comes to Israeli-Palestinian peace, the two-state solution and the inexorable demographic threat to Israel’s future as a democratic state that remains the homeland for the Jewish people, our position is the same as that of the Israeli government, the Obama administration and the vast bulk of the American Jewish community.

Leaving aside the issues of whether or not the two-state solution actually is the policyof the Israeli government, let’s unpack this statement for a moment. The liberal Zionist argument for a “democratic Jewish state” is predicated on a view of Palestinians as a “demographic threat.” As an American, if I referred to any other ethnic group in this country with such a term, I would surely be viewed as a bigot or a racist. But as a Jew, I can refer to Palestinians with this epithet and still remain a member in good standing of the liberal peace camp.

Thus the inherent contradiction of liberal Zionism: democracy and demographic engineering simply do not go hand in hand. At the end of the day, there is nothing liberal about supporting an ethno-national project predicated upon the identity of one group over another. The late Meir Kahane, revered by Israel’s ultra right, loved to make liberal Zionists squirm by repeatedly articulating this point: “A western democracy and Zionism are not compatible. You can’t have both.”

Kahane’s solution, of course, was “forced transfer” of the Palestinian population. The current government of Israel is accomplishing this goal through more subtle means:home demolitions, land expropriation and the revocation of Palestinians’ residency and citizenship. In truth, Israel has been dealing with its demographic threat under cover of US support for years, all the while claiming the mantle of “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

This, along with its massive settlement expansion has brought Israel’s demographic problem home to roost. The real decision before them is not between a one-state or two-state solution, but between two one-state solutions: an apartheid Jewish state or one state of all its citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity.

As I watch this tragic process unfold this Passover, I find myself returning to the universal lesson this festival imparts on the corrupt abuse of state power. Although the Exodus story is considered sacred in Jewish tradition, it would be a mistake to assume that the contemporary state of Israel must be seen as equivalent to the biblical Israelites.

On the contrary, any people who suffer under oppressive government policies are, in a sense, Israelites. And any state — even a Jewish state — that views a people in its midst as a demographic threat can become a Pharaoh.

For Passover: “Your Child Will Ask”

Photo:Marko Djurica/Reuters

Your child will ask
why do we observe this festival?

And you will answer
it is because of what God did for us
when we were set free from the land of Egypt.

Your child will ask
were we set free from the land of Egypt
that we might hold tightly
to the pain of our enslavement
with a mighty hand?

And you will answer
we were set free from Egypt
that we might release our pain
by reaching with an outstretched arm
to all who struggle for freedom.

Your child will ask
were we set free from the land of Egypt
because we are God’s chosen people?

And you will answer
we were set free from the land of Egypt
so that we will finally come to learn
all who are oppressed
are God’s chosen.

Your child will ask
were we set free from the land of Egypt
that we might conquer and settle
a land inhabited by others?

And you will answer
we were set free from the land of Egypt
that we might open wide the doors
to proclaim:

Let all who are dispossessed return home.
Let all who wander find welcome at the table.
Let all who hunger for liberation
come and eat.

Campus Update: Hateful Islamophobia at IUPUI

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Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has done important and inspirational work on colleges around the country – often in the face of death threats, harassment and personal attack. The latest example: just this past week, a student leader of the SJP at University of Indiana – Purdue University Indianapolis (UIPUI) named Haneen (I’ve been asked to not use her last name out of concern for her safety) has been subject to threats, harassment and defamation through anonymous blog posts and flyers left on campus.

Among other things, this hate campaign characterized her as an advocate and supporter of terrorism, made sexist comments about her appearance, urged “authorities to look into her history of violence and investigate whether or not she is an immediate threat to…the nation’s capital.” One post attacked her for partnering with Black Lives Matter , calling it “a group that is also prone to acts of violence.” She has also received harassing phone calls at her home.

Haneen has received heartening support from a variety of corners, including a group of seventy five UIPUI faculty members and student who have signed a letter that calls upon UIPUI Chancellor Nasser Paydar to:

(1) to issue a strong public statement condemning these attacks and (2) to make clear the status of the University’s investigation of these heinous acts.

We encourage the Deans of each IUPUI school to educate their communities on sexism, Islamophobia, racism, and other threats to our sense of communal well-being.

We ask every IUPUI community member to challenge sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and all other forms of discrimination in their everyday interactions both on and off campus.

Making clear our university community’s values and mission in the face of fear and intimidation is necessary to creating a welcoming campus for all. Courage, hope, and love can defeat the hatred that has shown its face among us. We pledge to help in whatever ways we can.

I was encouraged to learn that the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council has written Haneen a letter of support as well. Despite the appropriate demands that the University administration take immediate and meaningful action, however, the only response to date has been a bland, general statement from Chancellor Paydar that IUPUI “abhors all forms of racism, bigotry and discrimination, including discrimination based on religious beliefs or political views.”

Representing the faculty letter signers, lecturer Lindsay Lettrell rightly and eloquently responded:

Dear Chancellor Paydar,

While we welcome your statement affirming that “the university abhors all forms of racism, bigotry and discrimination, including discrimination based on religious beliefs or political views,” we, faculty, staff and student supporters of Haneen, believe that these immediate, specific problems of racism, sexism, and Islamophobia need to named and condemned explicitly. Our student’s safety and future is on the line, and Haneen has asked that her University speak publicly about her right to safety as a part of our campus community. While the generalities in your message are relevant, we still ask you to address this specifically. After all, as the team of her supporters has reminded us, “She is a real person, not an idea. Her name is Haneen. She is Palestinian. She is a Muslim. She is a woman. (And, I add, she is our student.) She has a face. She has a voice. And her voice is our voice.”

Click here to contact Chancellor Paydar and demand that IUPUI denounce this act of hatred and move swiftly to investigate it.

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Yes, Zionism is Settler Colonialism

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Is Zionism “settler colonialism?” It’s an important question that is increasingly invoked in public debates over Israel/Palestine – and BDS in particular.

While I personally do believe Israel to be a settler colonial state, I think it’s critical to understand what we mean when we use this term, what it means in the context of Israel/Palestine, and its implications for the wider struggle against systems of oppression in the US and throughout the world.

Let’s start with the definition itself. Many people use the term “settler colonialism” and “colonialism” interchangeably, but they are not in fact the same thing. Colonialism is defined by the Collins Dictionary as “the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas.” Historically speaking, it generally refers to specific European imperial powers during a period that lasted from the 16th to mid-20th centuries.

“Settler colonialism,” is a different concept, as Professor of Anthropology Tate A. LeFevre explains:

Though often conflated with colonialism more generally, settler colonialism is a distinct imperial formation. Both colonialism and settler colonialism are premised on exogenous domination, but only settler colonialism seeks to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers (usually from the colonial metropole). This new society needs land, and so settler colonialism depends primarily on access to territory. Britain, for example, implemented the doctrine of “terra nullius” (“land belonging to no one”) to claim sovereignty over Australia. The entire continent was thereby declared legally uninhabited, despite millennia of Aboriginal occupation.

In other words, while colonialism typically refers to events, settler-colonialism is viewed as an ongoing process. Professor LeFevre puts it this way: “Settler colonialism is premised on occupation and the elimination of the native population, while colonialism is primarily about conquest.”

Given this definition, the claim that Zionism is a form of settler colonialism it is not at all inappropriate and certainly not anti-Semitic (as some of the more vociferous Israel advocates will often claim).

There is, for instance, a striking similarity between the British colonial concept of “terra nullius” and the early Zionist slogan, “a land without a people for a people without a land.” This is not say that Zionists viewed the land as literally empty – they most certainly recognized the existence of an Arab population in Palestine. It does mean, however, that they did not always factor its indigenous inhabitants into their equations – and when they did, it was invariably as a problem to be dealt with.

The father of modern Zionism made this clear in his diary when he wrote of Palestinian Arabs:

We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries whilst denying it any employment in our own country.

David Ben-Gurion expressed similar intentions in a 1937 letter to his son Amos (who was critical of his father’s intention to support the 1937 Peel Commission partition plan):

My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only part of the land is not the end but the beginning…

The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the entire country.

We shall admit into the state all the Jews we can. We firmly believe that we can admit more than two million Jews. We shall build a multi-faceted Jewish economy– agricultural, industrial, and maritime. We shall organize an advanced defense force—a superior army which I have no doubt will be one of the best armies in the world. At that point I am confident that we would not fail in settling in the remaining parts of the country, through agreement and understanding with our Arab neighbors, or through some other means.

Thanks to Israeli historians such as Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Tom Segev and Ilan Pappe, we now know that the creation of Israel was accomplished through “some other means.” More recently, journalist Avi Shavit recently made reference to this ignoble history in his book, “My Promised Land.” The most chilling chapter (which was reprinted in the New Yorker magazine) describes in detail the depopulation of the Palestinian village of Lydda.

Even more chilling are Shavit’s musings on the meaning of this tragic event:

Looking straight ahead at Lydda, I wonder if peace is possible. Our side is clear: we had to come into the Lydda Valley and we had to take the Lydda Valley. There is no other home for us, and there was no other way. But the Arabs’ side, the Palestinian side, is equally clear: they cannot forget Lydda and they cannot forgive us for Lydda. You can argue that it is not the occupation of 1967 that is at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but the tragedy of 1948. It’s not only the settlements that are an obstacle to peace but the Palestinians’ yearning to return, one way or another, to Lydda and to dozens of other towns and villages that vanished during one cataclysmic year. But the Jewish State cannot let them return.

Many who reject the “Zionism as Settler Colonialism” label often argue that this claim ignores the historic and Biblical connection of the Jewish people to the land – and that Jews are its “true indigenous people” who have been longing for a return and restoration to their ancient homeland for centuries.

Leaving aside the use of a profoundly ahistorical document such as the Bible as justification for the establishment for a modern Jewish nation state, let’s look more closely at the Zionist claim of Jewish indigeneity to the land.

It is certainly true following the destruction of the Temple in 73 CE and the spread of the Jewish people throughout the diaspora, Jewish tradition continued to maintain an important attachment to the land of Israel. Eretz Yisrael (“the Land of Israel”) is a central subject in many sacred Jewish texts and numerous traditional Jewish prayers express a longing for a return of the Jewish people to the land. It is also true that there have been small Jewish communities in historic Palestine throughout the ages and that pilgrimage to Eretz Yisrael was considered to be a mitzvah (“or sacred commandment”.)

However, it is important to note that the Jewish attachment to this land has traditionally been expressed as an inherently religious connection. From its very beginnings, Judaism has spiritualized the concept of the land. Moreover, throughout the centuries, rabbinical authorities strictly prohibited an en masse return to the land in order to establish a Third Jewish Commonwealth. Such an act was viewed as an anathema – a profane forcing of God’s hand. The restoration of the Jewish People to the land would only occur with the coming of the Messiah and the onset of the Messianic Era.

It is against this context that we must understand Zionism as a modern political movement, arising in the 19th century as an explicit rejection of Jewish tradition. While Judaism was a diaspora-based religion that taught God could be found anywhere in the world, Zionism preached “shlilat hagalut” (“negation of the diaspora”), advocating for a literal return to the land in order to establish a modern Jewish nation state. Influenced by the European nationalisms of its day, Zionism sought to create a new kind of Judaism and indeed, a new kind of Jew.

This radical revisioning of Jewish life and culture in many ways represents the exact opposite of indigeneity. Indigenous peoples by definition maintain unique cultural and linguistic practices distinctive to their presence in a particular land. Zionism created a completely new Hebraic Jewish culture – one that was deeply influenced by a European Ashkenazic ethos and transplanted into the Middle East. To be clear: this is not to say that Jews have no connection to this land and no right to live there, only that the claim of Jewish indigeneity is ideological, rather than factual – and that this claim has had a devastating impact on the actual indigenous people of this land.

Other critics of the settler colonialist label point out that there is no such thing as a discrete “Zionism;” that this movement was historically made up of many different Zionisms, not all of which shared the same political goals. There were, for instance, cultural Zionists such as Ahad Ha’am who did not share Herzl’s desire of a Jewish political state but rather advocated for a gradual colonization of Palestine that would make it the center of a Jewish cultural renaissance. There also Zionists such as Judah Magnes and Hannah Arendt, who believed in the creation of a bi-national Jewish/Arab state in Palestine.

These variants of Zionism represent an important fact of history. But it is also true that they are precisely that: part of the historical past. If Magnes or Arendt were living today, they would surely be considered “anti-Zionist”. In the end, the form of Zionism that ultimately triumphed was the political Zionism advocated by those who sought to create a sovereign Jewish state in historic Palestine. And it was this Zionism that aimed to solve the problem of Palestine’s indigenous population “through some other means” – that is, by means of settler colonialism.

In one of the most comprehensive treatments I’ve yet read on this subject, Bennett Muraskin writes:

Zionism is described by its supporters as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, but it must be recognized that until the 1947 UN Partition Plan, the land it sought to liberate had a minority of Jews, consisting mainly of recent Europeans immigrants living under the protection of an imperial power. When the British turned against the Jewish colony, the Zionists succeeded in liberating themselves, but in the war it fought with the Palestinian Arabs and Arab armies, the Zionists dispossessed the native population.

In this sense, Israel is a colonial settler state.

Muraskin, however, then goes on to list the ways that make Israel different from other settler colonial states. His intention, I assume, is to leave open the possibility that it somehow isn’t. This equivocal attitude is obvious from the outset – Muraskin’s article is actually entitled “Is Israel a Colonial Settler State? Perhaps but with Lots of Provisos.”

In the end, however, I believe these “provisos” only demonstrate that Zionism represents but one form of settler colonialism. One obvious difference is that Israel was created by what began as a small movement, not an existing colonial power such as Great Britain, France or Belgium. However it is also true that Israel could never have been created without the help of great world powers (Britain and later the US) who supported the creation of the Jewish state because it advanced their own imperial agendas. James Baldwin put it very aptly in 1979: “The state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests.”

In the end, this insight explains why the debate over this term is more than just academic or semantical. Israel’s oppressive policies against the Palestinians do not exist in a vacuum. They are but part of a larger hegemonic system of white supremacy and institutionalized racism that exists in the US and throughout the world.

As Professor LeFevre writes, “Settler colonialism does not really ever ‘end.’” Perhaps the first step in that direction is to call it out for what it really and truly is.

What is Really Behind the UC’s Statement on Anti-Semitism?

(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

The regents of the University of California have spoken and has voted unanimously to adopt its working group’s “Principles Against Intolerance.” As I wrote last week, it is a report that dangerously conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in ways that make the report muddled, unenforceable, and a very real threat to the free speech of pro-Palestinian student groups on campus.

While most of the public debate over this report has focused on the challenge of balancing the UC’s desire to combat intolerance with the need to protect freedom of speech, it seems to me that one critical aspect of this issue has gone largely unaddressed: the fact that this report which purports to address the issue of intolerance on campus frames the issue almost exclusively in terms of anti-Semitism.

To be sure, if this report was intended to be a comprehensive statement on intolerance, wouldn’t the UC’s working group have consulted with a wide variety of experts on the campus intolerance currently faced by Muslim students, students of color, LGBTQ students, etc? Tellingly, the report states that the working group “invited four recognized scholars and/or leaders on the subjects of discrimination, with a particular focus on anti-Semitism, and on free speech.” (Among these four expert/scholars were Rabbi Marvin Hier, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a high profile Israel advocate whose organization is currently building its”Museum of Tolerance” on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.)

Even more troubling, the opening “Contextual Statement” of the report states that the working group was formed in response to”public comment and concern from a variety of sources that there has been an increase in incidents reflecting anti-Semitism on UC campuses.” The regents offer nothing more than this anecdotal statement to justify the formation of a working group and a months-long deliberation and debate on this issue. There is, however, no real evidence to support the claim that campus anti-Semitism is on the rise. Quite the contrary, as the Anti-Defamation League itself recently reported:

While (anti-Semitic) incidents are certainly disturbing, it is important to note that these incidents are relatively rare, and the vast majority of Jewish students report feeling safe on their campuses.

This all begs the obvious question: why did the regents of UC feel the need to form a working group and hold a long public debate over a report such as this? I would submit it has nothing to do with genuine concern about intolerance on campus and everything to do with politics. This report is but a part of a much larger effort that seeks to stem the growing tide of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement on college campuses.

As the LA Times just reported:

The drive for the UC statement was led by the Amcha Initiative, a group that combats anti-Jewish bias on college campuses. Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the group’s director and a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, said campus demonstrations against Israeli policies and calls for the university to divest from firms with financial ties to Israel’s military have created blowback for Jewish students.

The involvement of the AMCHA Initiative with this “drive” tells you everything you need to know about the motivation behind the UC’s statement. AMCHA is a zealous Israel advocacy organization that fights campus “anti-Semitism” by monitoring college classes, spying on students and publishing names of “anti-Israel”professors. It bears noting that AMCHA was publicly admonished in 2014 by San Francisco State University (along with, you guessed it, the Simon Wiesenthal Center) for making false accusations against a professor. That same year, a group of forty Jewish studies professors from across North America wrote a public letter condemning AMCHA and its tactics.

Here’s an excerpt:

It goes without saying that we, as students of antisemitism, are unequivocally opposed to any and all traces of this scourge. That said, we find the actions of AMCHA deplorable.

Its technique of monitoring lectures, symposia and conferences strains the basic principle of academic freedom on which the American university is built. Moreover, its definition of antisemitism is so undiscriminating as to be meaningless. Instead of encouraging openness through its efforts, AMCHA’s approach closes off all but the most narrow intellectual directions and has a chilling effect on research and teaching.

Given the involvement of groups such as AMCHA, it is difficult to view the regents’ statement as anything other than a caving in to the pressure of professional advocacy groups determined to quash BDS and shut down pro-Palestinian advocacy on college campuses. Sadly, by labeling this criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism as anti-Semitic, it only silences students, renders the term meaningless and makes it that much harder to take actual allegations of campus anti-Semitism seriously.

As the ADL has reported, the vast majority of Jewish students report they feel safe on their campuses. Some of them may be made to feel uncomfortable by Palestinian activism and divestment resolutions, but uncomfortable is a far cry from unsafe. And it is shameful that UC has allowed itself to be pressured into issuing an unnecessary and downright dangerous statement such as this.

Given the current climate in our nation, I’d wager if there was a group of students who might well feel justifiably unsafe, it is Muslim students. By all reports, college campuses are feeling the impact of anti-Muslim hatred that began with 9/11, and is currently being fanned yet further during this horrid election cycle. For more this particular subject, I highly recommend this powerful article by Nasreen Mohamed, an administrator at the University of Minnesota. I’ll end with her words:

After the ending of a successful program to welcome new international students, I noticed one of the students who attended the program struggling to figure out the bus route to get home. I stopped to assist her, and we ended up walking together as I happened to be going in the same direction. We struck up a conversation about walking on campus. She is a Lebanese Muslim woman who wears a hijab. She asked me how safe it was for her to walk on campus. I gave her my administrative cautionary tale about taking safety precautions and avoiding walking alone late in the evening. After a pause, she asked me how safe it was to walk on campus as a Muslim woman, wearing a hijab. I realized in her pause and clarification that there was very little I could offer her in terms of a sense of safety. All I could do was to give her a realistic picture. I told her that there had been violence in the Twin Cities and in Greater Minnesota, but nothing violent had occurred on campus. After I walked away, I realized that she will be met with the same micro aggressions that I had experienced post 9/11, and that our campus was still not equipped to protect her spirit.

Shalom Rav

A Blog by Rabbi Brant Rosen