Liza Behrendt leads the mic check as “occupy the occupiers” disrupts venture capitalist Steven Pease’s Presentation on his book “The Golden Age of Jewish Achievement.” (IMAGE: video Still)
The virtual ink was barely dry on our “Occupy the Occupiers” declaration when Marc Tracy weighed in on Tablet’s Scroll blog. At the end of an article where he defends Occupy Wall Street (OWS) from charges of Anti-Semitism, he gets to our declaration and reverses course. Suddenly he displays nothing but defensiveness regarding the Jewish institutions that repress the very sentiment of dissent that OWS expresses.
First of all, we are not violating the “no demands” ethos of OWS by calling for more democracy in our community. The declaration is our own and we will not be submitting it to a General Assembly. We can think of no better tribute to the OWS movement than to heed its call and occupy our own institutions. As Jews who have been allies and a part of OWS, we were inspired to issue our own call for accountability and power redistribution within the Jewish community. As organizers, we have been inspired by efforts to translate the OWS movement into culturally specific contexts, such as Occupy the Hood, which has mobilized around “Stop and Frisk” and other policies affecting communities of color.
This movement’s power lies in its broad appeal to anyone oppressed by the economic status quo. OWS is about much more than banks, and the economy doesn’t stop at U.S. borders. We honor the OWS message by casting light on and holding our community accountable to a substantial economic problem: the occupation of Palestine yields huge profits for American corporations and has absorbed over 33 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The Jewish institutions that we “occupy” are engaged in the active silencing of those who care about these economic implications, particularly those looking to discuss economic activism in the form of boycott, divestment, and sanctions targetting Israel’s occupation. To answer Tracy’s question, Hillel leads this silencing on college campuses: see the Brandeis Hillel’s exclusion of Jewish Voice for Peace this Spring. Coauthor Liza Behrendt was part of this student chapter that wanted nothing more than to join the center of Jewish life on campus, but failed the litmus test for Israel loyalty.
As for the Federations, our point is not that 99% of Jews oppose having a Federation, or even the occupation. It is that the leadership and the funders promote a narrow agenda, on many issues besides Israel and Palestine. The Forward’s J.J. Goldberg has extensively researched how power dynamics in the Jewish community restrict organizational agendas across the political spectrum.
And was it unnecessary to occupy a small Birthright event? Only if you are fine with ongoing corporate domination of our community. Tracy fails to mention that the event was part of a “Wall Street” series in which various 1%-ers hold forth to Jews our age, further dominating the agenda. It was so necessary, in fact, that here’s betting you will see more of it. And when you do, it will hardly drown out the message of Occupy Wall Street, which last we checked is doing just fine. It will only make it bigger and stronger.
To learn more about Young, Jewish, and Proud and Occupy the Occupiers visit their website here.
Correct me if I’m wrong, since I’m quite ignorant in the subject of “Birthright “, but it looks like the main agenda of this “organization” is to instill the idea of “choseness of our nation/people above all”.
WE are the highest achievers, the “chosen” dudes , even by God, ( and who is going to argue with God, who?).
All other people are just jealous of us, and secretly want our gloom and doom. But we are stronger than that. We are supported by very rich fellows ,who are the living proof that “yes, we can”.
Every single American reader of this blog, watch this:
http://bit.ly/billblack
Robert Sheer’s talk on the same site is great, too.
“the occupation of Palestine yields huge profits for American corporations and has absorbed over 33 BILLION dollars in U.S. TAXPAYER dollars.”
That’s the part that should sink in people’s mind.
Billions and billions of green paper goes every year to support illegal occupation of Palestine by the “friend/ally” of the USA , Israel.
Can we find the better use for those billions of $$$ .
I bet we can.
To watch the “Occupy the Occupiers” action to which this article refers, you can click on “video” under the photo at the top of the article. But just in case there are other readers like me who didn’t notice that link immediately, click on the link here:
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2011/11/occupy-the-occupiers-disrupts-birthright-israel-event.html
This video is delightful! Beautiful young people, entertaining action, uplifting in every way.
this was an excellent action and i absolutely appreciate the followup post. i followed all the links and the links on the links (jj goldberg http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2009/05/20/jj-goldberg-on-jewish-power-again/ , interesting ). there’s so much i don’t know. so often i open a page of this community there’s so much there i never connected. it seems to go on and on. something marc tracy said i found a little odd:
isn’t there some disconnect there? some leap in logic? how does connecting policies towards the middle east to bankers make it anti semitic? just like mrw’s post up there all the checks and balances and regulators that should be applied just aren’t. it’s the same set up of congress rolling over and people not doing their jobs. the promotion of the failed ones (like ross or in William K Black’s example the criminal becoming the ambassador to the netherlands, i have no idea if he was jewish..black didn’t say but why would it be important if the point is the ‘protection’ and promotion of the criminal)? the buying of washington? it’s the same thing. how is that anti semitic to say that anymore than it is anti semitic for OWS to target bankers?
………
last night i was reading a news report about the northwestern action/walkout (i think it was northwestern). all these actions are making waves.