As Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza grinds on, Katie Halper says Jews should support Palestinian liberation from Israeli apartheid in this conversation with Yumna Patel.
Israel has erased the Jewish people and destroyed the possibilities for Jews to live in Palestine as non-colonizers. “Israeli” is a colonial identity we should renounce, because it harms both Palestinians and Jews.
“Even though Dina’s doors and windows are flung wide open, the heat inside the apartment is unbearable, with no fans, air conditioning, or cold water in the fridge.” Tareq Hajjaj’s brilliant reporting from the heat wave in Gaza.
Early Zionism sought to reform the “Ghetto Jew” into the secular Zionist militant. But now the new Israeli government not only wants to push society to the right, but to dismantle its secularism as well.
Hundreds of protesters greeted Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich outside an Israel Bonds convention in Washington, DC.
Every year Palestinian farmers experience violence during the olive harvest. This year for Sukkot, Ilana Cruger-Zaken is inviting others to join her in supporting their resilience.
Park Avenue synagogue uses images of occupied Jerusalem along with a psalm Jews recite in the days leading up to the High Holidays. “It’s a perfect one verse statement of contemporary synagogue Judaism. I have only one ask of God: Zionism.”
Zionism has not yet murdered Judaism but it has undermined its moral and historical integrity. Just as Israel must de-Zionize in order to finally find its place in the Middle East, so, too, must Jews abroad de-Zionize in order to reclaim their own traditions, experiences and communal validity.
As a married Jewish couple living in South Bend, Indiana, we try to ground our lives in the best values of our tradition. That’s why we chose, on this year’s Nakba Day, which fell not just on Shabbat but also several days into Israel’s latest war on the people of Gaza, to pray for Palestine outside the gates of our local Jewish Federation. We recited a prayer for peace and added a new line: “May Palestinian-led struggle, including BDS, swiftly and peacefully replace Israeli apartheid with full equality and make the Right of Return a reality.”
By the Israeli standard on which I was brought up, Sheldon Adelson was a good Jew, dedicating his life and fortune to supporting Israel, Avigail Abarbanel writes. But I am much worse than a bad Jew. I am in fact an outright enemy of Israel because I insist that we should uphold justice, equality and human rights indiscriminately, and that all humans deserve an equal opportunity not just to survive, but to develop, grow and fulfill their potential.