A letter from IfNotNow Boston: Why we are sitting-in on the BU Bridge for a ceasefire
We are Jews for Ceasefire. We see what is happening to the people of Gaza: no food, no water, no electricity, no medicine. Every day brings more death, more starvation, more children losing limbs, more babies becoming orphans. It is unbearable, our souls cry out against it. So today, out of desperation, we are sitting-in on the BU Bridge, begging our politicians to support a ceasefire.
To the regular people our actions will cause problems for today: we sincerely apologize. We wish there was a way we could stop this war by going directly to the politicians who have the power to intervene. But we’ve tried that — we’ve tried everything. We’ve marched outside the White House, and prayed inside Congress. We’ve been turned away from Senator Warren’s office four times, and joined thousands of people to demonstrate outside. 66% of Americans and 80% of Democrats want a ceasefire, but politicians like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren refuse to listen. We don’t know what else to do.
11,000 Palestinians killed. 4,500 of them children. Millions of Gazans, 75% of the population, driven from their homes. Talk of “Israeli airstrikes” does not capture the pain of shattered bodies. The moans of those dying a slow death buried under rubble. The horror of entire extended families being extinguished.
We are still mourning the 1,200 Israelis who were brutally murdered on October 7th. Many of us lost friends and loved ones; some of us are Israeli-Americans ourselves. We call for a ceasefire not because we are cold to any of the horrors happening there, but because we feel it all so deeply. We pray for every hostage to be returned safe and free, today. Like the families of the hostages, we know it will be negotiations, not bombs, that finally bring them home.
More death will not bring back the people we lost. It does the opposite; it provokes more violence against Israelis and Palestinians alike, while endangering Muslims and Jews around the world. We are told that the destruction of Gaza is being done in the name of Jewish safety, but that is a lie. No one is safe in a world of blood and rubble.
We know that real safety for Jews requires safety for all people. Our future and our liberation is bound up with the liberation of Palestinians. There cannot be peace for anyone until the siege ends, and apartheid and occupation are dismantled.
The Jewish principle of פיקוח נפש, Pikuach Nefesh, requires people of our faith to do what we can to save even a single life. Today, millions of people are in mortal danger because of this war. And American politicians have the power, if they use it, to make it stop. So today we fulfill our moral and religious obligation by sitting-in on this bridge, begging President Biden, Senator Warren, and all who claim to represent us to call for a ceasefire.
