This Jew Thirsts for Justice, Don’t You?
The Jewish community must step into this space and work for justice
Growing up in New York City, I learned that the Jews were learned people who stood up for others, whether organizing unions or risking our lives for voting rights in the South. My family was interfaith and strictly secular, so I learned it in school along with math and reading. I idolized Andrew Goodman, killed by the KKK at age 21 for registering black voters in Mississippi. In this season when Jews repent for their individual and collective sins to each other and G’d, I mourn how far we’ve come from the ideals of my youth and recommit to the struggle for justice at home and abroad.
From December 21st, 2017 to January 3rd, 2018 activists from a variety of movements will travel across Palestine and Israel as participants in the Sumud Freedom Tour delegation, which will, in part, examine the current nonviolent intervention practiced in the region. This will provide an additional layer of context when seeing the physical realities of the Israeli occupation and understanding how Palestinians’ personal stories of living under a military regime are perpetuated and shaped by internal and external realities.
I am particularly interested in this tour because it highlights Palestinian and Israeli groups that work together. This is rare and needs our support.
I’m promoting the Sumud Freedom Tour because it embodies the Jewish ideals of fairness and justice while addressing a global struggle for justice that has my name on it.
Part of the paradox of Jewish prayer is that we ask G’d for forgiveness as a community while committing ourselves personally to change; on the tour we’ll address movements for justice while recommitting ourselves to struggles at home and abroad. The tour will be a process of learning about the Palestinian struggle and drawing connections to other movements for justice by meeting activists and participating in direct support of the Sumud Freedom Camp. I’m looking forward to talking about lessons learned from the Palestinian movement for justice that I can also use in the domestic struggles for justice I was raised on and continue fight for.
Join Holy Land Trust in resisting not only the violence here, but in all systems of oppressions. Join us this winter, Dec 21 through Jan 3, on the Sumud Freedom Tour as we partner with the village of Um al-Khair to re-create a world altogether different than this one, one based in equality and restorative justice. Stand with us in vulnerable co-resistance as we build the sacred community.
