Jewish Organizations Worked to Prevent the Women’s March From Addressing the Occupation — Why?
We are two young American Jews who spent this weekend marching in the streets, in Oakland and in Washington, DC, for freedom and dignity for all. We were both so proud to be present as Jews in the Women’s March and in other nonviolent demonstrations opposing the Trump administration.
We were therefore heartbroken to learn that American Jewish establishment organizations who claimed to represent us in the planning of the Women’s March on Washington, instead betrayed our Jewish values.
Several American Jewish establishment organizations worked hard to prevent the Women’s March on Washington from criticizing Israel in any way. Nancy Kaufman, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), said this of Jewish establishment organizations’ efforts to enforce a gag order on mentioning the occupation: “We feel very good with the results.”
We do not feel good with the results. We feel betrayed.
Reproductive justice was rightfully front and center at the Women’s March. But supporters of the occupation want us to willfully ignore the profound reproductive injustices of the occupation. Pregnant Palestinians are especially vulnerable to the occupation’s restrictions on movement, housing demolitions, and unsanitary conditions. The occupation poses extreme challenges to parents, forcing many Palestinians to leave their homes and migrate to other countries in search of a safer environment in which to raise their children. Meanwhile Jewish Israelis are expected to weaponize their uteruses for demographic war — a misogynistic, xenophobic pressure that also boxes in Jewish uterus-havers across the Diaspora.
NCJW’s Kaufman spoke of unquestioning support for Israel as a matter of inclusion. This is both ludicrous and devastating. It was particularly telling that reporting on the Jewish establishment’s involvement in the March compared supporters of the occupation to people who oppose abortion rights and racial justice.
The American Jewish establishment’s support for Israel at any cost puts our community in disturbing company. What is the link from American Jews who support the occupation to white people who fear racial justice and anti-choice activists who believe they deserve the right to make reproductive decisions for others? The link is support for a narrow vision of safety for some, dehumanizing ourselves as we support the oppression of others.
Jews know all too well the pain of state violence. The Israeli government enforces a brutal occupation against another people in an attempt to carry out a narrow vision of Jewish safety, but the occupation does not keep Jews safe. When our own community enforces unquestioning support for the occupation, it separates us from our Jewish values. Jewish establishment leaders demand that we see Palestinians as less than human.
Jews have been systematically silenced by so many demagogues across our history. Our own community’s leaders now systematically silence criticism of the occupation, at the very same time as our newly inaugurated president is waging a political campaign against free speech, free press, and objective truth. This betrayal is emotionally devastating, and it puts Jews in danger.
Our community’s leaders are betraying the Jewish values they raised us to cherish. Organizations like the National Council of Jewish Women are failing to represent us. The person at the Women’s March on Washington who best embodied our Jewish values was Palestinian-American racial justice advocate Linda Sarsour.
Linda Sarsour shares our values of freedom and dignity for all. “When we fight for justice, we fight for justice for all people,” she said in her moving speech on Saturday. She consistently shows up for her own community and others in the very ways we were taught, as Jews, to fight for justice. Yet because she is a Palestinian-American Muslim, she is facing vicious right-wing attacks while our community’s leaders remain silent. The National Council of Jewish Women abandons our Jewish values when they fail to fight for justice.
Our generation says no to progressive-except-Palestine. Our generation says no to the gag orders our community enforces against criticism of the occupation. Our generation will end our American Jewish community’s support for the occupation.
We ask the leaders of the American Jewish establishment: Which side are you on? Will you continue to support the occupation, or will you fight for freedom and dignity for all — for all Israelis and Palestinians, and for all residing in the United States and around the world?
Gabi Kirk and Jill Raney are members of IfNotNow, the Jewish movement to end our community’s support for the occupation. They live in Oakland, CA, and Washington, DC.
