#OurVisionOrTheirs DC Action Script

This morning, IfNotNow DC showed that we must stand with the Movement for Black Lives and against the occupation. Here is their script.

We are here at the American Jewish Committee with heavy hearts for an American Jewish institutional community that has allowed thoughtless support for the occupation to drown out our moral compasses. And we are here with joy for a blossoming young movement to rebuild a Jewish community that takes action to pursue freedom and dignity for all Israelis and Palestinians.

Our movement takes direction from Hillel, who asked three fundamental questions:

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

“If I am only for myself, what am I?”

“If not now, when?”

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

Tisha B’Av, which falls this Sunday, commemorates numerous tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, including the destruction of the first and second temples, and the quashing of the Bar Kochba revolt.. Since then, it has become customary to associate various calamities with Tisha B’Av — like the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290, from Spain in 1492, and the first train from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka in 1942.

The history of the Jewish people has undoubtedly been filled with much suffering and sorrow. But in recent decades we have let that internalized trauma seep out of Tisha B’Av, and the entirety of the Jewish experience. Too many Jews think that the essence of Judaism is remembering the Holocaust. Too many Jews hid their identity until the alt-right started an anti-Semitic meme, and now they have dog whistles around their twitter handles. And too many Jews justify the oppression of the Palestinians with discussions about the next Hitler who is going to come and kill us. Somehow, anti-Semitic trauma has become the sum total of our identity.

The mass accumulation of tragedy on Tisha B’Av has a powerful message to those of us struggling with the centrality of trauma in our Jewish lives. Pick one day, and get it all out. Get it all out so that every other day does not have to revolve around hunting for anti-Semitic tropes in social justice movements’ platforms. Get it all out so that Judaism can bring meaning to your life, not just tribal paranoia.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

On Sunday, I will make my once-a-year trip to the Holocaust museum. And I will confront my trauma, and confront all of the ways that trauma affects me today. But first, on Friday and Saturday, I’ll join with my community and celebrate Shabbat. And on Monday I’ll learn another page Tractate Beitzah with my chavruta. And on Tuesday, I’ll work on the next action that seeks to end American Jewish communal support for the Occupation. And along the way I’ll decide where my tzedaka should go, I’ll sit in a sukkah, I’ll belt out niggunim at the top of my lungs, I’ll welcome new babies into the covenant, and I’ll comfort friends when their family passes away. Because Judaism is not merely a corner to hide in when I feel threatened — it is how I bring joy into my life.

“If I am only for myself, what am I?”

The use of “what” instead of “who” in this question is intentional. Because Jewish tradition teaches us that by dehumanizing others we are dehumanizing ourselves.

I began doing anti-occupation work because of my anti-racism work; because I could no longer stand my own hypocrisy of fighting hatred and intolerance in America while turning a blind eye to Israel. Black and Palestinian solidarity is not the “misleading parallel” AJC would have you believe. When we practice empathy, when we stop thinking only about our own feelings, it is clear that their unity is based on their feelings of being dehumanized; the lack of regard for their lives shown by the daily militarized violence deployed against their communities. Their calls for justice are inextricably linked. And it is for that reason that I feel I must heed both their calls. I will not condemn the Movement for Black Lives in favor of Israel; in favor of an immoral Occupation. I will not allow myself to become a “what” instead of a “who.”

As a Jew with interracial family members, I cannot sit idly by as the two communities of people I love distance themselves from one another. Instead, I will work to repair that bond. I will reaffirm that Black Lives Matter. Black Jewish Lives Matter.

And I hope that one day soon the rest of the Jewish community will see what I see: That we are all connected. That we cannot be only for ourselves. That we must show up for all oppressed peoples. Because our humanity depends on it.”

“If not now, when?”

For decades, leaders of the American Jewish establishment- Rabbis, educators, and camp counselors- have held up pictures of Rabbi Heschel standing with Dr King as icons meant to connect the Jewish community to the civil rights movement. We honor the memories of Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman as reminders that Jews worked for racial justice.

Today, we say no more symbols, sermons, psalms or songs that are devoid of power, solidarity, or action. In the past weeks, the organized Jewish community has sold out, criticized and demonized the Movement for Black lives. These actions of desertion, racism, and self-centering behavior speak volumes, and do not represent my Judaism.

It’s no surprise that the same groups rushing to demonize Black leadership uphold the Jewish communities’ support of the occupation. Black and Brown bodies in America and in Israel/Palestine are brutalized, beaten, jailed and murdered. These struggles are linked in their fight against militarism, their fight against hegemony, and their fundamental fight against White Supremacy.

Today, we tell the AJC and the entire Jewish establishment that young Jews stand in firm commitment and in deep solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives. If our community does not act for racial justice, fundraise for Black organizers, de-center our own trauma from this work, and work to end the lasting impacts of white supremacy in both America and in Israel-Palestine, we can no longer fall back on past heroes. If the organized Jewish community does not act today, they must be prepared to stand on the wrong side of history while alienating a generation of proud Jews.

A black or brown person is murdered by the police every 18 hours in this country. If the organized Jewish community does not rush to end systemic racism with the same urgency that they use to counter anti-Semitism, it will be too late. If they do not act now, they are complicit, and they are guilty. If not now, when?

We are also here today because as Rabbi Hillel said: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to others. That is the whole Torah; the rest is explanation.”

Our people have been enslaved, persecuted, and slaughtered en masse. If we had made demands for our liberation, and a privileged group had tried to tell us how to gain our liberation in those times, it would have been hateful to us.

Meanwhile Jewish institutions such as the AJC rest on the laurels of their support for the civil rights movement of 50 years ago, while rejecting the urgent demands of the modern civil rights movement. It is easy to celebrate the brave deeds of our ancestors; it is harder to take bold action in our own times.

We are here at the AJC today to say that as Jews, we stand with the Movement for Black Lives, against the occupation of Palestinian lives, and for freedom and dignity for all.

After years of hard work, sacrifice, and visionary leadership, the Movement for Black Lives released their #Vision4BlackLives, which lays bare the numerous systems that deny black people in this country and abroad freedom and dignity, and specifies a broad vision for change.

Shortly after this platform was released, numerous communal Jewish institutions condemned the platform and the movement behind it because, in the midst of the the dozens of policy proposals calling us to become part of the global solution for black lives, it criticizes the Israeli occupation and dares to draw parallels to the state violence faced by Black and Brown American.

Instead of embracing the core values of the Movement for Black Lives — dignity and freedom for all people — the AJC has chosen to prioritize its support for Israel’s status quo of a racist, violent and endless occupation.

IfNotNow is here to stand in support of the Movement for Black Lives.

We recognize the deep trauma in our parents’ and grandparents’ generations around what has happened to our Jewish people, and the need for us to be safe. But we reject a vision of safety that prioritizes Jewish lives over Palestinian lives, pits us against Black liberation, and atrophies intellectual and ethical code of our Jewish community.

We refuse to follow leaders that force us to choose between Jewish community and standing with the Black-led civil rights movement of our time. We reject the linkage of Judaism with unquestioning support for Israel and its policies.

We recognize the explicit links between Black, Palestinian, and Jewish liberation. None of us will be truly free until the most oppressed among us are free. One cannot be free while standing in the way of another’s liberation.

We support relationships of solidarity and mutual support among marginalized peoples, understanding that anti-semitism and the fear that comes with it so often get in the way. While it is our task to battle anti-semitism, we cannot do so without battling injustice wherever it lives, whether it be in the United States or Israel-Palestine.

We’re living in a historic moment: will we rise to the challenge and heed the call of the Movement for Black Lives? Or will we turn our backs, forsaking our values as a Jewish community and our memory of what it is like to be oppressed?

Will we act as if the only people whose liberation mattered was ours? Or will we recall what it was like to be oppressed, and actively support the liberation of all peoples?

We call on the AJC and every other Jewish institution that has rejected the Movement for Black Lives, through words or through silence, to stand against racism even when it’s hard. We call on you to support freedom and dignity for all Israelis and Palestinians, and to act in allyship by supporting the demands of the Movement for Black Lives without centering yourself. We call on you to join us in leading our Jewish community in the civil rights movements of the 21st century.