Steve Bannon at the Zionist Organization of America Gala
The below remarks were read at the protest of Steve Bannon’s appearance at the ZOA gala on Sunday, November 12, 2017.
Khaveyrim, siblings, friends, good afternoon. I hope you have all had a restful shabbes.
I’m here representing the Jewish Solidarity Caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America. Thank you IfNotNow, for organizing this action and for welcoming us.
We are here to struggle with you all against fascism and those in our community who seek to align our synagogues, our community centers, our newspapers, our federations and all our communal institutions with Steve Bannon and those who threaten our lives as Jews of all races, and the lives of all marginalized and oppressed people — because they value the power of a state over human life. None of us fit neatly into any one identity, and no label neatly encompasses any whole collective. Who we are and the struggles we face are enmeshed, interlocking and overlapping. We must therefore struggle together. Our individual liberation depends on universal liberation.
As this fundraising gala so neatly illustrates — our task as Jews is not only to struggle against fascism and white nationalism, but against capital and nationalism in our community. It is the donor class in our community which controls the boards and funding of our communal institutions and thereby sets the limits of the Jewish political imagination. It is this class which has decided antifa and BDS are threats comparable to white supremacist terrorists. It is this class which demands that all discussion of Israel and Palestine start from a position of unquestioning Zionism, and seeks to cut us off from allies in the fight against fascism, like Black Lives Matter, because they demand an end to Palestinian oppression by the state of Israel.
We must depose that class, and run Jewish institutions ourselves democratically. We must tear down the Sheldon Adelsons, the Chaim Sabans and all the wealthy board-members, and pull the economic support out from under people like ZOA’s Mort Klein. We must undercut the ability of the donor class to leverage the power of the US government to demand staunch support for the state of Israel in the name of American Jewry through our institutions, by making those institutions truly ours — serving the needs of all Jews and supporting the initiative of Jews to act for justice as we are compelled.
However, we cannot accept a superficial sort of democracy. Our needs and our initiative cannot be lifted over the lives of any other people. Imagine a “democratic” ZOA! No such thing is possible! We must set aside nationalism and work to take care of and support the aspirations all those who share this society, which, through capital and empire, now transcends borders and stretches to every corner of the world.
This convergence of Jews and fascists at this gala embodies the hideous black hole into which nationalism drags our community; the donor class ultimately does not care that people like Bannon hate Jews, because they value a Jewish state more than Jewish people, and American fascists will support the state of Israel without qualification. Look at how the Jewish Council for Public Affairs advised organizations under its umbrella not to demand the firing of Bannon or Sebastian Gorka as it would cause an “unacceptable backlash” with donors!
To forge solidarity with all those threatened by fascism and white supremacy, and to end our community’s support for the Occupation and apartheid, we must fight both capital and nationalism — we must take possession of our institutions not simply for ourselves, but for the sake of all.
Solidarity forever. Olam chesed yibaneh.
Thank you, good night.
