![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() White people, including white Jews, who spent last summer confronting their own complicity in anti-Blackness or their discomfort with the force of abolitionist demands like “defund the police”, are perhaps finding themselves prepared to face similar complicities and discomforts in relation to Palestinian liberation. What has changed? The Black Lives Matter movement can claim credit for helping masses of people understand the mechanisms of structural racism and oppression, and for consistently linking the Black struggle to the Palestinian one. On the whole, their questions represent a genuine outpouring of curiosity and compassion about the plight of Palestinians. Though many of our Jewish readers are anxious about antisemitism and about Jewish safety in Israel, there are strong indications that they are beginning to separate these feelings from the moral reality on the ground. There are people struggling with new terminology (“Is apartheid an accurate word for what is happening in Israel/Palestine? What about ethnic cleansing?”) and with the foundational events that shaped the current situation on the ground (“Was there really an expulsion of Palestinians in 1948?”). “How do I talk to my family about this?” asks another. “I know what’s happening is wrong, but does supporting Palestinian liberation mean supporting Hamas?” asks one reader. These questions taken in aggregate paint a striking portrait of a community at a turning point Though many queries aim to understand specific aspects of the recent round of violence – the circumstances surrounding the expulsions of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, for instance, or the affiliations of the Jewish revelers dancing ecstatically opposite a fire on the Temple Mount – many more are simply expressions of confusion, and a newfound willingness to confront it head on. These questions taken in aggregate paint a striking portrait of a community at a turning point. At Jewish Currents, the leftwing magazine where I am now editor-in-chief, we asked for questions from readers struggling to understand the recent violence. We’ve seen a powerful display of solidarity from Jewish Google employees, asking their company to sever ties with the IDF. We’ve seen Jewish politicians, celebrities, rabbinical students and others speak up loudly for Palestine. Though the years since 2014 have seen the growth of a small but committed Jewish anti-occupation movement, the last week and a half have brought an even larger circle of the community to a place of reckoning. I stayed another 30 minutes, then ducked into Central Park, collapsing on a bench in sobs. My heart raced when chants broke out of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a popular protest slogan calling for equality in a single democratic state, which Jews have long been told amounts to their expulsion. I felt alienated by the march itself, unprepared to face the righteous anger at the Israeli state from the perspective of its victims. And yet even stronger was my anguish at doing nothing. To go at all felt like a betrayal of everything I’d ever known and loved. I didn’t know a single person that might accompany me to such a protest. An ardent Zionist until that point, my worldview had been profoundly shaken by the images in the papers – Palestinian children bombed to pieces on a beach Israelis in the rattled buffer town of Sderot gathered on hilltops overlooking the Strip, cheering as the bombs fell. During the 2014 assault on Gaza, I ventured out to a Palestine solidarity rally in Columbus Circle in Manhattan by myself. For me, the conspicuous presence of larger numbers of Jews – many, but not all of them young – at every major Nakba Day protest was significant. ![]()
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