Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 06.02.2024
The genocide of the Gazan Palestinians by the Zionist monster has led to the largest opposition movement to the white house that supports the genocide since the war of Vietnam. Growing number of young Jews are part of this movement. They are our brothers and sisters.
During the war of Vietnam and the civil right movement many Jews were on the side of the oppressed against the barbarism of French and American imperialism.
Jewish people for many years have faced both overt and more subtle antisemitism here in the United States and a long history of murderous persecution in Europe. Many American Jews have thus identified with the struggles of Black Americans against Jim Crow and racial injustice and embraced the Civil Rights Movement as part of a broader fight for justice and equality. As Dr. Martin Luther King told the American Jewish Congress in 1958:
“My people were brought to America in chains. Your people were driven here to escape the chains fashioned for them in Europe. Our unity is born of our common struggle for centuries, not only to rid ourselves of bondage, but to make oppression of any people by others an impossibility” [1]
Jewish Americans also provided important support at key junctures in the Civil Rights Movement. Fully half of the young people who flooded into Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964 were Jewish. Among them were Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered along with African American activist James Chaney because of their efforts to register Black voters. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel served as an advisor to Dr. King and marched with him from Montgomery to Selma in 1964. That year, 17 rabbis were arrested with Dr. King in St. Augustine, Florida, after a challenge to racial segregation in public accommodations.
Reflecting that common ground, some Jewish Americans played significant roles in the Civil Rights Movement. For example, Jack Greenberg, whose parents fled antisemitic pogroms in Europe, succeeded Thurgood Marshall as Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, serving for 23 years. Greenberg argued Brown v. Board of Education as Marshall’s co-counsel, as well as many other landmark Supreme Court cases challenging segregation, employment discrimination, and the death penalty. When this protest declined the Zionist were able to control the American Jews. However, the genocide of the Palestinians is awaking this spirit of the 1954-1968. Lela Tolajian is a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) writes today in Al Jazeera.
“The suppression of pro-Palestinian voices is not fighting anti-Semitism because there is nothing anti-Semitic about opposing genocide. On December 5, 2023, I joined fellow Jewish university students outside the United States Congress to protest against a resolution conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Conflating anti-Semitism with criticism of a modern apartheid state is dangerous historical revisionism. It ignores the fact that since the conception of Zionism, there has always existed strong and diverse Jewish opposition to it. For decades, progressive Jewish movements have held Zionism to be a dangerous form of nationalism, with some Holocaust survivors openly denouncing Zionist policies.
Like countless other Jews, I was brought up to believe in extending solidarity, combating oppression and supremacy, and standing up for the sanctity of human life. The Torah states that all people are made B’tselem Elohim (in the image of God), making each life sacred. The Talmud teaches that saving a single life is to save the whole world, commanding Jews everywhere to fight against the loss of life anywhere. These teachings drive the love I have for my faith and culture … and the heartbreak I feel whenever I see the destruction Zionism has wrought.
The Israeli army has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians since October 7, including more than 11,000 children. Of the tens of thousands of bombs dropped on Gaza – one of the most densely populated areas in the world – nearly half were “unguided”. Israel has killed Palestinians indiscriminately in illegal attacks on hospitals, United Nations-run school shelters, ambulances, and civilian evacuation routes. Entire neighborhoods in areas such as Gaza City, with a higher population density than New York City, have been flattened. [2]
Destroy the Zionist racist control over the Jews.!
The anti-Zionist Jews are our brothers and sisters!
Down with the Imperialists West and East!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/justice-department-recognizes-jewish-american-heritage-month#:~:text=Jewish%20Americans%20also%20provided%20important,Summer%20of%201964%20were%20Jewish
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/4/we-jewish-students-must-not-be-silent-on-the-stern