A lot of ink has been spilled about Linda Sarsour’s place on a panel tonight at the New School on anti-Semitism, and a prominent benefactor has threatened to withdraw funding for the New School as a result. A lot of the negative reactions have to do with who Linda Sarsour is, what she’s said about anti-Semitism in the past, and what she supports. And there is an up-swelling of bigotry and Islamophobia rearing its ugly head, for which as a public Muslim figure, Sarsour is an unfortunate lightning rod.

But a lot of the censure has much to do with who is considered to be an appropriate spokesperson for the Jews about a Jewish experience. In activist and leftist circles, it is taken for granted that the people most appropriate to define their struggles in life are the ones who experience it. Thus, it is expected to defer to Muslims when the topic is the experience or definition of Islamophobia, or African-Americans when the topic is anti-Blackness in America, or women when the topic is misogyny. Why are Jews not afforded the same deference? Who has the right to define what we suffer for our Jewishness, or to define what it is to be Jewish? Who are the gentiles that are perceived to be experts on us from the outside, and why are we deferring to them?

While some of the panelists are Jews, none of them are experts in the topic of anti-Semitism. There are no scholars in the field, nor activists whose focus is combatting anti-Semitism. The panel has two members of Jewish Voices for Peace, one member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, and the Arab-American Association of New York. None of these groups focus on anti-Semitism. The issue then becomes not just who is on the panel, but why this panel exists at all.

The eventbrite page reads: “When antisemitism is redefined as criticism of Israel, critics of Israeli policy become accused and targeted more than the growing far-right. Join us for a discussion on how to combat antisemitism today.”  In addition to an unproven assertion that critics of anti-Semitism do not focus on far right purveyors of anti-Semitism, the framing of this event seems to focus less on defining anti-Semitism or combatting, but minimizing it and redefining it in the framework of the Israel-Palestine conflict. That is dangerous for those of us who live with the consequences— namely, Jews.

It’s no surprise then that ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt slammed the event, saying “Seriously there’s not a single Jewish organization that studies this issue and/or fights this disease (such as @adl_national) would take this panel seriously, let alone the institution that put it together.”

A panel like this may not be a total disaster. JFREJ released a PDF concerning antisemitism, a result of their earlier webinar (also featuring non-Jewish input!) and while there are issues with the document, including the historically inaccurate too-rosy view of Jewish life as second class citizens in the Muslim world or glossing over the prevalence of anti-Semitic rhetoric in anti-Zionist circles, it is still a decent bit of work. But it is unlikely that we will see even this caliber of result from this panel. What is far more probable is that anti-Semitism will be minimized and redefined to suit the political needs of the group in question, as will the fundamentals of Jewish history and identity.

Instead of wrestling with the difficulties presented by Zionism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism head on, we can expect this universally anti-Zionist (or at best, agnostic) panel to redefine the issues into non-existence, and thus write off the majority of Jewish opinion as wrong and misinformed— a misled people, acting against their own self-interest, an elitist opinion trotted out by those too out of touch to understand why people make the decisions they do, and what motivates them, for good or for ill.

The left often fails in anti-Semitism by refusing to look at Jews as a community. They are usually willing to go to bat for a Jewish person’s individual rights, but almost never for our communal rights. To justify this, they will redefine our identity, our history, our oppression, and ourselves. We are not permitted to speak for ourselves. At best, we get spokespeople we did not elect, speaking on behalf of others in our name, but not in our interests— as is the case here. As with the right wing, Jews are more useful as pawns than as people.

This is odious. It is also typical. Even JFREJ admits to anti-Semitism’s cyclical nature, and the forced re-definition of Jews and the pathological bigotry we faced in order to benefit the elites. Where this panel of non-experts will inevitably drop the ball is in their failure to realize that in their circles, they are those elites, and they are doing nothing more than pandering to the demands of a gentile majority, seeking to inflict their self-interested moralizing on our backs. And if we have to pay for their self-aggrandizing in our blood, then so be it. It’s a price they are willing to have us pay.

After all, it’s a price we’ve paid before.

Image via Wikimedia

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If the Trumpian Julius Caesar wasn’t enough controversy for this summer, another theater piece came and went on July 2 in New York: Romeo and Jewliet, spelled exactly thus. It’s a modern ballet of the Shakesperean love story set in Vienna, 1938, back in town after its debut three years ago. It is a work of the small independent ballet company, American Liberty Ballet. Predictably, with that setting, it features a romance between a Nazi soldier and a Jewish woman. The venue for this performance was Theater 80, the same place that hosted Gilad Atzmon, the “ex-Jewish” conspiracy theorist, just two months ago.

Are you noticing a theme?

…

Jewcy is on a summer residency! To read this piece, and our others for July and August 2017, go to our big sister site, Tablet Magazine!

The post A New Ballet Matches Jewish Jewliet with Nazi Romeo appeared first on Jewcy.

The appalling behavior of the organizers at the Chicago Dyke March, who expelled three Jewish women for bearing Jewish Pride flags, is still fresh on everyone’s minds, as is the earlier confrontation of Jewish Queer Youth by JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace) at the Israel Day Parade, but these are only part of a larger trend of ignoring the presence of Jews in queer spaces at best, and discriminating against them at worst.

Carolina Jews for Justice (CJJ), a North Carolina non-profit focusing on Jewish issues, liberal policy issues, and advocacy, released a lengthy statement on June 26, noting that the annual Pride Fest was scheduled on Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur falls on September 30th this year, which also happens to be the last Saturday in September. Normally, many Jewish groups participate in the march, but putting it on Yom Kippur puts the kibosh on that for many, and to that end, CJJ encouraged their readership to email NC Pride Fest about the conflict this date caused.

Since then, CJJ has not released a further action plan, nor has NC Pride Fest responded either to their public appeal, or to email inquiries. However, Anna Grant of the CJJ confirmed over email that John Short, the director of NC Pride Fest, said that “it’s always been last Saturday of September,” likely to maximize potential student participation and collaboration with the nearby University. No one’s crunched the numbers, but Grant says according to Short, for the past 17 years he’s chaired the event, it hasn’t fallen on a Hebrew holiday. Grant did not respond to email inquiries to confirm.

It seems that in this case, the exclusion is a result of casual ignorance or lack of care, rather than deliberate malevolence or targeting of Jewish people. However, CJJ noted both in their Facebook post and in emails to Jewcy that NC Pride has a history of dropping the ball when it comes to intersectionality. On their Facebook post, CJJ talked about the rise of Christian chauvinism, noting how it affected their Muslim neighbors too.

“As we were running around yesterday trying to figure out what to do about this scheduling SNAFU, our Muslim friends, colleagues and neighbors were celebrating Eid — and our country’s president broke with a 20-year tradition of hosting an Eid al-Fitr feast at the White House. During end-of-year testing in our schools, some Muslim students were fasting as families were universally instructed to make sure their children came to school well-fed on testing day.”

Over email, Anna Grant directed me to a news article that reported how just two years ago, Black Lives Matter activists were physically assaulted and shut down at NC Pride. The argument is that lack of intersectionality harms the community along multiple axis — and this time, the blow fell on the Jewish community.

“The Pride march has had controversy in the past, and certainly needs to be more inclusive to other communities outside of this one-year issue that affects the Jewish community: the trans community, people of color, and other more marginalized communities than gay cisgender white men, who are also the primary ones organizing NC Pride and the queer community at large,” wrote Grant.

It’s a powerful argument, that calls for inclusion, acceptance, and actively working to broaden community accessibility, and it comes at a troubling time. The American Jewish community is seeing troubling events aimed at excluding Jews from public events, and it is usually justified using this very rhetoric, the language of intersectionality, the same rhetoric CJJ uses here to call for inclusion of many marginalized groups, Jews included. And some of these cases are very blatantly anti-Semitic, even as the language of intersectionality calls for inclusion. It seems that intersectionality means different things to different people — and so do the Jews.

CJJ’s post says it best:

“No group of people, Jewish or otherwise, should have to choose between our LGBTQ identities and the other identities that are important to us and shape our lives.”

We’ll see who makes queer Jews choose next.

Image via Wikimedia

The post Does Pride have a Jewish Problem? appeared first on Jewcy.

On Sunday night, April 30th, a little theater in Saint Marks Place hosted a rather unusual event: a panel, and a protest. At its height, the protest outside was no more than 20 people, with a core group of ten or so sticking it out long term, most of them Jewish.

The small, but spirited crowd merrily chanted at Gilad Atzmon, a provocateur who markets himself as an “ex-Jewish” pro-Palestine jazz musician, and is widely derided as anti-Semitic for his conspiratorial views concerning a shadowy Jewish global cabal, to “go kakken effen yam,” (a Yiddish pejorative phrase that means “go poop in the sea”). They came armed with leaflets describing Atzmon’s views and their reasons for protest, and engaged in fierce, but restrained debate with Atzmon and his supporters outside the venue. At one point, a supporter of Atzmon’s and an Orthodox Jewish protester were arguing about if Jews were a race or not.

“Unfortunately, I now have to consider Lorcan an ex-friend,” said protestor Bill Weinberg, holding a stack of fliers outside the theater venue. Weinberg had attempted to convince Theater 80 owner Lorcan Otway to disinvite Gilad Atzmon, to no avail. Protest organizer Eugene Onegin added, “Free speech doesn’t mean that the venue owner is exonerated from any and all responsibility from renting — and giving a platform to — a fascist.” The protest was as much against the theater owner as against the speaker. While no one accused Lorcan Otway of harboring anti-Semitic views, the anger at him for giving a platform to bigots was palpable, and it is clear that the protesters held him responsible for his part in aiding its dissemination.

As the protest outside dwindled, the crowd inside Theater 80 numbered about 65, with only small fluctuations throughout the evening. The event billed as a chance to hear Gilad Atzmon and his co-panelists give a talk. Flyers for the event said the discussion was to be about Brexit, the Middle East, and Trump, but Brexit never came up, Syria was only mentioned by one speaker, and Trump was used as a comparison to Archie Bunker. Instead, the panelists spent most of their time talking about Jews and their nefarious effects on society: Jewish power, Jewish identity, Jewish politics.

What happened here isn’t much different than what happened in September at the Brooklyn Commons, when a crowd of mostly Jewish leftists protested the inclusion of noted anti-Semite and 9-11 “truther” Christopher Bollyn was given a platform to speak by the Commons’ owner, Melissa Ennen. In fact, a number of faces from that protest also appeared at this one. This time, the bigot in question was Gilad Atzmon, but the defenses floated for his bigotry were the same.

Lorcan Otway, the theater owner, speaks and writes about the importance of free speech. Unlike Melissa Ennen, Otway is not a “truther,” not a conspiracy theorist, but like Ennen, Otway relies on an absurd interpretation of free speech to be about supporting platforms for bigots— and disdaining protest. At the event, panelist Stanley Cohen accused the protesters of wishing to “shut down free speech,” as if opposition to bigotry is an act of censorship. A supporter of Atzmon, who would only go by Bill, railed against the previous demonstration at the Brooklyn Commons, saying it was an infringement on free speech, defended his enmity towards “the Rothschilds” as “not anti-Semitic!,” and grudgingly admitted that this smaller protest was, perhaps, not a violation of Atzmon’s rights. In his Times of Israel blog, Otway supports the right to picket and protest, but elsewhere seems to raise the specter of calling the cops, and both in his piece and on Facebook, lists progressive events the theater has hosted, similar to how Ennen relied on her resume to bolster her own progressive credentials.

Atzmon’s anti-Semitism and attachment to conspiracy isn’t hard to find. His rap sheet is a long one, and his co-panelists, Stanley Cohen and Norton Mezvinsky have troubling histories of their own. Only Michael Lesher, an Orthodox Jew, comes with a non-political background, as he was a whistleblower about sexual abuse cover-ups in some Orthodox Jewish communities. Lesher’s take on Jewish identity wasn’t particularly earth-shattering, but his condemnations of abusive behavior, praiseworthy in another context, took on a conspiratorial air when presented in the context of an entire evening dedicated to the myth of “secret Jewish power.” The background of the panelists only seemed to prove that Jews are quite capable of being anti-Semitic.

In the lead up to the panel, Atzmon engaged with some of his detractors, and took seeming delight in egging them on using blatantly anti-Semitic stereotypes, such as referencing “shekels,” “the Jewish condition,” or even simply calling them “you people.” Apparently, two Jews are two too many, for he mixed up two organizers of the protest: Eugene Onegin, and Bill Weinberg, the (former) friend of Otway’s who tried to engage with him before taking further action.

Certainly, the online interaction left an impression on Atzmon, well throughout his panel appearance. No less than four times did Atzmon mention Weinberg by name, interspersed between assertions that he has “no problems with national socialism,” and that political correctness and identity politics, which “intellectually castrate” the people and divide the Left, is a creation of a “Jewish intelligentsia,” which “sees a value in dividing society.” Atzmon continued, “Jewish power, which we aren’t allowed to talk about, explains the link between Marx, Soros, the 100 Jewish landlords, Israeli criminality, AIPAC….and Bill Weinberg!” Stanley Cohen, meanwhile, explicitly urged the Left to “work with National Socialists, with Al-Qaeda,” in order to break away from a “narrow” and self-sabotaging Left.

Melissa Ennen, Lorcan Otway, and Gilad Atzmon all claim to be members of the progressive left. Atzmon appeared at his panel wearing a pro-Palestine T-shirt, and before being wholly ejected by Palestinian activists for his anti-Semitism, had made for himself quite a name among far-left circles. Cohen and Mezvinsky also claim the “progressive” mantle, despite the former having offered legal aid to Hamas and Hezbollah operatives, and the latter having ties with white supremacists.

If you’re scratching your head at all this, you aren’t alone. Throughout the evening, much of what was said, when it wasn’t poorly organized word-salad, would sound at home in the mouths of the alt-right. Some of the audience members also embraced a jingoistic sort of nationalism, with one enthusiastically detailing to me his hopes of a closed border, and another asking the panelists “Is what’s going on in Syria a culmination of the Zionist policy and the Balfour Declaration?” But the panelists, the audience members, and those supporting them all described themselves as progressives — despite some troubling support from neo-Nazis and white supremacists, including David Duke.

While regressive-progressives of the likes of Ennen and Otway claim that speech must answer to speech, neither Bollyn nor Atzmon are willing to hear the concerns of their detractors, or those whom they aid in further marginalizing. And while Otway did not discourage a picket, the majority of the supporters of Bollyn and Atzmon are entirely unwilling to consider protest a form of speech, despite their enshrinement as such under the First Amendment.

In this twisted view of free speech, all speech must be consequence free, even the most harmful, dangerous, and bigoted of speech. Any permitted reaction must be parsed, neutered, and presented in a specific manner to render it toothless against the bigotry it seeks to counter. Ennen may not hate Jews, and Otway may not be party to conspiracy theories, but they doubtless bear responsibility for boosting the voices of bigots and attempting to scuttle challenges to the noxious views they espouse.

The key to cutting through this Gordian knot is understanding that anti-Semitism truly is the “socialism of fools,” and it functions as a social pathology and a conspiracy theory, and that will always assure its manifestation on either side of the political spectrum, right or left. In Trump’s America, that pathology has resurfaced, and its virulence appears both on the far-right and the far-left, who often crib vocabulary from each other to better propagate their ideals. It therefore is very likely that we will witness more and similar events over time, as ideas born on the far-right appear in discourse on the far-left. The far-right sees in the conspiracy mongering of the far-left an opportunity to recruit, make common cause, and inject their philosophy. When it comes to anti-Semitism, it seems they don’t have to work too hard.

Photo by B. Lana Guggenheim

The post ‘The Socialism of Fools’ appeared first on Jewcy.

Israel, go home, you’re drunk.

Just in time for Purim revelries to come and go, it seems Knesset is determined to show us how deep their character study of Ahasuerus is. I am impressed with how thoroughly a modern democratic state can imitate a petty, short-tempered tyrant, and doubly so because they seem to be intent on doing it by committee. That takes some serious workshopping, you guys.

First off, we have the so-called “BDS ban,” except that ban doesn’t just include folks who are involved with BDS, even tangentially. (Besides, Israel has long been denying entry to anyone they deem a potential threat to the state, including some activists.) But even the ADL and the AJC have condemned the bill because it is so vague, it could easily cover anyone who endorses even a partial boycott. This means not just settlement-only boycotts, but any foreign national who boycotts any Israeli institution, for any reason, ever.

Do you know who that covers?
Nearly every Jewish person ever.

Sure, right-wingers are crowing over their victory, even though a law like this is unlikely to stand up in Israel’s Supreme Court. What they don’t realize is that this law, and anti-free-speech ethos it espouses, are corrosive to democracy and civil society as a whole. Today, the law takes its aims at leftists, but tomorrow those tables could easily turn.

Not to be outdone, a bill being debated is aimed at the mosques in the country. The “muezzin bill” is framed as a way to protect the sleep of citizens by restricting how loud the muezzins can broadcast their calls to prayer, and at what times. Unsurprisingly, it’s been roundly lambasted as discriminatory, and Knesset Member Ayman Odeh ripped up a copy of the bill before he was escorted out of the chamber. The bill has a ways to go before it becomes law, and if it does make it that far, there’s a strong chance that the Supreme Court will kill it. Which, like the bill before it, doesn’t make it less corrosive to the society that spawned it.

As if that isn’t bad enough, a Knesset panel is trying to put forward a bill that would prohibit civil service in left-wing organizations. Civil service, or Sheirut Leumi, is a key part of the state’s function. Alongside conscription in the army, civil service is considered a rite of passage, and is an important way for young adults to provide much needed aid in various ways around the country. Especially for those who cannot go to the army, for medical, religious, or other reasons, civil service is an important way to give back to their society. The casting of these NGOs as “foreign agents” and the people working for them as working “against the state” is making use of ideological rhetoric to limit dissent and strangle progressive organizations in a single blow.

This bizarre turn to the regressive isn’t new. Just over a year ago, a bill was proposed that would essentially force NGOs to label themselves as “foreign interests,” by forcing them to disclose private foreign donations. It was a move aimed to cripple liberal organizations, which often receive funding from abroad. Had it passed, it would have likely resulted in both a chilling effect on free speech contradicting the government, and result in a drop in donations when donors did not want their privacy breached. It was voted down 42-40.

These bills, among others are part of an ugly turn in Israel’s ongoing culture wars, that stress clashes between the ultra-Orthodox, who seek to impose religious-based restrictions on Israel’s mostly secular majority, between the ultra-nationalists and two-staters, and ethnic tensions between Ashkenazim, Mizrahim, Palestinians, and so on. The cleavages in Israeli society are many and multi-layered, and they contribute to an increasingly fractured society.

But perhaps nothing is quite so indicative of the slide into the amoral and absurd as the fact that people dressed up their kids as Elor Azaria for Purim.

Why people would think it is a good idea for their kid to dress up as someone who was convicted for manslaughter is a pretty tough nut to crack. After Azaria shot and killed an already subdued assailant, Abdel Fatah al-Sharif, some openly campaigned for his pardon and release, whilst others thought his sentencing was so light that it was a mere slap on the wrist.  Israeli society has been deeply divided on the issue, with some who took the soldier’s side saying that his actions were responsible, permissible, and praiseworthy, and that despite Sharif’s immobilization, Sharif posed a credible threat.

The court disagreed, to the ire of many,  including those desiring he be pardoned. Many were saying they’d wish more Palestinian assailants a similar fate. These people see Azaria as a hero, or even as a martyr of sorts, a Mizrahi, religious low-ranking soldier rigged to take the fall for his superiors in a rigged, leftist court system. Some powerful right-wing voices, including Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman expressed support, and a rally in his support even attracted local pop stars.

In contrast, others see him as an impulsive young man, whose anger was no excuse for the murder of a young Palestinian, especially since he was already in custody and subdued. In his actions, some see the ugly results on a society poisoned by half a century of militarily occupying another people, including dehumanization that leads to unnecessary violence. Even Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu (no leftist, he!) and Moshe Ya’alon spoke against it as a clear violation of the IDF’s ethical code. And al-Sharif’s father called the sentence a “joke,” and considering that Palestinians have gotten multiple years for throwing stones that didn’t result in death, it’s not hard for people who condemn Azaria to agree with that sentiment.

There’s many reasons why this divide in Israeli society exists, and why the Azaria case is something of a cipher for all of them. There’s a lot to say about enduring Ashkenazi-Mizrahi tension in Israeli society, despite the closing socioeconomic gap between the two populations. There is also much to say about the toxicity of the fundamentalist-influenced ethno-nationalist camp and their alliance with the religious right. But dressing up your kids in honor of someone who shot and killed someone – whether you think it was in self defense or not – shows that our society is ill.

Looking back on a holiday where we celebrate our deliverance from genocide thanks to a queen who used her words and her wits, not the sword, maybe we should reconsider what lessons the Book of Esther has for us— and if we want our leaders to be like Esther and Mordechai, or to emulate a petty, cowardly tyrant like Ahasuerus.

Elor Azaria at a military appeals court in Tel Aviv, April 18, 2016. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images), Via Tablet.

The post Losing the Plot appeared first on Jewcy.

Since the election, it has begun to dawn on me that the Jewish community might be facing a reckoning.

It hit me Saturday night, when at the protest at JFK. There were other Jews there, but most surprising to me was seeing a lone Haredi man. Haredim don’t usually come to any protests but their own, and generally stay away from loud activist actions. Usually, the community prefers to fly under the radar and not rock the boat, so his presence there was in its own way extraordinary. He was American and Israeli, and admitted he was there to support the protest against the Ban, and like many Jews I have spoken to, recalled the deaths that resulted when the United States turned away Jewish refugees during WWII. But he still held himself apart from the group, smoking a cigarette, and looking over at the shouting, exuberant crowd. “If I go in there [into the crowd] and start a ‘Free Palestine’ chant, will they chant with me? If they do, then there is no place for me here.”

He isn’t the only Jew who feels this way.

It’s no secret that there is tension between the mostly pro-Israel politics of the American Jewish community, and the mostly progressive politics of the same group. For decades, we have been trying to square the circle— pointing out that Jews have legitimate roots in the area, the multiple international agreements, the belief in a two-state solution, and the altogether nuanced nature of the conflict in the face of the reductive sloganeering so common in politicized spaces.

It’s never really worked — there’s too much pressure from the extremes on the Left and the Right — but I think the jig is up now. There’s no more center ground on which to stand.

It’s not because arguments for nuance are any less true. A two-state solution is still the one supported by the international community, and the one the UN expects and demands. Jews still do and will always have deep-rooted history in the Holy Land, and self-determination is no less of a national right for us than it is for anyone else. But the actions of Bibi’s government make such arguments fall flat. No one wants to hear it when the state is led by a man plagued by corruption scandals, who constantly undermines the two-state solution while pretending to uphold it, who increasingly marginalizes the already crippled center and left parties in Knesset, empowers the extremists in Israeli society, and embarrasses the head of the country by addressing Congress on his own. Simply put, when the head of state continues on with antics like this, no one will care to hear your defenses. It’s kind of like asking the world not to worry about the actions of the USA with Trump at the helm: no one has time to waste with such a request.

On the one hand, the pressure on Diaspora Jews to take the “right stance” on Israel is anti-Semitic. No Iranian national is expected to disavow the actions of their government in order to be welcomed in activist spaces. Nor is any Palestinian, Chinese, Turkish, Saudi, or German citizen. It’s a standard put on no one but the Jews, and it’s hypocritical. We should call that like it is.

On the other hand, we are nonetheless faced with internal accountability to ourselves and each other, whether we choose to deal with it or not (and for the most part, our community is continuing to dodge the issue).

What else are we to make of it when Bibi Netanyahu praises Donald Trump’s repeated intentions to build a wall, when both southern-border walls were built for similar ethnonationalist exclusionary reasons? What else do we expect when we excuse one wall, but condemn the other? Why are we protesting at JFK to allow the entry of refugees, but not at Ben Gurion? We correctly see ourselves in today’s refugees barred entry, recognize in them the ghosts of our pasts, so why don’t we see ourselves in Palestinians? How come Trump’s wall is bad, but ours is OK?

There are real differences between Israel’s desire for security, which is based on multiple wars and even outright genocidal speech coming from its neighbors at different times. Such things are not the case for the United States, and never have been. But if you spend time trying to point this out, you are missing the point. This article is not about how Israel differs from America and should be judged on its own standards, nor is it about the praise-worthy grassroots movements of young Diaspora Jews to address Israel’s illiberalism, like J Street, Open Hillel, and If Not Now; it’s about how leadership in Israel and America are becoming increasingly similar, to the detriment of both. Trump’s supporters are making comparisons between the two states as part of their rhetoric to bolster their opinions and policy preferences. Some of their comparisons only bear the slightest resemblance to facts; other comparisons are a little too on-point for comfort. While they’re half-wrong, they are also half-right.

If Bibi gets replaced with someone dedicated to moving forward with the peace process, maybe the American Jewish community can continue to kick the issue down the road. But I am not so sure that will happen, or that we should try. I think if we don’t expect anyone to give the slightest inch to Trump and his supporters, then demanding it for Bibi due to our own community loyalties is nothing short of hypocritical. If we can see and praise the domestic and international backlash against Trump, and understand that it does not mean the entire world hates America, then we can probably understand similar sentiment aimed at Bibi. (That doesn’t mean we should confuse them for people who want to eliminate Jewish presence in the Levant altogether, but it is a mistake to assume that this Venn Diagram is a circle.) And I think we will be a better, stronger community if we stop enabling the lazy rhetoric among ourselves and avoiding responsibility for it by labeling that support for Israel. Supporting Israel should mean supporting the tough decisions that leave everyone better off, not supporting extremist policies that hurt both Israelis and Palestinians. That kind of “support” only aids the people who want to blow up our bus stops, or worse (much like how Trump’s “Muslim Ban” is a boon for ISIS recruiters).

There are really only two ways this can end. Israel can retreat from its hyper-ethno-nationalist right wing positions. This would be good for the country, good for both Israelis and Palestinians, and good for the Diaspora Jews who increasingly feel alienated from a state that less and less holds the liberal ideas common to the majority of Diaspora, especially American Jews. Or, the country can, like the USA, like Britain, like Turkey, like Hungary, like Venezuela, continue on its regressive path. This will entrench social and political trends that locally will result in hardship, bloodshed, and anguish, as well as increasingly alienate a mostly liberal Diaspora— except for an increasingly hyper-conservative, tribalist, and vocal minority.

This was a trend that was happening before Trump’s election, or his monstrous “Muslim Ban.” But the election helped speed up the collapse of the status quo. And the results can be seen on the streets. Fellow American Jews: do you want to support an Israeli Prime Minister who keeps silent when the American President erases Jews from the Holocaust? Do you want to support a Prime Minister who plays sycophant with Trump over Twitter to support the latter’s harmful and bigoted policies? Why do we let gangsters with an unquenchable thirst for violence against anyone not like them dictate our community’s political position?

We should continue to hit the streets in support of immigrants and refugees, for we too were strangers, and we viscerally understand the high stakes for people fleeing war only to be greeted with closed doors. But maybe we should bring back some of that feeling to our internal community politics as well.

Photo by B. Lana Guggenheim

The post ‘But Our Wall is Different!’ appeared first on Jewcy.

The facts of Chanukah barely resemble the story we were told as children. Instead of being a straightforward struggle for religious freedom in the face of a foreign emperor, the messy history shows a complicated civil war between theocratic priests using guerilla tactics and Hellenized Jews seeking to integrate Judea into the empire as a polis. This conflict only kicked into high gear when Antiochus of the Seleucid Greeks picked a side. It was only then that the war took on anti-imperial and religious freedom tones we associate with it today. And the miracle of the oil that lasted eight days and nights? Barely an afterthought in the texts, if mentioned at all.

At first glance, Chanukah speaks of threats in our past, not our present. American Jews are not under threat from a foreign emperor, but rather we are fellow-citizens in a super-power. Threats to religious freedom are mostly foreign to American Jews, even if anti-Semitism is not, but the rise of Islamaphobia is an uncomfortably close parallel. But since November 8th, the specter of our own bloody history has returned to haunt us, reminding us that the safety we took for granted was illusory after all.

Donald Trump is no foreign emperor; even if his rise was aided by a foreign power, the man is all too American, as is the bigotry and bombast he brings to the table. He is nonetheless our generation’s Antiochus, in that he is a symbol for the repressive, the regressive, and the sum of all that our society finds loathsome. A symbol, but not the cause.

The Maccabees are the heroes of the story, though I would caution folks to be a bit critical as well. For example, keep away from guerilla tactics, and please don’t attempt to set up a theocratic state. Both are, at the very least, against the law. However, recall the insert we add in the Amidah and Birkat HaMazon during this holiday— we celebrate the victory of the Maccabees, a small group against a manifold, and the weak over the strong. These were some incredibly long odds, and the Maccabees beat them. That’s a pretty inspiring message for the darkest of days, whether your battle is something personal, or something collective.

The pinnacle of the Chanukah story is the rededication of the Temple and the miracle of the olive oil that lasted for eight days, though there was only enough for one. The height of the triumph of the Chanukah story is about the ability to renew, and to spread light. Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, is a notion in Judaism that we are supposed to leave the world better than we found it. What better way to do that than to renew, rededicate, and shine a light in the dark? We do that literally when we light the menorah/chanukiah in the evenings. But we can also do that metaphorically, by inspiring and uplifting each other, and by leaving the world better than we found it.

In the coming years, that will be quite the challenge. Our communities are often divided, among both religious fractures and political ones, especially post election. It’s a lot harder to figure out who the “bad guy” is when the disagreements range all over your Shabbat table, and things may  feel like they are spinning out of control. But when has the world ever been simple? Even the Chanukah story is more complicated than it first appears, which is about a divided Jewish community whose internal fractures never fully heal, as much as it is about a miraculous victory against all odds.

Image: The Maccabees by Wojciech Stattler. Via Wikimedia.

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Wednesday was a day of protest. Well, every day these days is a day of protest, but the final day of November was special. Throughout that day, Jews came together under the banner of #JewishResistance to protest Steve Bannon’s appointment and call for his immediate termination as chief strategist. Again, this has been happening since he got the job, but what made November 30 special was its breadth. There were over thirty actions in all, all across the United States, plus a solidarity event in London.

The organizer of this initiative was If Not Now, a grassroots organization of mostly young Jews focused on anti-Occupation work, started in reaction to Operation Protective Edge in 2014. It explicitly calls for an end to American Jewish institutional support for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. So it might seem odd that a group so focused on international affairs has pivoted so neatly to tackle anti-Semitism at home, but on their website, If Not Now explicitly recognizes and stands against anti-Semitism, and notes that even if as few as three of their members recognize a need, they will swarm to meet it. Clearly, they recognized this domestic need, and have organized spectacularly in response.

Rain along the east coast dampened turnout, but New York City carried on. First a small number of activists gathered outside the Birthright headquarters (Birthright is largely funded by Trump donor Sheldon Adelson), and using blue yarn to be reminiscent of the tzitzit, drew a symbolic line.

Which side are you on? This is the question put to our Jewish establishments, who to our chagrin and their shame, continue to either remain silent on Bannon or outright support him, emboldening the white nationalists who harass Jews, Muslims, and People of Color across the nation.

Later that evening, a larger group, about 35 people, gathered at Brooklyn Bridge. No yarn here, but chanting, signs, and singing in Hebrew and English dominated this space. “Which side are you on?,” sang the activists as we all linked hands and stretched out along the pedestrian walkway. We didn’t have the numbers to span the bridge, but we took up space, and made our voices heard.

Jewish protests are a bit different than the others I’ve been to. Singing takes a much greater precedence. Shouting common slogans will occur (“Show me what democracy looks like! This is what democracy looks like!”), but so will songs like Olam Hesed Yibaneh (“Build This World from Love”). Symbolism is common in our culture and religion, and this is just as true in our civic activities— whether it’s blue yarn, or the use of a shofar or gragger (Boo Nazis!).

The police seem to understand that most Jewish protests tend to be low key, or at least the smaller ones do. There were only a handful to watch us gather and then take the bridge, and their body language remained relaxed. The police officers by the bridge were explicit in wishing us well, telling us what to do to avoid traffic issues, and being generally warm towards the group – something that I have not seen be the case for larger protest groups, especially when those groups are majority People of Color. It was surreal, if heartening to see explicit police support. “Good luck out there!”

I don’t know if anyone else saw us— the rain kept many indoors. But we were one protest of many, and this is just the beginning of something much bigger. We’re picking up speed, and hitting the public eye:

Fight the Neo-Nazi Alt Right. Check out @IfNotNowOrg: the faces of the #JewishResistance https://t.co/J86J6uvQ3x

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) December 1, 2016

See you at the next protest.

Photo Credit B. Lana Guggenheim.

The post A Day of #JewishResistance appeared first on Jewcy.

Well, the worst has happened. Now what?
Now, we live.

That’s easier said than done. We had high hopes, and they were dashed. We thought we were safe, and we weren’t. The unthinkable happened, except it wasn’t really unthinkable at all. And something many of us thought beautiful has been broken.

Stand Up, Fight Back

We have two months to prepare for a real-life authoritarian con-artist taking the helm of the most powerful country in the world. There isn’t a damn thing we can do about that but plan for it. This article is not an exhaustive list of what that future may look like or what those plans could be, but it should give you ideas of how we can support each other. I especially recommend you take a look at this, which lays out some pretty excellent tips and tactics.

There are storm clouds on the horizon, but we aren’t helpless. It is true that the Democratic minority in the House and Senate will fight to stop these rollbacks, but as the minority in the House and Senate, they are likely to fail. The next significant election is the 2018 midterms. It is absolutely imperative that everyone vote in this election. It won’t be soon enough to stop the damage, but it might be soon enough to make a difference. Two years is a long time— but it’s not that long.

In that time, we need to mobilize and organize. Hitting the streets is not enough. It just isn’t. Marches may feel great, but they aren’t enough in of themselves to create the change we need. We need to work on getting out the millennial vote now. Old people vote as a block, and that’s part of the GOPs strength. Millennials outnumber them, but consistently, our cohorts don’t show up at the polls, especially for midterm elections. That needs to change. Millennial block voting needs to be all out—ridiculous levels of all out—and it needs to outnumber the GOP, which if things go as they normally do, will solidify an even greater majority in the House and Senate. Let’s get started on that.

Beyond voting and protesting, we need to get involved in government, no matter how much some of us might disdain the institution. Write to your local officials— even if you didn’t vote for them. Write to your Senators and your Representatives. Volunteer for local initiatives. If you have the time, go to local government and Town Hall meetings. Show up, and show up consistently, and make sure your government officials know to expect you.

What we need to do is form an anti-Trump pact that will burst into mass action every time he makes a move on our civil liberties and human rights. Is he about to fuck up the environment or push forward the Dakota Access Pipeline? Blow the lids of the phone lines and send as letters as you can write. Is he making a move on abortion? Make sure he, and all your elected officials (regardless of party affiliation) know how not cool that is, and that you’re watching them. Tweet everything, every single time, especially if they’re aware of you and know who you are. Phone calls work better than letters, letters work better than emails, and showing up physically to Town Halls and meetings works even better than that. Even if these officials are in a party different from yours, this is a pressure they can’t ignore. So find out who your local representatives are, and contact them.

You can do all this a private citizen and it will work. But it will work even better if you are a public official yourself. No one ignores a government official, even if it’s just at the county level, showing up in front of someone’s office. How do you get in there? You can work in someone’s office, but honestly, just run for office yourself! If you’re over 25, you’re old enough to be in Congress! (Of course, without experience, a constituency, and a fund-raising machine, that is a tall order.) More local positions won’t necessarily have the same age limits, and at age 18, you can run for many city and state positions, which in turn will give you the background needed to make you a viable candidate for something bigger later on, in addition to allowing you to make real change for your community by having a place in the halls of power. You can start in your county’s Democratic party, and work your way up from there. The barriers to entry on that level are usually very low, because most people don’t pay attention to them. Use that to your advantage.

Another top issue is redistricting and gerrymandering. It is the number one item that causes Republican votes to have more relative weight than Democratic ones, and correcting this issue is the one way to prevent being totally hammered (again) in the House and the Senate. Gerrymandering means that the Republicans essentially steal elections by cleverly redrawing district lines so that a Democratic populace is forcibly broken up and counts for less— a process the Republicans have been hammering on since they lost the Presidential election to Obama back in 2008. In order to put an end to that nonsense, Democrats need to control at least one branch of the state government.

That is a good reason to get involved in local and state government if you’re a millennial. Pick issues, and push for them. Know your community, and fight for them. Get a mentor, and learn from them. Get involved with your local institutions, and badger the hell out of your elected officials. Remind the public officials: you are the public. They work for you. Hold them accountable. And if they don’t do their jobs, kick ‘em out.

Pussy Grabs Back

Community building is hard work, but it is absolutely essential for our survival and success. The Left in this country was gutted long before we were born, so it’d be absurd to expect us to be perfect activists from the get-go. We all have a lot of learning to do (and I do include myself in this. Oh boy, do I ever.) And frankly, the Left eats its children. The spectrum anywhere beyond the (so broad it’s useless) umbrella of “liberal” is so fractured, chaotic, and full of in-fighting, you’d think you were at a particularly loquacious, especially obnoxious middle school lunchroom food-fight. It’s easy to call for unity, but a lot harder to actually build bridges, especially since so many of these groups hate each other. (Some with good reason.)

But we still have to do that work. A lot of institutional support is going to be eliminated. Programs that help the middle class and poor are going to be gutted, leaving more people in desperate poverty, hungry, and unable to get out of debt. A lot of people will be vulnerable. The way to counter that is by creating our own support networks. Already I see people crowdfunding for paying for medical care, relocation, support for women fleeing abuse, you name it. That’s good. We are going to be doing that a lot more pretty soon, and we are going to have to rely on each other, and be there for each other in tangible, even financial ways. And you can’t do that without a lot of planning or cooperation.

Mobilizing and organizing can look like a lot of things. It can mean community meetings. It can mean volunteering at your Planned Parenthood, and donating. Their funding might be cut drastically, no matter what President Obama tries. We have to be prepared to scrimp and scrounge— because the people they serve are the people who don’t have insurance, or can’t get any, or don’t have money, or don’t have access to healthcare options, or can’t physically get to the ones that exist. This is especially true if they are trans or gender minorities, or people of color. Consider making real efforts to protect and uphold reproductive and gender rights, which will be under serious attack with Mike Pence as VP. Remember, this is the man who caused an HIV outbreak in Indiana by slashing health spending. Late-term abortions are especially hard to get in this country, even under an Obama Presidency. Not only are there only four doctors who do the procedure, the cost is astronomically high. That is entirely to pay their insurance— the constant violence and threats of violence from anti-choice White Christians makes their jobs dangerous. If you’re in medicine, consider going into reproductive health. Consider stocking up on birth control and emergency contraception. If you’re in Law however, check out the National Lawyer’s Guild. These are without a doubt the good guys. Help them. Talk to them. Join them.

For the record, even though Obamacare might be cut, altered, or repealed, or its mandate rolled back until it might as well have axed altogether, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sign up or renew. The marketplace is open now. Even if you only have insurance for two months, those are two months of coverage. And it is unlikely that repealing will include plans that are already enrolled for the year— it’d be too complicated, and Trump is too lazy. Far easier to let the clock run down on us instead— but that buys us some time nonetheless.

Communities should strive to some form of self-sufficiency. I do not mean “be an island and cut yourself off from the whole world,” though honestly that sounds pretty tempting right now. I mean rather that the community provides for itself as much as it can, including cultural events, local co-ops, even starting some city farming. Seek to build and support each other. See what skills and trades can be swapped. There a million ways to build stronger communities, and every one of those will be important, also particularly when it comes to conflict resolution. But especially, work towards community self-policing, and keeping cops away rather than inviting them in.

If you’ve been not under a rock, you probably understand that the rate of violence by law enforcement towards people of color, particularly Black Americans, is ridiculous. Do not contribute to that if you can avoid it. If it’s a noise complaint, don’t call the cops for that. Don’t contribute to the criminalization of non-violent behaviour. Don’t contribute to Broken Windows style policing. Build bridges with your community instead! And remember, with Giuliani as likely Attorney General, police are going to get an even bigger pass on oppressive measures, and carte blanche to enact violence as they see fit. Don’t give them that opportunity.

You probably know people who voted Trump. Maybe some of them are your family members, friends, or classmates. And while over 70% of the Jewish-American community showed up for Hillary, nearly 30% did not— many of those, but not all, being Orthodox. I don’t know how to talk to these people to get them to listen. Right now, I don’t even want to try— but we might have to. And some of these former supporters might balk once authoritarian measures start to hit home on them too, or when promised prosperity doesn’t materialize, or if and when anti-Semitism reaches a fevered pitch.

Without a doubt, Jews are a target in Trump’s America. We know this, we see it, and already we are seeing it get worse. And anti-Semitism was already virulent on both the Left and Right before this election. It’s a scary time to be a member of the Tribe. And yet, many of us benefit from whiteness in varying degrees (some more than others). Many of us benefit from varying levels of class privilege (again, some more than others). Some of us fly under the radar completely. For those to whom this applies, and that is not all of us all the time, recognize how that provides “outs” that aren’t always available to all of our fellows. Be mindful of this, and be kind. Someone looking “Stereotypically Jewish” is more likely to be targeted by anti-Semites because they fit the image they have in their heads of what they think a Jew is. A Jew of color is going to get slammed with both anti-Semitism and other forms of racism. Jewish women suffer from a uniquely awful brand of misogyny coupled with anti-Jewish bigotry. Visibly LGBT+ Jews are gonna get it from nearly everyone, as if they haven’t been already. And so on, for all the various combinations and permutations of these and any other sub-types as well.

And of course, this also goes for all our fellow non-Jews who are suffering in Trump’s new world. And that’s a lot of us. Muslims, Arabs, Asians, Latinos, Black Americans, anyone who has a uterus, anyone not cis-gender or heterosexual, etc. Even being a cis-white-man won’t completely inoculate you: activists are targets, too. This is the time to build bridges. This is the time for solidarity. This is the time to have each other’s backs.

Respect Existence, or Expect Resistance

For some less heartwarming advice: consider learning some basics of self defense. Trump’s America does not love you. It does not welcome you. And it’s energized a lot of people who would be happy to hurt you. Don’t give them the chance. Ask around for free or cheap lessons to learn the basics, or maybe start a class in your neck of the woods. This is an opportunity to both do something affirming with your community, strengthen bonds with each other, and protect each other.

Be secure on the web. Learn about security culture. Practice it.

If you are going to be protesting regularly, understand the kind of weapons that police will sometimes use on protesters, no matter how law abiding or peaceful. Learn how to counteract tear gas and pepper spray. (Always carry water, even just plain cold water often helps. Do not use vinegar, despite its popularity, as vinegar is a weak acid, and will not counteract the capsaicin used in pepper spray and tear gas.) Learn what kind of supplies it’s good to have on a long march or outdoor action. Are you willing to get arrested? Getting peaceably arrested is a protest tactic, but sometimes the police won’t be so peaceful. And criminalizing peaceful, lawful protests is the #1 play of authoritarian regimes.

Consider learning how to be a street medic. Classes are usually only a few sessions, which usually last all day. Street medics and marshals at rallies and protests are always in short supply— and very much needed in the case of injury, tear gas, or unforeseen circumstances. In general, having some practical emergency medical knowledge on hand is a solid idea, even if protesting is not your thing.

“Should I make Aaliyah?”
That is entirely up to you. Jokes about moving to Canada aside, there are real reasons why getting the heck out of dodge is a completely reasonable choice of actions. If you decide that leaving is the best choice for you, then it is. Israel was in part set up as a haven for Jews to run to in times of unrest and oppression. If you can prove that you have at least one Jewish grandparent, you are eligible for citizenship. If you decide that’s what you want to do, check out the Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh.

That being said, remember that Israel has its own problems. It is locked in a seemingly endless conflict with the Palestinians, ISIS is on the border, and there are many internal fractures along ethnic and religious lines. It is no paradise.

There are good reasons to stay and fight, beyond the principle of the thing. While people have been making comparisons to the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany (some apt, some less so), the fact remains that this isn’t Nazi Germany, and Trump isn’t Hitler. That doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous. He is. But it means we shouldn’t panic, we shouldn’t make big decisions while panicking, and that all hope is not lost. A genocide is probably not in our future here, though hardship undoubtedly is. And we stand a decent chance of success on multiple levels, even through these hard times, if we play our cards right. Trump won’t be around forever, eight years max, barring a complete dissolution of many of our key governing institutions. And that scenario is extremely unlikely.

¡Sí se puede!

None of us wanted this, but here we are. We will stand together. We will fight. We will not just survive, we will thrive. We will overcome.

Hate might have taken this country for a ride. It might even do it irreparable damage. But in the end, it will fall, and fade. This will then be but a passing shadow, and the sun will shine all the clearer.

In the meantime, if you are around the New York area, check out some of these Jewish organizations you can organize with or donate money to: Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, NYC Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee, the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, Bend the Arc, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Hazon (a Jewish social justice group that focuses on food, agriculture, and sustainability), If Not Now (an anti-Occupation Jewish movement), the American Jewish World Service, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Avodah: the Jewish Service Corps, Manhattan Together (an interfaith initiative), and finally, Common Decency.

Common Decency deserves a special mention, as it is a new group dedicated specifically dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism and Jewish intersectional alliance work. There’s no public site yet, but keep your ears open; for the past month, it has been quietly working on a specific campaign, and plans to go live to the public at a community meeting December 1.

You can join with groups and individuals on social media using the hashtag #JewishResistance.

All of these groups do different things, most locally, some nationally, and some internationally. All do good work. And all of them need you.

Ḥazak v’ematz.

Images via Wikimedia, and William Murphy and Fibonacci Blue via Flickr.

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“What the fuck?”

That’s what slipped out as I scrolled through my Facebook feed Monday night. I had just got back from a busy Labor Day weekend, and was under the weather as a result. I wanted to look at cute puppies while I moaned about how sick I felt, not deal with some neo-Nazi nonsense.

And yet, there it was, plain as day. Apparently booked for months, since July, no one in my progressive, activist New York circle had realised a “Truther” (someone who doubts the actual facts of 9/11, and insists it was an inside job) had booked the usually Progressive-friendly Brooklyn Commons for a talk. And worse, the man in question, Christopher Bollyn, was a dyed-in-the wool antisemite, with ties to neo-Nazis and friendly relations with David Duke, Grand Wizard of the KKK. A real mensch! Introducing his talk was another dyed-in-the-wool antisemitic conspiracy theories, Randy Dent. Randy is an African-American, but apparently anti-Semitism was the glue that held the bond between a black man and a neo-Nazi together. Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Now, just days before the event, set for Wednesday, September 7, the Internet was going crazy. Folks were ringing up the Commons, emailing owner Melissa Ennen, who had insisted that she “didn’t know” the truth of Bollyn’s views. Considering how easy they are to find on his own website, this is very hard to believe, and is shockingly irresponsible for a business owner. She refused to cancel the event. Then she dropped a jaw-droppingly tone-deaf letter where she used “free speech” as a defense. (The letter has since been erased from the website, only two days after she put it up; hence my use of the WayBack Machine. Remember, the Internet is forever!) She both said she wanted the Commons to be a safe space – but not all the time; not that safe; not for Jews. If the letter doesn’t make sense on the third go-round, don’t blame yourself. It’s an incoherent mess that is more indicative of her cognitive dissonance than anything actually worth saying.

Some Internet sleuths did their thing and revealed that Ennen herself is a “truther.” So it isn’t about “free speech” or even “keeping the lights on” as she also had claimed – as Ennen is independently wealthy, which is how she came to own and run the Commons in the first place. Less so now though; a great many progressive movements, meetings, and groups condemned her choice and divested from the space. Which, as David Schraub noted, is a very good first step.

But with all of this going on, and Bollyn going on as planned, no one had planned a protest, or any other sort of action. Surely that can’t be right, I thought. I wasn’t as active “in the scene” as some of my peers, but usually people plan actions to speak against such things. And yet, the more I looked around, the more I saw people asking “Is there an action? Where is it? Is there one? I’ll go if there is.” But there wasn’t. No one had planned anything.

So I did.

I had one day, and I had never done this before. I’ve attended some, sure, but I’ve never organized a protest on my own. Study groups, Shabbat dinners, panels, talks, okay, sure, but not this. I didn’t even know how to begin. I was running a fever and made stupid spelling and administrative errors, which didn’t help. I asked for help and advice. I asked some friends to co-host, to signal boost, to show up. Some of them did. I’m grateful.

Soon after the event page went public on Wednesday morning, the day of the event, another progressive reached out to me. He told me he had been trying to get someone to bottomline – a term that means take some responsibility and do some work, apparently. He didn’t want to do it all himself. But we combined forces, swapped notes, and the crowd that showed up is in no small part thanks to his networking, organizing skills, and passion.

I made it clear from the start, and stated it multiple times: I wanted things calm, peaceful, and legal. No police involvement, no one gets in a fight, no one breaks the law. Everyone goes home with their limbs and sanity intact. My goal was, and is, to show that neo-Nazis will not go unchallenged. My goal was not to land in jail, or others land in jail because of me. (Some activist groups actually deliberately wish to get arrested when they attend actions, to send a powerful message. That’s fine, and their right, but that was not this.)

Miriam, an activist, street medic, and personal friend continued to give me advice and warnings throughout the day. She also showed up with her medkit and gave the crowd advice about what to do if the cops showed up and we were arrested. The point was not to get arrested, but white supremacists and their ilk aren’t exactly known for dealing with Jews peacefully – and nearly everyone who was there was Jewish. Best to be prepared.

For most of the time we were there, a total of over three hours, things were calm and peaceful, even quiet. Brad Lander, a New York City Council member, was with us for about an hour, and told us he was more inspired by the group outside than inflamed by the bigot giving his racist talk within. That was heartening to hear. The protest group was about 30-some-odd in total. While many were young professionals, we also had quite a number who were middle-aged. Most of us were white or white-passing; only a few were (visibly) Jews of Color. There were only a few gentiles who stood with us, excluding the reporters (and of the three or four of them, at least two were Jewish). Many of the young professionals were anti-Zionist, but some were Zionists. Many of the older protesters were liberal Zionists, not anti-Zionists. This didn’t seem to matter, for once: we were all there to tell Nazis to fuck off, something every Jew can agree on!

I mention the demographic breakdown for a number of reasons. While it is clear that this issue matters across generations, it is not so clear it resonates across all political lines. Both Jewish groups and the Left in general are notorious for in-fighting. We are a fractious lot. But this was put aside when it came to this issue. That is good. But that unity seems to have only extended as far as our own ethno-religious group. The lack of gentile support might have been because this was done on such short notice; after all, many groups did divest from the Commons, at personal expense and hardship to themselves. Still, I am not so sure.

I say that for most of the time, things were quiet. This is true, but there were three violent incidents, and more of verbal aggression. The first was when a protester, who had gone inside the event, started challenging Bollyn, and shouting at him. He was violently shoved out of the premises – thrown, really, – and Ennen nearly snatched his phone away. “But I have it,” he told me.

Another started when a blonde white woman walked by, and inquiring what we are protesting about, we tell her about Bollyn, Dent, and their noxious material. “Fuck that!” she said, and strode inside. Soon after, she was physically shoved out the door. The manager, a white Jewish man wearing a red shirt, had called her “bitch” and “fatass.” He told her she was banned from the premises. She had been a regular there. She hadn’t even gone into the event room, but she was violently expelled from the premise nonethless.

She looked visibly shaken. I gave her a hug. She stayed with us for a while, long enough for the Commons employee to knock off his shift and come outside. Folks started yelling at him, he shouted back. He started walking away, then turned back, walked back to the middle of the crowd, and started shouting at us, really trying to rile everyone up. I guess it worked, because one protester spat, which prompted the barista to take a swing at him in return. They barely got any blows in – the spitter was tackled by no less than three men, including a large, burly security guard in Bollyn’s employ. They were quickly separated. The employee said he would like to press charges, and soon after that, the cops arrived. Some said Ennen called the cops; others say it was someone else. I am still not sure. I don’t think it matters.

Someone seemed to have informed the police that there was a “forty person fight” going on. Instead, they found a bunch of Jews quietly milling around on the street. I think they thought this was normal. They were slow to do much of anything, and remained chill for most of the night. Some tried to chit-chat with us. They were nicer than the attendee who shouted at us about 9/11 being an inside job, and that the Zionists were behind it. They shouted less, at any rate, which I found surprising and impressive.

One fellow protester associated with JFREJ (Jews for Racial and Economic Justice) remarked with me how of course it’s two guys who start slugging each other that get the cops involved. Because of course it is. She was holding a sign that said “Yet another antizionist Jew against antisemitism.” I stood next to her with a more sarcastic sign that read “Proud member of ZOG” (The “Zionist Occupation Government” conspiracy). I enjoyed the joke, even if Nazis are notorious for lacking a sense of humour.

The last incident came shortly after 9 p.m., when Bollyn’s two-hour talk was due to end. Some protesters entered the Commons, and they were violently shoved out by Bollyn’s security thugs. The cops quickly separated everyone, took statements, including one from a visibly shaken Melissa Ennen, and stationed themselves by the entrance, whereas before they had been casually milling around. “Make a hole!” one bellowed. Legally, we are allowed to stay on the sidewalk so long as there is an accessible path to the building, and an accessible path past us. We have to keep half the sidewalk clear. Herding protesters is much like herding cats except more so, so it took us a few minutes.

The cops remained present for the rest of the evening. It wasn’t a big deal, but we didn’t want them there. Some of us were anti-police as part of our politics. On a more practical side of things, the police being present increased the chances of one or more of us being arrested, something I was keen to avoid. Police can arrest you even if you aren’t breaking the law. Later in the evening, they did just that, when one protester named Joel swore at an officer. (I, and most of the protesters, had quit the scene before this.) Swearing at police is not against the law, but he was taken into custody anyway, and later released at just before 2 a.m.

A few times, Rudy Dent came out to engage with the crowd, pushing past the huge, almost comically intimidating body guard he had placed at the door. Speaking to a reporter, he said “Everyone here [gesturing to the protesters] has pre-conceived ideas that are not true,“ he said. “What I see here is big signs with hatred… based on fallacies and fictition [sic].” Our signs read “Bigots not welcome” and “Nazi scum fuck off.”

Brendan O’Connor, a reporter from Jezebel, asked me why I didn’t plan for us all to go inside and challenge Bollyn and Dent head on. Entry fee was $10, and as I told him, “I’m not giving money to a fucking Nazi.” But I also didn’t want us to be in violation of trespassing. Even if we all paid the entry fee, as soon as Ennen or her employees told us to vacate, refusal to comply would put us in violation of the law. We could easily be arrested. I thought it best to avoid such an easy trap.

Ennen seems to be unwilling to come to terms with the fact that her actions have consequences. She moaned to O’Connor that her friends had abandoned her and that she was “under attack” because she “refuses to censor” and “stands by freedom of speech.” She seemed focused on the fact that “not all Jews are Zionists,” as if that is at all relevant to a white supremacist relying on tropes copied from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, blaming 9/11, the War on Terror, and a whole mess of ills on the “Zionist cabal” that controls the United States. Listening to the recording of his interview with her, I was utterly unimpressed. Not only are comparisons of neo-Nazis to Tea-Party platforms ridiculous, it’s disingenuous. Genocide denial and incitement to violence are worlds away from shitty politics. It isn’t in the same universe. “He definitely goes overboard,” Ennen said of Bollyn. And that’s as far as she is willing to go, flat out denying his easily-found and documented antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

“If they want to ….they can come in and ask in the Q and A!” she said of us protesting outside. “But they won’t come in.”

“But they won’t let people come in,” O’Connor reminds her. She contradicts him. He doesn’t point out the violent ejection of those who were within who dared to challenge… or even enter the space.

Moreover, Ennen seems not have learnt the basic lesson that friendship requires commitment, honour, and integrity. Above all, it requires work. “She told me she can’t be my friend anymore,” she said, speaking of a JFREJ member protesting with us outside. “It makes me very sad, this disagreement with my friends, who are no longer my friends… I find it astonishing.” But if Ennen wanted to keep her Jewish and progressive friends, she shouldn’t have given a platform to a pair of wildly racist antisemitic bigots. If Ennen wanted people not to divest from the Brooklyn Commons, she should have done basic due diligence and quickly Googled who it was who was renting the space – and I do not believe her when she says that she didn’t know. It is my opinion that that is a cowardly lie, and a shockingly irresponsible one at that. But pretending that she is honest, she was still made to know by many people, so many that they crashed her servers through emailing. And having been made to know, she could have and should have taken responsibility. She did not. It might seem like a no-brainer, but to Ennen, cloaked in entitlement, privilege, and willful ignorance, was a rude shock. Too bad.

It is clear that without a sincere apology and some serious self-reflection and deep structural changes, the Brooklyn Commons is no place for us to gather. By us, I do not just mean Jews, or Liberals, or Progressives. I mean any person possessing of decent moral fiber.

Bollyn and Dent are entitled, under the First Amendment, to spout whatever gutter filth they please. That does not mean we are obligated to give them a platform – or support those who do.

Photo credits Gabriela Geselowitz

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