David Friedman isn’t having an easy time in the final steps towards becoming Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel and the controversy over his appointment reveals deep rifts within the Jewish community.

The bankruptcy attorney’s Senate confirmation hearing last Friday revealed his contradictory stances on Israel, his complete lack of experience in foreign relations, and the outright cronyism of the new administration. Friedman used the opportunity to retract controversial statements he’s made in the past, leading one senator to comment to Friedman that he was there “having to recant every single strongly held belief that you’ve expressed.” But he couldn’t escape several activists protesting his appointment.

Yesterday, the resistance continued, and I and two dozen members of the movement If Not Now protested David Friedman outside his Midtown Manhattan law office. Since Friedman’s Senate confirmation hearing last week didn’t go so well, we thought we’d host our own. We took over the lobby of his office, set up a very official-looking podium (made of cardboard), and proceeded to grill Friedman (played in drag by one of our members) about why he should be chosen to represent the United States to the State of Israel. And, what did we decide? We decided that Friedman is a terrible choice and should not be chosen as Ambassador. Sad!

This conclusion was no surprise, and the reasons are simple. Friedman has advocated strongly for settlements in the West Bank, with word and pocketbook. He has written that Palestinians have no legitimate claims to the land. He’s even insisted that liberal and progressive Jews who are critical of Israeli state policies are “worse than Kapos,” associating a majority of American Jews with people accused of collaborating with the Nazis and condemning their fellow Jews to extermination.

While Friedman used his confirmation hearing to qualify and walk back his hateful remarks, these views echo the racist and xenophobic language of white supremacists like senior White House advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon talks about the current global climate as a struggle between the “Judaeo-Christian” West and the Muslim Middle East. For people like Friedman and Bannon, Israel is the buffer between the West and radical Islamic terrorists hell-bent on destroying us. They paint all Muslims with the same brush, and ignore the nuances of a diverse Middle East, and lets blind hatred rule the day.

According to that so-called logic, Israel is perfectly justified in creating a state where Palestinians are subject to violence, racism, and second-class citizenship. American Jews overwhelmingly oppose such a philosophy. But in part because of the influence of conservative donors like Sheldon Adelson, many Jewish community leaders either espouse similar beliefs or silently tolerate extremists in their midst.

Our alternative “hearing” was a way to use protest, media, and theatre to imagine the world as we’d like to see it. Like Melissa McCarthy’s portrayal of Sean Spicer on SNL or Keegan-Michael Key as Barack Obama’s Anger Translator, humor or mockery can make us challenge our complacency. While many Jewish organizations would rather speak delicately about Trump, this protest took on Friedman’s abhorrent views.

It was also, however, a painful reminder that the delicate tapestry of American Jewish life is quickly unraveling. Young Jews are fed up with the contradiction between our progressive Jewish values and the institutional Jewish establishment’s support for Israel, without nuance, at any moral, political, and financial cost.

The fantasy of the protest wasn’t just Friedman admitting what he really thinks. It was the tough line of questioning, how we wish our government and mainstream Jewish institutions would challenge Trump and his administration. And, like many protests, it provides hope that these unraveling threads might be rewoven into something vibrant and beautiful.

You can watch our “hearing” of Friedman below:

Dan Rosen writes about media, Internet culture, and the networked life. He is currently struggling with the realization that nothing is implausible anymore.

Photo credit Gili Getz.

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Editors Note: This is part 1 of our 2 essays on Jewish experience in the post-Inauguration Women’s March. Part 2 can be found here.

I came down to Washington DC as an individual citizen seeking to participate in a demonstration of my displeasure. Not only was I unhappy with the results of the recent election, but I was infuriated by the unprecedented assault on minority communities and protected groups by a nativist, bigoted, and misogynist demagogue. In a rare moment, I didn’t use a Jewish lens to analyze my choice to join the hundreds of thousands of people coming to Washington; I was too driven by my Democrat and liberal ideologies to consider any other angles. The fact that the rally was on Shabbos might have given me momentary pause, but any objections were dwarfed next to my desire to stand up for causes I believe in and be counted alongside my fellow citizens. So, as the possessor of a Y-chromosome, with skin color that passes for privilege, and with the spirit of feminism beating strongly in my heart, I made my way to the nation’s capital.

When I became swept up in the masses of humanity that descended upon Washington, my briefly neglected Jewish internal monologue began to reassert itself, and I wondered how many Jews might show up, and in what form they would arrive. I knew that Shabbat would present a complication for some, and that no (Conservative) Jewish organization I was associated with (Solomon Schechter, JTS, USCJ) had reached out to organize busing, shirts, or other logistics, but I was positive that the human rights devotion in contemporary liberal American Jewish identity would demand that Jews be present. After all, what Jew can go to shul on the High Holidays, and not be reminded that the Jewish tradition strongly demands action on the human rights crisis du jour? When I emerged into the Metro station at L’Enfant Plaza, about 10 blocks from the rally point for the march, I began to actively look for the Jews in the crowd and the messages they carried with them.

Six hours later, I completed the march in a state of numbed shock. After watching and marching with hundreds of thousands of people and listening to many of the speakers, I determined that the organized Jewish presence at the march was exactly nil. Obviously, there were Jews present, making themselves visible through signs in Hebrew, Stars of David, references to our time as refugees and victims, and exhortations to pursue justice, but they also seemed to march as individuals. 

Where was Hadassah? Where was the Anti-Defamation League? Where were the JCCs? Where was the USCJ, Women’s League, and JOFA? Where were the lines after lines of Jewish women and men who consistently mobilized to protest genocide in Darfur, terrorist attacks against Israel, or, in earlier times, for the Refuseniks of Russia and civil rights? While I know that a few did formally attend, such as the National Council of Jewish Women and AJWS, the myriad organizations of the Jewish community of America, the most powerful and wealthiest Jewish community of the world, seemed conspicuously absent.

Over the next few hours, I considered the reasons for this void. The most obvious answer was the fact that the march happened on Shabbos. Many synagogues and religious institutions grow skittish when faced with the violation of their official positions. Even Jewish political, cultural, and social groups recognize that Jews are both an ethnic and religious group, and aren’t quick to ask their members to violate Shabbat. But the more I considered this option, the more disappointed I became with that answer.

For years, it seems that Conservative clergy and leadership have almost exclusively preached Humanist dogma, selectively reading and cherry picking texts to give the impression that the essence of Judaism is not a belief in God or an observance of commandments and rituals, but a devotion to protecting our fellow humans. Hillel’s teaching that the Golden Rule is the epitome of Judaism, the concept of “saving a life is like saving the world,” and the reminder that saving a life is more important than Shabbat are so often repeated in a synagogue setting that even the average congregant can give those sermons from memory and then apply them to the human rights crisis of the moment. 

This moment, the first protest in defense of those whose rights and bodies are inherently threatened by the new administration, was the opportune time to follow words with actions. Why didn’t our rabbis tell us that, while coming to shul is important, it is superseded by participating in the protection of the lives and wellbeing of millions of fellow citizens? If Jared and Ivanka, now the most visible Jews in America, could get special Orthodox rabbinic dispensation to dance Inauguration Night away, why weren’t we told by our spiritual and moral leaders that our place on that historic Saturday wasn’t in the synagogue but on the streets? Heschel’s ubiquitous line about praying with his feet rings as a condemnation of every rabbi who invokes his civil rights activism but fails to appear because the trumpets sounded on Shabbat.

After calming my outrage (a cocktail helped), I considered a different possibility for the absence of the large Jewish organizations, and concluded that the current mentality of the mainstream Jewish communal organizations is not remotely prepared for the new landscape of liberal causes. After being overwhelmingly present during the Civil Rights movement, and claiming that moment as the emblem of our devotion to liberal justice, Jews largely moved away from protesting on behalf of our fellow Americans. The ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s were decades marked with increasing tension, rather than cooperation, between the Jewish and African-American communities, while Jews unified around their own issues, such as the Refuseniks and Israel.

At the same time, Palestinian activists have joined with many liberal causes, and used the power of intersectionality to infuse their own beliefs into the positions of indirectly related movements, like Black Lives Matter. Linda Sarsour’s position as one of the co-chairs for the March was no coincidence, but a clear indication that Palestinian rights are now inextricably linked with the causes of liberal activists. In contrast, Jewish organizations have been very late to the practice of intersectionality, and the position of many mainstream Jewish organizations on Israel creates a certain level of incompatibility and complications when it comes to joining forces with other liberal groups. The lack of a significant, vocal, and visible Jewish presence at the march was definitely a result of these trends.

As the new administration continues to roll out an already horrifying agenda, the Jewish community will have some tough questions to face. After years of hibernation, we are no longer the organizers or the platform-writers. We’ve spent too long with our backs turned away, and other voices, occasionally ones that are hostile to our interests, have filled the void we left. The Women’s March presented us with the golden opportunity to awaken the long-dormant spirit of Jewish protest and join forces around an issue that is, for most Jews, uncontroversial. It offered us the chance to embrace intersectionality and prove that, while we might be disparaged as privileged, we are nonetheless prepared to stand with those who need our support. The Women’s March was the first test of liberals in the Age of Trump, and we failed.

Reuben Berman is a graduate of Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary and a New York native. He has worked as a Fellow and Research Associate at the Reut Institute, a think-and-do tank in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Photo credit Dan Rosen.

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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.

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As you might have heard, the Zionist Organization of America invited recent Trump hire (and all-around hateful shmuck) Steve Bannon to speak at their gala last night in Manhattan. In response, hundreds of Jews and allies (including Muslims) protested the event, launching what they called the “New Jewish Resistance.” (It trended on Twitter, so it’s catching.) Bannon was a no-show, though whether or not that was related to the protest was unclear.

But was remarkable wasn’t just how many people showed up, it’s who they were. The Left, Jewish and otherwise, loves to talk about unity when lots of us can’t stand each other for one reason or another. But last night, people who normally avoid being in the same room joined together to march. Honestly, it felt a bit like a pre-Chanukah miracle.

There were four main organizers of the event, and they fell across the spectrum of leftist Jewish activism. T’ruah, for example, is opposed to BDS, and Jewish Voice for Peace supports it. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice remains neutral, saying the issue falls outside their “focus area.” But perhaps the most interesting group was the youngest of the four major organizers: If Not Now.

If Not Now exists to organize all Jews against the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian territories to move existing American Jewish organizations to condemn the Occupation, as well as to stand against anti-Semitism. Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, in theory. Even a friend of mine who attended an If Not Now training expressed skepticism— one umbrella for all anti-Occupation Jews is a mighty big umbrella, spanning from pro-BDS anti-Zionists to liberal Zionists critical of specific Israeli policies and politicians, and an ensuing difference in philosophy on every facet of identity, from religiosity to secular politics.

For the brief period the protest was stationed in front of the hotel hosting the ZOA gala (the police threatened the assemblies with arrest if they didn’t keep moving after only a few minutes), the group sang “Hinei Ma Tov,” a song that celebrates Jewish unity. For a moment, that struck me as ironic— we were inherently divided, since one gathering of Jews had come to protest the actions of another. And then, during that song, of all times, a man who had been holding a JVP banner approached a man who was waving a small Israeli flag.

“Do you know what that flag represents?” He asked.

“That I support a Jewish state,” replied the other.

The anti-Zionist insisted that carrying the Israeli flag represents Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Zionist insisted that he dislikes the current administration. The first man said that carrying the Israeli flag would offend half the protestors. The second man tried to brush him off.

This argument, ensuing during a song about Jewish unity, should have reinforced that there’s a problem here. But the anecdote sticks out because it was the only one I witnessed. Protestors holding Zionist signs marched alongside people wearing BDS pins. Literally every person there had people there with whom they strongly disagree. But finally, after all that big talk, the idea that anti-Semitism, racism, and bigotry are monsters worth fighting before getting to other issues was at the fore.

Despite how scary the current national political climate is, the protest was a reminder that it’s also kind of exciting to see what’s next. And it’s not that the issues of Israeli policy and its relationship with the United States aren’t important and complicated, but the ability to acknowledge that while still fighting a common enemy felt, finally, like more than a line.

How the argument between the two protestors end, as hundreds sang in Hebrew, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity?”

“In four years,” said one of the men, “We can go back to arguing with one another.”

Photos by Dan Rosen 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

The post Why We Protested Brooklyn Commons appeared first on Jewcy.

In case you missed it, Brooklyn Commons, a space for progressive community gatherings, is hosting an anti-Semitic writer and speaker tonight.

Christopher Bollyn is a run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorist, a 9/11 truther whose thumbtacks-tied-to-string ideas frequently blame “Jewish Zionists” for the 2001 attacks and continuing ills of the world.  In response to the controversy of his current speaking tour, many places that originally booked him have cancelled their event.

Not so Brookyln Commons.

The Commons responded with a laughable response letter, about how they couldn’t possibly have time to research all their speakers, how the Commons is so dedicated to fighting bigotry in all forms, and most bafflingly, but that how inviting someone like Bollyn is good because it helps “get to the root of racist thinking.”

This is obviously not satisfactory, and if you’re interested in going to the event tonight in protest, you can join an independent group currently organizing to attend the event, either to picket outside or cause disruption inside.

The information is all on Facebook, but here is some information it contains:

• To get inside (assuming you’re not just staying outside to protest) it costs $10.
• Any signs being brought cannot use a wooden pole or stick.
• Although Bollyn has a history of working with major White Power publications, the person introducing his talk is a black anti-Semite named Rudy Dent. Because of the “optics” of calling someone a neo-Nazi in public when they are appearing alongside people of different backgrounds, it could be a little tricky.
• If you plan to go inside, the use of whistles and noisemakers is rather effective.
• The address is 338 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.

You can coordinate with protest organizers here.

See you there?

Image via BKReader

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