The non Jewish community does not understand our fixation our obsession with Israel.
Good evening, and welcome to the 2018
To the 2016, 2019
Taglit-Birthright Israel Winter mega event
Summer mega event
Right here in Jerusalem
The eternal capital of our people
Is there anyone here from the United States of America
What’s your name, where are you from Buddy I’m Michael and I’m from Detroit Michigan.”
Everybody knows somebody who is the army
Israeli soldiers they’re hot there are awesome they're strong
They’re everything we could all want to be
Ah, my name is Aaron and I’m from Brooklyn New-York
I came at BirthRight in 2016 I joined the army 4 months after I finished BirthRight
Missed my flight back to America and I’m still in the army now.
The first time I've been to the United States I met so many nice people
Jewish Americans would tell me things like : « we like you but we don't like Palestinians »
Even though that I'm the only Palestinian they know.
Of course around that time I would take it personally but then you come to realize that people do not know
They know nothing about Palestine and Palestinians or have no idea about what Palestinians are going through.
Coming into Palestine the first time I remember asking people, what do you think ?
Shall I do it ? And the response that I always got was, you know : you're going to be killed.
As a curious young person like what is this thing that is so horrifying you can’t bear to let me see it
Because is that bad ?
Found in the depths of my family's house
I found some of my Hebrew Hebrew text books from elementary school
“Israel shel simkha” “my Israel”
congratulations to Simone Zimmerman for winning the Israel jubilee contest
February 1998 I was as seven.
I had like a pretty traditional jewish upbringing and grew up in L.A.
I went to a jewish day school kindergarten through the end of high school
I went to Jewish youth group jewish camps I had family in Israel
I lived in Israel in high school on an exchange program.
Israel was just treated like a core part of being a Jew
So you did prayers and you did Israel.
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Israel is something that I feel so passionately about like it's
You know it's my greatest passion I’m everything Israel.
I became a Jewish educator after my daughter's started Hebrew school
I started teaching second grade during the years they did fourth grade also
and just to be able to start them on this wonderful journey.
I mean, it’s, it’s, it gets in your blood
And we teach Israel at the day school very well
We introduce them to the food and to the music into the culture in addition to the history and the geography.
Figure out which one is the Israeli flag
draw a circle around every time you see the symbol of the state of Israel
Draw your own symbol of the state of Israel.
We also celebrated holidays obviously so Hanuka, Israeli independence...all of it, together.
Can you separate Israel and Judaism I don't know I can't
Some people I think can to me it's the same you can't separate it
Israel is Judaism and Judaism is Israel And that is who I am and that is my identity
And I think every single thing that I experienced along my life
has melted into that like there was never, you know, a divide for me.
I grew up in a conservative jewish households in Atlanta Georgia
Israel was a central part of everything we did in school
My elementary and middle school as well as my high school both had organized trips to Israel
Which was touted as one of the most important things you could do.
Do you wanna go to Israel too? Yeaaah !
We wanna go, we wanna go
When I've visited Israel the the first time when I was eight years old
I put a knot in the cartel in the western wall saying that
One day I hope to live in Israel and prosper.
Every one of our kids should be going over,
Not for ten days, but for a minimum of a semester or a year.
Every time I send somebody over at Israel, they come back
All of a sudden they feel totally different about who and what they are as Jews.
when I was a teenager and I went to Israel
it was amazing to me to travel on this place
where Hebrew was a language that I finally got to speak on the street with people
and were Jewish heroes the streets are named after them.
We’re planting seeds that eventually are gonna blossom
Does the average congregate understand that I'm teaching them to become Zionist
Probably not, but it is part of my madness so to speak.
I learned about Israel as this great miracle of jewish history.
For thousands of years we were persecuted and Israel is the place that you can go to be safe
My grandfather's family made it to Israel
his immediate family were some of the only ones who escaped the holocaust
Many American Jews of our most people I know have family or friends living in Israel .
Israel is the insurance policy it's still today a Jew doesn't have to worry
where is he you gonna go, god forbid
even here no holocaust survivor will say to you could never happen again.
I was born in Poland in 1940, not a good place for Jewish to be born
My parents were separated my father went through a series of camps.
who knows why I survived and 1.5 million Jewish or so perished
and so Israel became very very significant in my life even though six thousand miles away
I probably and visited Israel over a hundred times in my lifetime
you know as we sit now my grand daughter's there for two weeks in high-school.
I didn't have many friends in Israel growing up and every time I would visit Israel I felt closer and closer.
The Jewish summer camps would always bring a big contingency of Israelis
to try to drive Israeli culture within the camp and connect the American Jews to Israeli culture
So when I was in high school I went on this Jewish his trip to Israel and
one of the programs we did was called Kadna where we spent a day pretending to be soldiers
in the Israeli army, we wear army uniforms
and stuff like that was just sort of a normal part of what our childhoods looked like.
At summer camp in the middle of the night they would wake us up and take us out
sometime that was that was to pull pranks and other times I remember doing military games using the command "PAZATSTAS"
sneaking around so anytime the commander who was one of our counsellors said
PAZATSTAS we would all get on the ground
We made a game out of it simulating being in the military and sneaking around in having to be a part of that
On youth programs that I participated in in Israel you could spend a whole week on an Israeli army base
varying army uniforms and going through a sort of simulation of basic training and
that's where some people you know, learned to shoot guns for the first time.
It's not just regular military games it's specifically using Israeli military commands often with Israeli counselors giving them.
When you're young kid that really drills into you that this is something important
and I wanted to be a part of that.
We often talked about the ways that you could be a good supporter of the Jewish people one was to join the army
and the other was to go become an Israel advocate
They were even clubs within school to work on advocating for Israel
My high school sent a delegation to the AIPAC conference.
AIPAC the "American Israel Public Affairs Committee"
They are the people who tell the Congress which legislation effecting Israel they like and which they don't
“The bond between United States and Israel is unbreakable, today unbreakable tomorrow, unbreakable for ever.”
AIPAC is just a thing that you do
like going to the AIPAC conferences just sort of seen as a like a
Community event
Here with us today are leaders from across the pro-Israel community including Abe Foxman
I learned a long time ago there is no way you can say no to Abe
You know I don't know to what extent one anybody makes a difference I try to make a difference.
Jewish education is still a major priority already for the future in certainly relationship to Israel .
if you wanna ask me you had $ 100 millions, how would you change the future of American Jews ?
I would make trips to Israel available to any Jewish kid who wanted to go
make that experience. We're doing and now, it's called Birthright.
It is up to you to be our soldiers abroad, armed with love and knowledge and conviction
ready to sway public opinion in Israel favor.
Learning about the quotal quote "conflict" as something that is part of programming as something that
you have to learn how to defend Israel from the lies that other people are saying you have to be able to tell people the truth.
By the time I've got to college I had teachers who said to me people hate Israel
people are attacking Israel people don't know the truth about Israel
and we’re the only people who actually know the truth about Israel.
If You're jewish college student Hillel is your central address for Jewish life on campus.
As a freshman I remember walking into Helli
was one of the first places as I went when I got to campus.
It's a place where you can go for meals to meet other young Jewish people
Pro-Israel advocacy is a central part of how they work to engage Jewish young people
I am the director of engagement and programs throughout Hillel
and this campus happens to be very pro active for Israel
lot of people are very passionate a lot of people love Israel
and there's a lot of advocacy here on campus in lots of different ways, lots of different groups.
How did you become involved in "Advocacy For Israel" ?
I kind of came to the lodge cause I was new in campus and didn’t really know where to go
and i really did find a lot of friends here.
I came here on and off but then when I’m on the Birthright trip and kinda got to know the staff
Tommy and Jackie lot better got to know people at Hellil a lot better
and just got to know Israel a lot better, I came back and I knew that
I want put a lot more of myself into helloing the Jews community on campus
and just Israel advocacy in general
On birthright we had Israeli soldiers with us for entire trip you learn so much and you learn the reason that they serve
it’s just a feeling that I don't think any of us could ever imagine except for Tim
My job is doing Israeli programs on campus and that relates to Jewish events cultural or political
ah sorry, Israeli events cultural or political
I would say name a university in America we probably have a person there
I like to talk about the army a lot, because that's an experience that I lived through and I have a lot of personal stories
There’s a couple of students that be : yeah I'm I'm thinking about joining the IDF one day
so my first thing is saying them “are you sure ?"
because it's not an easy decision
that being said it will probably end up being the most meaningful experience that you ever go through
You gonna tell your kids stories about it, hum.
One of our former young emissaries just graduated into the air force
and that's the greatest gift you can give you know
and we actually have had quite a few of my former students join the IDF
amazing and it’s just amazing, these are kids, these are just eighteen nineteen year old.
It’s like something I dreamed about doing since I was like seven years
You have like us you find yourself a purpose
All my friends are so proud of me and they understand that this is something like I have to do
Almost ten percent of my graduating class at my jewish high school joined the Israeli army
and I had many friends from my summer camp and New Year's group who joined the army as well
Part of becoming part of Israeli society is to join the military
When i was in high school I told my parents I don't even need to apply to college
because I'm gonna just join the Israeli military and make Aliha and live in Israel
I honestly felt for many years that I fit in better in Israeli society than I do an American society
even before I moved there and I wanted to defend what I saw as my country
so when I enlisted I was a "Maggist" which is a heavy machine gunnist
during my basic and advanced training and then they put me on a light machine gun
We were training for war training for strategy to conquer hilltops
and conquer open spaces
one week was focused on urban warfare in close quarters
and that was simulated in what looks like Arab housing
after this seven months of our training we were deployed to the West Bank.
Our missions included working in two different checkpoints
patrolling villages on foot in full gear in bulletproof vests
we would go into apartment buildings go up to the roof and make sure that we could be seen
so that we could make our presence felt
we wanted them to know we wanted them to know that we were watching that was the goal of the mission
we would set up what’s called a check-post which is a checkpoint that is situated at a major intersection
At checkpoints we would stop people create a traffic jam
check their IDs check their trunks
every day on their way to work or on their way to visit their family.
To keep them on their toes essentially, and they, being Palestinians.
Even though Israel was a central part of everything we did in the school
we never really discussed the Palestinians
it was presented to us that Israel was basically an empty wasteland
When the Jews arrived there were some Arabs there they said but it was no organized people
they really treated the land poorly
Yeah there are there are Palestinians and they just want to kill us all and want us to leave the land.
I just don't think I had any conception of anything about what it means to be a Palestinian
besides that it means you’re a person who kills Jews or wants to kill Jews.
It was always presented to us that the Arabs only know terrorism.
Ever since I came back from the States I realize that the best way to help people understand the reality
imposed on us by the state of Israel is for them to be there
The one thing that I want to give the rest of my life for is to help people understand the reality that is going in Palestine
I grew up all of my life in this occupation I grew up in Bethlehem in Palestine
To be honest I do have my days where I wake up I look in the mirror and ask what is going on
and and what and I even do today to change anything in the situation
I remember from the youngest age growing up with my parents always warning me always telling me not to go out to go on the street,
not to play on the street because of the soldiers and the settlers
Of course that your first experience with the soldier is terrorizing
you know especially because they would invade your house
or your family's house late at night
like they love to work after midnight
My first experience with the soldiers as a child
was an experience that put fear in me
An American Jewish soldier talking to my father and yelling at him and shouting at
which, of course, as a child, you feel very ashamed then insulted
and then my father, because ironically we are American citizens as well
turned to him in an American accent and asked him where he was from
and then the soldier he was almost like shocked by this by this question
because for his mind he wants to say "Israel" and Jewish people but he's talking to an American now
and he told him "I’m from Chicago"
and then just as this reality that like even as a child I remember this this this American soldier
who just moved here to be part of an army to play cowboys and Indians.
Somebody who comes here from New-York or from Chicago and claiming that this land is theirs
What makes like and eighteen years old American kid, who was given a ten days trip for free in Palestine
What make them want to come in and sacrifice his life
Why would a foreigner think it's okay to have superior rights
to the rights to the indigenous population because somebody told them it's home
This is our land this is ours that's what was conveyed to us.
It gutted me that people look at Palestine and Palestinians from the point of view of the oppressor
not from the point of view of the oppressed
I think what I knew about who was in Israel before the state was created
is basically there were some Jews always there
most Jews were in exile we’d always wanted to go back.
The idea that there were native inhabitants that lived there was not even part of my frame of reference.
This restaurant makes the most delicious Houmous and Falafel in town
These families are not from the town of Bethlehem just like my mother's family they were expelled from the city of Jaffah back in 1948.
I was born to a family of victims of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
the ethnic cleansing that was carried on by the founders of the state of Israel
My mother's family were expelled from the largest Palestinian city pre-1948 which was the city of Jaffah.
My father was a newborn at that time he was carried by his family they ended up in Bethlehem
waiting for atrocities to come to an end so they would be able to go back home
Of course none of those people were ever allowed back home.
My father's family was in Jerusalem up until 1948
when the war happened he was shot by sniper and was killed on the spot
His children actually dragged his body down and buried him in the courtyard of the house
A few days later when the jewish forces took over that neighborhood
they demanded that all the non-Jews of that neighborhood be evicted
It was the biggest mass exodus percentage-wise of a people from their land in modern history.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine the term “Nakba”
“The Catastrophe”
is the tragedy or catastrophe that hit almost every single Palestinian family
nearly 750.000 victims.
It’s traumatizing in almost every possible level
Nearly 78% of the land of Palestine became under the control of the state of Israel.
What else was I told about Israel, we were told
it was a land without a people for people without a land and we came back
from the ashes of the holocaust the state of Israel was birthed
The rights of the people that lived here does not exist in that narrative
and other than us being an obstacle the Nakba continues
it started in 1948 and continues until this day.
In 1967 the state of Israel managed to complete his control over Palestine
by taking over the territory of the West Bank and the territory of Gaza.
Ok, here’s the good stuff, more maps of greater Israel.
That was sort of, you know, the whole land, we were always told that the whole land was ours.
You know, that’s sort of what they teach us.
After the 1967 war Israel put a very forceful very violent military force
to dominate and control the lives of the Palestinians that continues until this day.
The intention of Israeli control over the land of Palestine is complete colonization the territory
Building homes for those who are born to Jewish families.
And also demolishing the homes of those were who born from Palestinian families.
Palestinians kicked out of from their homes confiscated by settlers
You are stealing my house
And if i don't steel it someone else is gonna steel it
No, no one is allowed to steal it "ya hami" (my uncle)
A massive movement to confiscate land to build settlements to expand settlements
Before we were even fully trained we were deployed to protect settlements
it was all for the security of this settlements.
Israel filled occupied West Bank with Jewish Israelis living in different colonies and settlements throughout the region
and those individuals are subject to Israeli civil law
While you have Palestinians living within the exact same territory those are subject to Israeli military law
When an American citizen comes here he has more right
than I would have my entire life.
We are in the quoted quote “West Bank” we’re in the quoted quote “settlements”
This is one of the road blocks that kind of ensure that cars get checked
to see that no terrorists are coming in.
I lived in America and then I came back to Israel by myself
at the age of 17 to serve in the army.
And there are elements what I would call the Jihadist elements that don't accept our presence here
but that’s just tough for them
it’s a great vision coming to flourish in our time and is nothing gonna stop us.
From the day you are born you’re living day in day out day in day out
without experiencing a day of freedom.
Palestinians have to be forced to live in cages
So I'm a Israeli born and raised
As a young Israeli growing up, my grandparents lived in the center of Jerusalem
“The battle for Jerusalem at least twenty six people are reported dead.”
People I knew were injured and killed and
from a very young age, I knew I'm gonna be joining the military
I was never in a Palestinian house till I barge into one in the middle of the night
One thing that I did routinely was a mission where you are ordered to take over a Palestinian family's home
and use that house as a military point
no warrant and you don't call in advance it's a military occupation.
And during my service there were many moments where I saw myself acting violently
and there were moments of of shame
We can detain any Palestinian just because he looked at us in the wrong way
that's a system that's based on violence.
Oh, oh, oh, what are you doing ?
Security, it's about security...is he a threat for you ? We don't know yet
When I was stationed in the West Bank one day one of my commanders
came and grabbed me and one other soldier and said
there is a detainee at the Khowara checkpoint
and we need to go pick him up and bring him to the detention center that's in the base
When we got there the Palestinian detainee who was maximum in his early twenty's
he was sitting on the curb with his hands tied behind his back with zip ties and blindfolded.
We got to the detention center within the base and right outside there were about eight soldiers waiting for us.
They saw us come they grabbed the detainee from our hands
and threw him to the ground while he's still blindfolded and hands tied behind his back
and they started kicking him for a good few minutes
I was responsible for this man's well being.
I was responsible to bring him from the checkpoint to the detention center, that was my job.
And right outside the fence of the detention center they grab him from me and they start beating him.
I felt responsible but
my commander wasn't saying anything so how could I say anything.
The entire time that this was happening a military police officer
was standing just inside the fence watching and smoking a cigarette
As soon as these guys were done kicking this Palestinian man
the military police officer tossed his cigarette He came, brought him inside the detention center
and I didn't even speak up... I didn't speak up
That's just one of many stories that I have from my time in the West Bank
It took many years for me to really count terms with my part in it
only after I got out of the army did I begin to realize that
the stuff that I did in the day-to-day
just working in checkpoints patrolling villages
that in and of itself was immoral.
Palestinians in the West-Bank even though their lives are controlled by the state of Israel from morning noon and night
are not even theoretically citizens of the country in which they live.
You see in some ways what non-democracy looks like up close.
When people look at the West-Bank and say is an apartheid system and it's not just throwing out a word
a Palestinian lives under a different legal system than an Israeli settler living next door
Anyone who you know sees these facts on the grounds or speaks to Palestinians
would understand that this a process of settler’s colonization of an apartheid regime.
I remember crossing that checkpoint into Bethlehem and before this
I've been very much opposed to ever using the word apartheid
but seeing night and day difference just by crossing this wall changed that for me in an instant.
Assuming in serving in the Israeli army is obviously one way of supporting Israel but there's also another modern battle
that is happening on campuses each and every single day
and you are standing in front of it, and hum, I mean
the Israeli government and Israeli people thank you for that and that's why they put me here probably and I thank you for that
hum, there’s a lot of PR to be made.
This university thank god is fairly a-political
but I’ve heard all over the place how you universities
are these hot beds of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel work
I remember very vividly I was sitting in my dorm-room with a friend of mine we got a phone call
that an anti Israel bill was being introduced in the student government we bought-in
on the way called our parents both got sent talking points
and then we went into this student government meeting
The students senate at the university of California Berkeley
calling on campus officials to divest from companies
that supply weapons that Israel uses
in it's occupation of the Palestinian territories
You are siding with the Palestinians on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict there's just no question about it.
I just knew it was this bad thing that I had to fight
It is anti-Semitism : it is !
You're trying to make me feel marginalized on my own campus.
And I remember all of us going “well, hu,
you shouldn't boycott Israel because it's applying a double standard
and “you shouldn't boycott Israel because
it's unfair to single-out Israel.
Please, I beg of you , I beg you please
to have compassion and to remember
that we're alienating student and I
am devasted by this bill and I’m a human being”
I still remember you have these Palestinian students who get up and said you know
Jewish students you are crying about feeling silenced and marginalized you know
You know my aunts and cousins didn't sleep for weeks while bombs were falling over
heading Gaza. What do you have to say to that ?
If divestment is hostile then where do we begin
to describe the hostility of a military occupation ?
I was thrown into all these conversations where people were throwing around
all these words that I've never heard before
“occupation” “settlements” “apartheid” “ethnic cleansing”
I just never heard anyone use any of these terms before.
Thought I knew so much about Israel, but i didn't really know what anybody who's talking about
when they were talking about all these things.
I remember coming to Hellil and saying “why aren’t we answering Palestinian students questions”
I would feel really embarrassed by it because mostly I felt like we weren't doing a good job
refuting their argument. Do we not have an actual counter argument
besides like rockets double standard anti-Semitism.
People...people, I...I couldn't get answer from any body
and that was really disturbing for me.
I mean, there are these people called Palestinians who think that Israel wields all this power
over the their lives and don't have rights, don't have water.
What like literally what is this ? How how is this happening ? How do I had I respond to it ?
People that have a problem with Israel there is a good chance they’re misguided in somewhere
Everyone have the freedom in Israel like you can have any religion and you can do whatever you want in Israel
but only in Israel in the Middle-East.
A lot of them, like it's lot, it's a lot of misinformation
some of it comes from misinformation, some of it comes from ignorance, some of it comes from lies
And it's very hard to deal with that in any kind of a have a positive way
when they're coming from such a place of not understanding
what the reality the situation when they just have this in their in their head
all this misinformation and all these lies
I mean somehow pro-Palestinian has become pro-social justice.
I wanted to know answers from within my own community and
nobody could answer those questions for me.
How is it that I am like the best the Jewish community has to offer
I've been there all the training's all the programs and I don't know what the occupation is
I don't know what the settlements are
Eventually I got to a point where I found myself wanting answers
to the questions the Palestinians students were asking
and so it led me on a process of trying to go figure those things out for myself.
What is this thing that is so horrifying you can't bear to let me see it.
The summer after my freshman year I went to Palestine and
I knowingly crossed line for the first time.
I don't think I realize the extent to which what I would come to see on the ground
would really shock me and or horrify me.
So if you look at your maps, we’re standing again right before hum
is going to turn red just so we hear, where the soldier are standing
So just look behind you guys this is a block of houses
the people living in all these apartments here we were not allowed to walk on this main road
So this was, look, like a red road, a "sterilized" road
and imagine, if you're a family living here you can’t open the front door
of your house and walk out.
I am listening to Palestinian students talking about
what it was like being beaten at a checkpoint
and sitting down with a Palestinian family and and
hearing their story about being displaced by Israeli settlers
And even when we fix the water wells, and we try to cultivate the rainwater
to come into the water wells. Even those things are being attacked by the settlers
Either they to throw stones on them Or they throw chemicals in them
or they throw dead animals in the wells.
He’s saying first he welcomes you. Thank you very much for coming.
Especially because you're Jewish
The area here is populated by Palestinian farmers.
Supreme court in Israel ruled that they are allowed to live in the caves
that are here. They're not allowed to build anything.
Today the civil administration and the army came
and demolished some of the tents here
Something is deeply wrong here and it's, it's breaking my heart.
What we've been told is that the only way that Jews can be safe
is if Palestinians are not safe.
I guess the more I learn about that
the more I came to see that...as a lie.
So this is the checkpoint that divides Jerusalem from Bethlehem
Palestinians definitely cannot drive on this road
So you can see that we're basically driving
with walls on both sides of us right now.
You wanna go to like the major square or where would you want to go ? Well, you head man !
This is my barber
(laughs and Arabic small talk)
As someone who came to see Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv as places that I should imagine as home
I remember coming into the West-Bank for the first time
and actually seeing this place as someone else’s home
This is a normal place where people are just
trying to live their lives.
For me to get to Jerusalem I have to think of : first of all having the permit
getting to the checkpoint waiting in lines for the checkpoint
getting to the soldiers at the checkpoint
that soldier might do anything to me at that point
including sending me back. And then crossing the checkpoint
and then having to take public transportation
It’s just the fact that I can not drive as a Palestinian I can not drive
in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel.
So we drove here today and...
Yeah, if I'm not home by 10pm and I get caught on other side
Then I can be detained. I could lose my permit, for good
I could be put in prison. I could be...
beaten up by soldiers
Who knows what will happen to me
Almost any rooftop you stand on in Bethlehem, you look one way or the other
you will see a settlement built around you.
I started coming here in 2010. I heard you speak to a group
about anti-semitism and inherited trauma
and started thinking a lot about
what it means to challenge my community
around the deep ingrained traumas
that as that are totally stopping us from
any sort of movement on this issue
My first learning experience was when I was invited to go to Auschwitz
on a "bearing-witness retreat"
I actually say in Auschwitz, I discovered
one of the main reasons why this conflict exists today
which is this inherited trauma that exists in the Jewish community
where the feeling is that, as Jews, we’re always attacked
we've always been attacked will always be attacked and therefore
the only way to maintain ourselves is to create
this very suppressive security mechanism
that would prevent this from happening again
I mean that's what I learned
Yeah that's what I heard.
What is important for many of the Israeli Jews
and the Jews from around the world we talked to
is the simple recognition and acknowledgment of the story
and that story is where
the healing work begins to happen
As an activist, I think for many activists what keeps us going
is our ability to be able to look towards the future
I really believe that there is an emerging
awakening within the American Jewish community
I’ve had even some American Jews who come here and they say
we came to Israel and we left from Palestine
For American Jews coming here and listening to us
and hearing us and seeing our humanity
and understanding that we are not just out sitting in bunkers
planning the next attack against Israelis
That we do have a desire to live in peace
and to have our freedom, and to be walking on our streets
and eating in our restaurants and we, hum, I mean...
it's crazy that I have to say this that we are real human beings that just want to survive
and live and like all other people in this the world.
The moment they see this and experience this for themselves
it creates something in them, it shifts something in them
what they do with it when they go back it becomes their responsibility.
I came home and spoke out I think initially
it was very painful and shocking for a lot of people
I had friends from high school and from college who didn't know how to speak to me at the beginning
because these conversations were forbidden for us growing up.
I've grown up very much as a product of this
mass mobilization across the community
to ensure that young people
stay engaged in pro-Israel politics
For most people I know oh who actually took the time
to see with their own eyes what was happening
It very quickly challenges everything we've been taught.
It's very painful
because it is so intimately bound up
with the identity of the community
Their have always been Jews who have spoken out for Palestinian rights
and more and more people are willing
to take off their binders looking at this reality
saying this is intolerable
I continued to meet more and more young people like me
who are having similar experiences
and it made me realize that I was part of a bigger story
of something that was happening not just to me
but to young people around the country
We decided to bring the crisis of
American Jewish support for Israel
to the doorsteps of Jewish institutions
to force that conversation in public
First of all, all my friends at AIPAC stop talking to me. I've lost many childhood friends over this
Also many friends have like come along politically with me over the years
many of my family have also
many of my family also deeply disagree with me
Every time I protested outside of a Jewish community event of some kind I have seen a friend
a family friend a parent of a friend on the other side of the barricade
We are literally talking about parents and children
Young Jews they go to the Jewish federations they go to the reform movement
They go to their day schools and they say
You mobilized me to be a soldier for Israel
But I had been completely misled.
We are also in a moment when there is he possibility of
of some kind of alternative.
I see it hundreds of times and over and over again and those hundreds speak for thousands and they went to the Jewish camps
and they went to the days schools and they went to the synagogue’s Hebrew schools
They're really really angry at the way they were educated
and the way that they were indoctrinated
hum, about these issues and justifiably so
The indoctrination is so severe it's almost hard
to have a conversation about it
It's heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking
Our community right now has to grapple with our complicity.
...and we want to welcome you, to the Jewish protesting
Jewish opinion is split some Jewish groups
vocally oppose Israel's military policies
“More than a thousand Jewish activists descended on Washington DC
Sunday to protest AIPAC.”
“So we tell some of our more conservative brothers and sisters on the inside
that you do not represent the best of the Jewish
prophetic tradition and we’re here to bear witness around the world"
It’s a new day now, I think you got a number
of young Jewish brothers and sisters
who are undergoing more spiritual awakening that are deeply concerned
about the suffering of Palestinians
they come from a people who have been hated but they don't want to see the cycle of hate
perpetrated even by Jews themselves.
Israel it’s been part of my life since early childhood.
Within the Jewish community oh there's been a striking change
and Israel's well aware of it
human will and commitment can change things
My name is Tanya it’s the first time I'm using my full real name, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinians
and I never thought in my life I would be standing with this many Jews for Palestine
I'm a rabbi
As long as Palestinian lives are treated as disposable
Our house, as a people, is not in order.
Tomorrow we show up, and we march
For the bill sheet of Palestinians
Free, Free Palestine
Free, free, free Palestine
Free, Free Palestine
Free, free, free Palestine
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib :
“I am the only Palestinian American member of congress now
how many Palestinians have to die for their lives to matter ?"
Life under apartheid strips Palestinians of their human dignity
How many more decades to they need to endure this subjugation
before there is a shift in this unreasonable status quo
And what would you recommend ?
I would recommend freedom !
The real challenge is trying to keep that moral and spiritual dimensions strong
Cause any time you cut against a grave. And you’re gonna catch hell.
The anti-occupation Jews
are blocking Damascus Gate
End the occupation
Israeli Jews say (Hebrew)
I don't think it's as serious as it's made up to be, okay ?
they’re entitled, it's fine, okay !
I don't think they represent much
I think they’re a little super naive
I think that this...most of American Jews
even though they have different views on settlements or occupation
I think that's still a decision at the end of the day
they’re gonna leave for the Israelis to make
As long as Israel is under threat
and as strong as it is and as dynamic as it is
it's still under threat from it's neighbors
and a hundred thousand missiles, we postpone
that philosophical debate to another time
Palestinians are so dehumanized in the community that it's really hard
for people to figure out how to even understand
Palestinians legitimate rights and claims to the land
“Palestinians gathered for protesting the Israeli Gaza border”
They're demanding the right to return to lands from which they were forced out in 1948
At least 55 Palestinians died Monday during mass protests
Israeli troops fired on the demonstrators
Look at the more recent Gaza demonstrations
Ask yourself the question if the Mexicans stood at the border and march
A million Mexicans or 20.000 Mexicans, what would America do ?
You know first they would try tear gas and this or that
and eventually they would have to shoot.
There are a lot of Jewish young people who see a Jewish establishment
that is racist that is nationalistic
Israel is in the Middle-East and not the Midwest
So the neighbors are not necessarily the Jones or the Smiths
I don’t want war, but it’s been imposed on us
So we should do right, and defeat the terrorists
We don't want to be a part of that
but we are actually building an alternative
I've been involved in this work for about a decade
I was seen as a face of this young growing Jewish resistance
to the American Jewish establishment
It made perfect sense to me that Bernie would hire someone like me
as a Jewish outreach coordinator
Within about 48 hours of being on the campaign
the attack started rolling in
These old man from the Jewish establishment came out to say
you know that I was dangerous that I was a threat
a journalist wrote an article about me the headline was
“Bernie sanders new Jewish outreach coordinator is an outspoken critic of Israeli occupation”
The next headline that I found out about when I walked into work was :
“Abe Foxman calls on Sanders to fire new Jewish community liaison for quote “anti Israel comments”
“On Thursday the Sander’s campaign suspended it's new national Jewish outreach coordinator
Simone Zimmerman, two days after she was hired.”
So as far as I'm aware this was Abe Foxman’s first comment in public since his retirement from the ADL
and he came out of retirement to defend the world
from the great threat of Simone Zimmerman
It hurts me for Jewish kid to stand up there and say : Justice for the Palestinians
and not saying : Justice for the Israelis
Troubles me, hurts me, me bothers me, it means we failed
We failed in educating and explaining etcaetera
When we talk about : "we're losing the kids"...
Hu...We lost them !
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We see that many millennials are becoming desenchanted with Israel and
And, hum, I take a very different approach on this. I say to them
we need to love Israel even more
It...it means that we, we're the older generation have much more work to do
This whole communal obsession with defending Israel has basically worked into
seeing someone like me as a threat to the community
The word that I used to hear a lot was “self hating Jew”
Like the only way that a Jewish person could possibly
care about the humanity of Palestinians is if you hate yourself
Let’s see what I find in here.
You are a self loathing Jew, go kill yourself
...With Jews like you who needs ignorant racist bigot Arabs
You work against our people...You're an anti-semitic Jew...You've been working for the enemy
Simone Zimmerman another member of the lunatic anti-semitic far-left
There's always been this argument of : "Oh you can't criticize Israel"
Criticizing Israel feeds anti-semitism
Criticizing Israel helps the enemies of Israel
As more and more American Jews are speaking out in support of Palestinian freedom
Now they just say instead we're over anti-semite
We hate all Jewish people or even worse that we're not Jewish at all.
We are attacked as be being not really Jewish
if we’re not support of Israel
And that's where you start seeing just a blanket de-legitimization
of an entire sector of American Jewish society
focusing on this so called new anti-semitism
And then came the new anti-semitism which was the anti-semitism relating to Israel
What some have said that Israel became the Jew of the nations.
In the same way that historically, you know, whatever was permitted for anybody else
was not permitted for the Jew. Now israel was singled out...
So many of the self appointed leaders of our community have been trying to equate the idea of
supporting Palestinian rights itself with anti-semitism
This is about anti-Israel, anti-semitic attitude. Classic new anti-semitism.
The extreme left has a long history of anti-semitism,
of-of-of-of, of anti-israel hatred.
How stupid have they been for all these years, voting for Obama
and other anti-semites like him.
Unwillingness to grapple with Palestinian suffering
is putting a lot of American Jews in a really dangerous and sad position
How far will Jewish Americans go in their effort
to quash pressure on Israel.
You know how far will people go, it's hard to see.
How far they won't go, is this is where things are today
Again the pro-Israel's leaders just want to be in the room with the people in power.
They will do anything to preserve unconditional support for Israel
Thank you. When I become president.
The days of treating Israel
like a 2nd class citizen
will end on day one
History is not going to judge just kindly
I’d like to say that we were blessed by heaven with Donald Trump
being elected President of the Unites States.
We should pray that they should remain in office
and that he should continue to do the great things he does.
On behalf of the United States of America and on behalf of Israel
We're saying like of for fine combination of what support of Israel at all cost
has led to...disregarding any lesson of history
disregarding any sort of morality
The great irony of having this be where we are today within the Jewish community
is that there actually is resurgent anti-semitism.
The kind that I think my generation
and the generations that have come after me never thought we'd see in our lifetimes
Hail Trump Hail our people Hail victory
In the US couple of things have been happening, number go to Trump or Trumpism.
It's not easy...is he a biggot, is he.... I don't think he's a biggot.
I think he is what he is. I don't think he’s a racist so I don't think is an anti-semite.
I think that you can call him all kinds of things…
The community has spent so much time attacking anyone who criticizes Israel
and their actual threats to our community
That has led our communal institutions to basically be silent
in the face of rising white nationalism
Jews will not replace us.
The way that we talk about anti semitism isn't about protecting Jews it's about protecting Israel.
How dangerous is that at this moment with the rise of anti semitism
And often when American politicians are asked about anti-semitism
they talk about their support for Israel
Support for Israel, today, is actually replacing
what it means to be a Jew
These people have basically decided that support for Israel
is more important than the safety of Jews
We're not going to say anything about the spreading of these anti semitic conspiracy theories
We have seen a tremendous amount of this use of vile
anti semitic tropes.
The thread talks about a Jewish plot to enslave people in the United-States
Anti semitic flyers sipped in Covid-19 conspiracies saying
every single aspect of the Covid agenda is Jewish
That's the way the Jews work.
They decei...They are deceivers
They plot. They lie
They do whatever they have to do
The gunmen told a SWAT officer that he wanted all Jews to die
and that they were committing genocide against his people
It’s a profoundly sad moment, I think it’s tipping moment
These anti semitic nightmares that we all...
like it's all coming to life, in front of our eyes
I can't help but think about all the American Jewish organizations
that have spent the last decade pouring millions of $
into smearing and marginalizing human rights advocates
Jewish, Palestinian and not, trying to brand Palestinian protest
as anti-semitic
when there were neo-Nazis
trying to kill us and our synagogues
My parents' and grandparents' generation
grew up in a world in which Jews were not safe.
They invested so much in the idea
Jews could only be safe through Israel
But our safety and our security is actually bound up in
the safety and the security of all people
The most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the country
are now donating money
to republican politicians who either incited or
continue to support the righters who
stormed the capital on January 6
That's part of a politics of solidarity.
It feels totally morally coherent and morally urgent
to support freedom and dignity for all people
in all the places that we live
Palestinians have already been telling us this for decades.
So guys here is the
the the wall...
but, the world is finally coming to catch up
For me I would say if anybody has any influence
on Israeli policy
and I say this with a big if
it is the American Jewish community
The American Jewish community have the potential
to have the greatest influence
in shifting our reality outside of this land
For many people around the world when they see the voice of the Jewish community
rise and protest against this occupation
it will allow other voices to say yes
we could also have a voice in it as well
Now we're doing joint work in trying to end this occupation
and bringing peace and justice into this land.
The most inspiring experiences I had
are with Jewish Americans
that come in and take a stand
We’re gonna hear tonight number of personal stories
at some point you guys decided to
call upon break the silence
and I'm interested was there a particular moment
that lead you to this
In 2008, I, I joined the military
in America we have this concept of innocent until proven guilty
there is no innocent Palestinian according to the army
("that's so not true"...) in occupied territory
"quiet down please !"... "get out of here...come on, you lie...
that's a lie...she said there's no such" ..."It’s not a lie"
What we're talking about is not getting Palestinians
the right that we Israelis...and that’s apartheid.
To go against the grain is not an easy thing to do
So I did not speak about my experiences in the occupation
publicly until very recently
I was afraid that I would be demonized
I've seen friends of mine, being demonized
for speaking out about the same things
The first time I ever spoke publicly about my experiences
I cried the whole time that I was speaking.
It's gotten a little bit easier to talk about since then
because I have taken the time to process it
But that doesn't mean it's easy any time I talk about these experiences...
But we can't wait any longer
I've been longing for this Jewish conversation for seventeen years.
We’re here today...hum
to talk about some things that are often
...can feel impossible in the Jewish community
These conversations can happen we are not risking our Jewish history
you are not closing a door or to the rest of your Jewish life.
All that we have to risk is our denial...
I can start.
My high school had an Israel studies class
all about when you go to college
and people start telling you about Israel beeing an apartheid state
this is how you respond
From, like summer camp in my youth movement
one the one of the core tenant of it was that the Jewish state needed to be built
and just no questioning of what price we were really willing to pay
or willing to make Palestinian pay
As an Israeli, Palestinian identity itself
is not something I had to learn that it exists
So slowly, as I
came to learn, the occupation exists
I started learning that there is another narrative
We're here to talk about the history that's often referred to as "The Nakba"
750.000 people displaced from their homes
At least 400 villages undone in their entirety
The colonization is also ongoing
The ongoing Nakba
the continued, not just the historical, but the continued
but the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
I have been blessed to witness the ways that Palestinian society
continues to find ways to thrive
But we can't deny that there has been catastrophe
and that it's been catastrophic the scale of loss
We’re really here to teach each other but I think nothing's as important as action
Because we're talking about ongoing displacement
People might tell you that if you stand up for Palestinian rights
that you aren't really Jewish,
that you're maybe a self hating Jew
As a rabbi what I see when i look at the work of solidarity
is a long chain of Jewish history
This chain of people of ancestors and text and traditions
that are about justice and fighting for it.
Jewish tradition tells us to envision a world where all people are safe and free
To never stop fighting for that world
So, may you all feel blessed in a tradition of liberation
and may you be blessed to know you're not alone...
And let's get to work