We Jews make this statement
Open Letter: No, Anti-Zionism is NOT Anti-Semitism
Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, declared in a New York Times op-ed that “Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism”.
He could not be more wrong. Zionism is a political movement just like the Temperance movement or the Pro-Choice movement. It’s a group of ideas with a goal. It calls for a country run strictly for the benefit of Jews. One can oppose that idea without being a racist hater of Jews. Indeed, Zionism has only had a mass following among Jews since the last years of the 1800’s. Famous Jewish anti-Zionists included New York Times publisher Adolph Simon Ochs, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, reform rabbi Elmer Berger, Auschwitz-survivor Hago Meyer, and the anti-Nazi intelligence agent Leopold Trepper. Prominent today are Israeli lawyer Lea Tzemel, the American writer Ben Ehrenreich and Prof. Daniel Boyarin, Professor of Talmudic Culture, UC Berkeley. Groups of anti-Zionists included the tens of thousands in Europe in the pre-WWII Bund movement, the Jews in Israel of the Matzpen movement, the American Council for Judaism, and now include 20,000 Ultra-orthodox Satmar Jews, the Neturei Karta and the U.S. group Jewish Voice for Peace with its half-million Facebook followers. There are many valid reasons to oppose Zionism. Among them are Israel’s savage mistreatment of Palestinians, its regard of Jews outside Israel as inferiors and Zionism’s long treacherous history of deals with anti-Semites and ultra-rightists and in some cases killers of Jews. Necessary work against real anti-Semitism is being politically exploited and undermined by the the Kushners, Trumps, and Boris Johnsons and from Right-wing forces within Israel. It is grotesque that Jared Kushner has the gall to pontificate about anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. He serves in the administration of Donald Trump, who has opened the floodgates of hate, whose “Great” America has seen the worst massacre of Jews in American history and who often uses anti-Jews slurs. It is grotesque that this false equivocation is made and given serious consideration while we should be focusing instead on the Israeli government tearing down Palestinian homes, dividing Palestinian land with wall after wall, locking Palestinians up without charges or trials, excusing virtually all individual killings of Palestinians by soldiers and police, and launching a massacre in Gaza every few years. If you’d like to sign on to this statement send your full name and a line of identification (occupation, activist group, general geographic location, whatever) to: [email protected] |
Signers:
Alice Beauchamp
Jews against the Occupation; Sydney
Elizabeth Block
Toronto, Canada
Member of Independent Jewish Voices
Daniel Boyarin,
A Jewish Voice for Peace
Phil Brewer, MD
Emergency Physician and University Medical Director
Member New Haven JVP
Smadar Carmon
Human rights activist,
Toronto, Canada
James Cohen,
Professor, University of Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle)
Daniel Fischer,
South Bend, Indiana
Jean Gagne
Supporter, Independent Jewish Voices
Active volunteer, New Democratic Party of Canada
Tony Greenstein
Vice President Brighton & Hove Trades Union Council
Great Britain
Stanley Heller
Host of TV news program, author “Zionist Betrayal of Jews”
Neil Hertz,
professor emeritus, Johns Hopkins University
Jake Javanshir
Raised in Israel, now a Unitarian Activist
Daphna Levit
Author
Jennifer Loewenstein
Middle East Researcher, The London Independent; VP of Palestine Chronicle.
Palestine rights activist.
Leslie Singer Lomas
Boulder, Colorado, USA
member, Jewish Voice for Peace
Savvas Michael-Matsas,
Writer and General Secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK), Greece
Vivienne Porzsolt
Jews against the Occupation Sydney
Ned Rosch
Named after uncle murdered in the Holocaust; activist for justice for all who live in Palestine/Israel
Martha Roth
Independent Jewish Voices - Canada
Sid Shniad
Founding member
Independent Jewish Voices Canada
Miriam Swenson
Jewish American
Arizona
Suzanne Weiss
author Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey
Abraham Weizfeld PhD
Jewish Socialist Bund
Montréal, Nablus
Dr. Ron Witton
Jews Against the Occupation
Austinmer NSW Australia
Julie Wornan
Environmental activist, France
Jews against the Occupation; Sydney
Elizabeth Block
Toronto, Canada
Member of Independent Jewish Voices
Daniel Boyarin,
A Jewish Voice for Peace
Phil Brewer, MD
Emergency Physician and University Medical Director
Member New Haven JVP
Smadar Carmon
Human rights activist,
Toronto, Canada
James Cohen,
Professor, University of Paris 3 (Sorbonne Nouvelle)
Daniel Fischer,
South Bend, Indiana
Jean Gagne
Supporter, Independent Jewish Voices
Active volunteer, New Democratic Party of Canada
Tony Greenstein
Vice President Brighton & Hove Trades Union Council
Great Britain
Stanley Heller
Host of TV news program, author “Zionist Betrayal of Jews”
Neil Hertz,
professor emeritus, Johns Hopkins University
Jake Javanshir
Raised in Israel, now a Unitarian Activist
Daphna Levit
Author
Jennifer Loewenstein
Middle East Researcher, The London Independent; VP of Palestine Chronicle.
Palestine rights activist.
Leslie Singer Lomas
Boulder, Colorado, USA
member, Jewish Voice for Peace
Savvas Michael-Matsas,
Writer and General Secretary of the Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK), Greece
Vivienne Porzsolt
Jews against the Occupation Sydney
Ned Rosch
Named after uncle murdered in the Holocaust; activist for justice for all who live in Palestine/Israel
Martha Roth
Independent Jewish Voices - Canada
Sid Shniad
Founding member
Independent Jewish Voices Canada
Miriam Swenson
Jewish American
Arizona
Suzanne Weiss
author Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey
Abraham Weizfeld PhD
Jewish Socialist Bund
Montréal, Nablus
Dr. Ron Witton
Jews Against the Occupation
Austinmer NSW Australia
Julie Wornan
Environmental activist, France