Jewish Chanukah message: stand up to injustice

Screenshot from JVP video

JVP offers bold universalist Hanukkah message in the wake of Gaza slaughter

By Phil Weiss and Annie Robbins, Mondoweiss
December 18, 2014

Jewish Voice for Peace has published this incredible video for celebrating Hanukkah in the wake of the Gaza slaughter. Look at the bold messages of the members in this video. “Stand up to injustice… Hold Jewish institutions accountable.” Imagine the new chapter this group is opening in the American Jewish experience.

Every bit of this video is about a renewal of Jewish universalist tradition, about facing up to the horrors of the occupation, a willingness to be accountable and to base Jewish freedom in the freedom of others. And justice. That means not just ending the occupation, but honoring the right of return of Palestinian refugees made homeless by the establishment of the Jewish state.

On this day, let it be noted, the New York Times slagged Jewish Voice for Peace as a marginal organization that threatens the dreamcastle Israel of liberal Zionists. And made out Boycott Divestment and Sanctions as some demon ideology. And cast the rightwing Ari Shavit as a liberal Zionist savior. Jason Horowitz wrote:

The idea of going back to campus, [liberal Zionist Ronit Zemel, 22] she told me, gave her “the worst feeling ever.” She felt besieged by pro-Palestinian groups advocating boycott, divestment and sanctions, or B.D.S., modeled after the boycott movement that helped end South African apartheid policies. “I’m more ashamed of Israel now,” she said. “But I am viewing it from a place of love and caring, and I know that they are not. So I’m very scared.” [Ari] Shavit expressed a similar concern. In November, he visited Temple Micah, and speaking as a “liberal to liberals” he worried about young American Jews losing their Jewish identity and drifting away from Israel.

Chief among the fears of liberal Zionists were groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, which in June helped provide a Jewish seal of approval for the Presbyterian Church to divest from companies seen as profiting from Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

JVP as a source of fear? Oh please. Americans need to get out of the bunkers.