Jew World Order

As a married Jewish couple living in South Bend, Indiana, we try to ground our lives in the best values of our tradition. That’s why we participate in our synagogue, why we celebrate the Sabbath, and why we keep a kosher (and vegan) kitchen. It’s also why we both chose to be public school teachers and recently taught to our students the history of the Holocaust and the importance of speaking out against injustice. And it’s why we chose, on this year’s Nakba Day, which fell not just on Shabbat but also several days into Israel’s latest war on the people of Gaza, to pray for Palestine outside the gates of our local Jewish Federation. We recited a prayer for peace and added a new line: “May Palestinian-led struggle, including BDS, swiftly and peacefully replace Israeli apartheid with full equality and make the Right of Return a reality.”

We closed with a period of silence for 157 seconds representing, as reported that morning, the 139 Palestinians killed in Gaza (including 39 children), the 11 Palestinians killed in the West Bank, and the seven Israeli civilians (including at least one child) killed by attacks in retaliation for Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah and violence in the Al Aqsa mosque. We taped a copy of the prayer on the Jewish Federation’s entrance sign along with the following letter. This was our small way of participating in the global day of action called for by Palestinian civil society and expressing our solidarity with Palestinians’ courageous protests from the river to the sea.

The Jewish Federations of North America have donated millions to Israeli settlements in the post-1967 occupied territory and have led campaigns to silence and smear pro-Palestinian activists.

Dear Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley,

On one hand, we write with a sense of warmness and gratitude, since as fellow members of our small Jewish community, we know and appreciate a number of you personally. We have had Shabbat dinners together, hiked together, baked challah together, and jointly organized an event to counter antisemitism. On the other hand, on this Nakba Day as bombs fall on civilians in Gaza, we also write with a sense of urgency and a sense of frustration. You are leaders of our Jewish community and we have studied Torah and history with you for years. We are therefore sharing our concern about your response to this moment of truth. As Palestinians are being persecuted and slaughtered, have you chosen death over life, apartheid over justice, and war over peace? Have you sided with the oppressor over the oppressed? 

We opened our email inboxes yesterday and saw a message from a Palestinian friend along with a message from the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley. We saw a stark contrast between our Palestinian friend’s concern for all human rights and the Federation’s exclusive concern for Israeli security. Our Palestinian friend is from Gaza, and we met him through our work and studies, not through political organizing. We had sent him a quick note saying we were thinking of his family and friends and hoping they all remained safe. He wrote, “My family has packed their stuff, afraid that they are next. It’s a scary time and honestly I am feeling really helpless…I barely got 6 hours of sleep in the past few days…Hearing my parents cry over the phone and saying their goodbyes not knowing what will happen next tore me apart.” He added, “I feel sad that a lot of people pick and choose which human rights issues they want to advocate for instead of just advocating for all.”

Next, we opened the message from the Jewish Federation of St. Joseph Valley. We are aware of the Federation’s stance in support of Israeli policy, but for a brief moment, we wished and hoped that you would hold true to the values of our sacred Jewish texts. Instead, we saw you defending the state of Israel which violates these values.

Judaism says “Choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). By contrast, the state of Israel has encouraged and emboldened its far-right citizens who this past week repeatedly chanted “Death to Arabs!” By launching yet another brutal and indiscriminate military assault on the entrapped population of Gaza, the state of Israel has once again put this genocidal chant into practice. Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz has chillingly warned that “Gaza will burn” and that, unless Hamas surrenders, “the strike of 2021 will be harder and more painful than that of 2014.” That war, of course, killed more than 500 Gazan children and ended up boosting, not weakening, Palestinians’ support for Hamas.

Judaism says, “The meek shall inherit the earth” (Psalms 37:11). By contrast, the state of Israel’s Prime Minister says, “The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history.” This disregard for the downtrodden fully betrays the Jewish values that one of us was taught in Hebrew School and the other of us was taught in the Jewish conversion process. 

When we opened your email, we saw that you had sided unabashedly with the state of Israel. You shared a video by the Jewish Federations of North America that featured an interview with former Israeli Knesset member Michal Cotler-Wunsh who spoke for a half-hour without using the word “Palestinian,” let alone condemning Israel’s persecution and massacres of Palestinians. Your email also promoted a warmongering article by a racist right-wing writer named Bret Stephens. That article whitewashed Israel’s targeting of civilian areas as “inadvertently,” struck or “blunders” (even though Human Rights Watch reports Israel “deliberately targeted civilians or civilian infrastructure” during previous wars on Gaza). The article also spread evidence-free and historically false claims that Palestinian civilians serve as human shields for Hamas. (By contrast, the United Nations and Amnesty International found in 2009 that Israeli troops used Palestinians as human shields). If the local Jewish Federation shares Judaism’s deep respect for life including that of Palestinians, then it has not been evident to us during this moment when it most matters.

The day we drafted this, Saturday, May 15, is Nakba Day, when Palestinians commemorate the ongoing Nakba or “catastrophe.” Since the state of Israel’s founding in 1948, during a campaign of ethnic cleansing and massacres of Palestinian civilians, it has consistently denied Palestinians their full human rights. B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch now assess that the entirety of Israel and the post-1967 Occupied Territories comprise “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” and implement “domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians.”

It is important to us as Jews to commemorate Nakba Day by “advocating for all,” as our Palestinian friend suggests. Just as we need others to speak out for us, we speak out for the Uighurs, the Syrians, the Kurds, Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants, and other oppressed groups, including the Palestinians. We will not pick and choose who deserves freedom and dignity. We choose life, we choose justice, we choose peace, and we side with the meek who shall inherit the earth.

With hope that you’ll join us,

Daniel and Brittany Fischer

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